When an emergency occurs, a clinician may need access to a study that is normally restricted. For example, VIP studies may normally be available only to high-ranking doctors in each department. But, you can define a study-based permission that allows others to gain access to these restricted studies in emergency situations.
The clinician can view these restricted studies by entering a reason for access. Before viewing an emergency access study, users are given a clear disclaimer that this action is audited. This solves one of the biggest patient confidentiality problems—people who search for VIP patients based on a rumor the patient has been admitted.
Most study-based permissions have study access rules that are very restricted. Emergency access permission, however, should have study access rules that are very open. The emergency access permission acts like a bucket that catches all studies that the regular study-based permission does not. The emergency access permission lets the user:
Know that studies exist that are not being shown, by placing a lock icon in the worklist, Search, Advanced Search, and Study List bars
Gain access to those studies as needed
Example
You can define a study-based permission that
allows ER clinicians access to studies that were generated for patients whose
original patient location
was the ER. You can define another study-based permission for the ER that includes
access to VIP studies in the study access rule. Make this permission the
emergency access permission. So when a VIP study is available but is not shown
in the ER doctor's worklist, a lock 
appears
on the worklist bar, and the
doctor
can click the lock to view
the restricted study if needed.
To define emergency access permissions
From the Configure drawer menu
, select Users and Roles.In the navigation pane, select the role to apply to the permission to.
In the details pane, expand the Permissions bar.
Switch to the Study-Based tab.
Select an existing permission, or create a new study-based permission to apply emergency access to.
Right-click on the permission and select Use for Emergency Access.
A lock
appears
next to the permission name, indicating that this permission is an emergency
access permission. The changes are saved
automatically when you switch context. When studies
fall into the bucket defined by this permission, a lock icon appears on the
Worklist, Search, Advanced Search,
and Study List bars to indicate that restricted studies are available but
not shown. Users can
then choose
to view the restricted
studies.