Configuring a PACS Archive Provider (PAP)

Some sites may want to have their studies mirrored at another site through a PACS Archive Provider (PAP) which uses PACS Store and Remember archiving. (When configuring a PACS for mirroring using PACS Store and Remember archiving, each PACS is set up with another local archive besides the PACS Store and Remember archive.) This mirroring protects against loss of data and allows studies at one PACS to be viewed at another. This can be achieved effectively using a PAP.

A PACS Archive Provider (PAP) acts like a Service Class Provider (SCP) by receiving studies. However, it differs from an SCP in that the PAP can automatically register a study as PACS archived if the study originates from a source that the PACS stores to and remembers from, without having to queue the study for archiving back to the source.

A PAP can parse the private tags of the incoming DICOM objects to determine the objects’ HIS verification and study status. This eliminates the need to HIS verify a study a second time or to add the incoming study to a radiologist's worklist. The Service Class User (SCU) is responsible for adding the HIS verification and study status to the private tags of the DICOM object. If the status is not part of the private tags (which occurs with older versions of an SCU), the status is set to the configured value; the default is Dictated.

Several tasks must be performed to configure a PAP. Begin with configuring a source to send to the PAP components and then, if required, configuring remote destinations that send back from multiple AE titles, and then move on to completing the PAP configuration.