17
Component Implementation
Ping Worker
You can think of the Ping Worker as the heartbeat of the gateway. Currently there is only a single
command which comes from the cloud via the ping command. This command is a command that
tells the system to download a set, or sets, of studies. Once downloaded the system will move the
data to the destination specified in the ping command.
DropBox
The DropBox is a drop box for DICOM files. When a file is placed in to the drop box path the
system will, at a configurable interval, upload any valid DICOM files to the namespace of the given
Gateway. Any non-DICOM files placed in the DropBox folder will be deleted The Dropbox can
be temporarily disabled during peak times using the ‘dropbox_disabled_times’ configuration as
described in the Gateway Configurations section.
Query/Retrieve DropBox
As of the August 21, 2013 release, a ‘Query_Retrieve_Dropbox’ folder is also available at the
same level as the existing ‘Dropbox’ folder. Only .csv files placed in the ‘Query_Retrieve_Dropbox’
folder are processed, and they are deleted immediately afterward. The ‘Query_Retrieve_Dropbox’
folder is examined for new .csv files at the same frequency as the normal ‘Dropbox’ folder for
images. The records in the .csv file must contain the following 14 comma-separated fields:
IPAddress,Port,AETitle,StudyUid,AccessionNumber,StudyDateTimeRange,PatientId,PatientName,Date
OfBirth,PatientSex,Modality,ReferringPhysician,InstitutionName,StudyDescription
IPAddress, Port and AETitle are required fields. In order to prevent unintended excessive study
retrievals, the record must contain at least one of the following fields: StudyUid, AccessionNumber,
PatientId, PatientName, ReferringPhysician. All fields are exact matches only-- no wildcards.
Validation is performed on some of the fields. All study results from each query are queued up for
automatic retrieval via the RetrieveClient, so care should be taken to avoid duplication.
Invalid records are ignored and logged. In the following test .csv file, only the last record is invalid
because it doesn’t contain one of the required fields:
127.0.0.1,1044,CCW,,1009,,,,,,,,,
127.0.0.1,1044,CCW,1.3.6.1.4.1.25403.158234509605.9228.20120723015358.1,1008,,1008,,,,,,,
127.0.0.1,1044,CCW,1.3.6.1.4.1.25403.158234509605.9228.20120723015356.1,1007,,1007,Pat1007^Ano
ny1007,,,,,,
127.0.0.1,1044,CCW,1.3.6.1.4.1.25403.158234509605.9228.20120723015354.1,1006,,1006,Pat1006^An
ony1006,19580204,,,,,
127.0.0.1,1044,CCW,,,,1008,Pat1008^Anony1008,19360703,M,,,,
127.0.0.1,1044,CCW,,,,,,19360703,,,,,
Windowing can be used with the QR Dropbox to control retrieves during on-peak and off-peak
hours. When activated, retrieves are disabled during the on-peak hours. Queries continue to
execute. To turn on windowing, set the gateway config “query_retrieve” to the following with the
desired peak times for each day:
{
‘qr_peaksystemloadtimes’:’SU:1100-1100;MO:1030-1830;TU:930-930;WE:930-1630;TH:930-1630;FR:930-
1630;SA:1100-1100’
}
Note that if the automated query/retrieve scheduler is already enabled for regular, periodic
querying and retrieving of studies from a device into the gateway, then windowing for the QR
Dropbox is disabled.