Use a message flow that contains a DICOMFindMove node to query DICOM archives for any studies (sets
of DICOM images) for
a patient who is being admitted to hospital.
When a patient is admitted to hospital, it is helpful
if all relevant studies are immediately available to the clinical
staff who are treating the patient.
To collect all the studies,
a IBM® Integration Bus message flow is configured
to receive an HL7 message,
typically an HL7 ADT A01 message
from a patient administration system (PAS). A DICOMFindMove node uses the
patient identifier from the HL7 message
to query DICOM Picture
Archiving Communication Systems (PACS), in one or more geographically
dispersed locations, to find any studies for that patient. Those studies
are then copied to the local PACS in the hospital or clinic where
the patient is admitted.
The following diagram shows an example.

- A patient is admitted to Hospital A and an HL7 ADT A01 message is sent from
the PAS to the message flow.
- The patient ID is extracted from the message and sent to the DICOMFindMove nodes in the
message flow.
- The DICOMFindMove nodes
in the message flow are used to send queries to the PACS at Hospital
B and Hospital C to locate any Computed Radiography (CR) exams for
the patient that were taken in the last year.
- Matching CR exams from Hospital C are returned to a DICOMInput node in the message
flow.
- By using the DICOMInput node,
the images are stored in a file system directory.
- The exam details (but not the images) are sent through the message
flow to a DICOMOutput node.
- By using the DICOMOutput node,
the images are retrieved from the DICOMInput node's processing
directory and recombined with data from the message flow.
- The results are sent to the PACS at Hospital A for the local clinical
staff to review.
Note: If the PACS at Hospital C has direct communication with
the PACS at Hospital A, then the DICOMFindMove node can be
used to initiate the copy of the images from Hospital C directly to
Hospital A without sending the images to the message flow.