FAQs - Radiology Report feed (HL7)
- Andy Clowe
- Suzanne Joyce
Question | Response |
Can I put two different reports in one HL7 message? | No. PKB will only accept one Radiology report per HL7 message. If multiple OBR segments are detected within a single HL7 radiology message, the message will be rejected. |
I have sent in an ORU message and got an AA NACK acceptance but the report is not appearing in the Imaging section of the patient record and soft-matching is not a factor. | Check that MSH-3. is set to "RADIOLOGY", if it isn’t the message can still technically be correct (hence the AA response) but won’t be processed by PKB as a Radiology report. |
Is it possible for a Radiology report to be delayed based on the report release date? | No, delays are always applied from the date supplied for the observation timestamp (image taken date) OBR-7.1. There is no field in the HL7 message for supplying the report release / process date Delaying based on the process of reporting is not considered best practice because the disease progresses without waiting for the process of reporting, and the clinical safety risk of the patient not seeing their report goes up every day the report release is delayed. SO this date hould not be supplied in the observation timestamp field. If there are concerns about how quickly some reports might be released to patients, then consideration should be given to how the days to delay by is calculated before it is sent in the HL7 message. |
If we put a delay on a report, does it mean that PKB won’t process it? | No, PKB still processes the report and the patient is notified. However the patient (or carer) can not see the content of the report in the UI, only that they have a report and when it will be released to them. |
Can clinicians / professionals see delayed reports? | Yes, delays to displaying reports do not apply to clinicians. |
What will PKB do if we effectively resend an unchanged report but with a different (longer) delay in OBX-13.1? | If you update the delay days for a previously sent report (and nothing else other than MSH), then we'll apply the delay using that changed value as it relates to the Observation timestamp. The UI will also display to the user that a "correction" has been made to the result |
Does the days for delay OBX-13.1 need to be specified for each OBX segment? | No, PKB will take the delay days specified in OBX-13.1 in the first OBX segment and apply that to the whole report. Delays specified in other OBX segments are ignored. |
Can we send in reports so that they are mapped to something other than the General Health privacy label? | There are two potential places within the ORU message to support setting the privacy label associated with the report: If a mapped value is supplied in both PV1-10 and OBR-4.1, then the hospital service code privacy label “wins” and the privacy label associated with the hospital service code supplied in PV1-10 is applied to the report. |
When will patients receive email notifications? | As long as the patient has an email address in thier PKB record, they will receive an email notification when a new test report is sent in for them. However, PKB sends a maximum of one notification a day for updates to a few data types, including test results. See the manual for further details. |
What is autocreate? | If auto create is enabled (configured by PKB against the organisation), a patient demographic record will be created from the PID detail in the ORU message where an existing patient record can not be found by matching the identifiers provided. (Assuming PID details conforms to minimum requirements.) |
How can I provide a textual report as opposed to sending in an attachment containing the report? | An NTE segment, or an OBX segment which does not contain an attachment is considered to contain a portion of the radiology report. The ordering of these segments will be respected, but they do not maintain an identity in their own right. They will be concatenated together to form a single HTML radiology report. |
Can I format the text in a radiology report? | Yes, PKB converts textual information (e.g. OBX does not include an attachment) into HTML and can therefore support the use of simple HTML tags such as bold, paragraphs, breaks, hyperlink, text size. |
Can I supply multiple attachments in a single report? | Yes, within the OBR more than one OBX segment can be supplied that contains an attachment. However, only one attachment can be sent per PBX segment. |
Does PKB support the sending of DICOM images | Yes, up to to a file size of 50MB |
What image formats does PKB support? | PKB supports the inclusion of standard image files such as jpeg, gif, bmp, tiff as base64 encoded attachments within a radiology HL7 message. |
I want to send the content of a radiology report as an attachment, is that OK? | Yes, you can send a base64 encoded PDF documents as an attachment within an OBX segment. This is common practice. |
I have sent in an ORU message that includes a delay, attachment(s) but no textual information and in the UI there is no message delay information showing. | For the message delay information to display a portion of the sent report has to have a textual element. For example an OBX segment that provides text such as “Click on the attachment to view your report”. |
Can better filenames be used for the attachments sent in for a report? | Yes, a filename can be supplied in OBX-3.2. |
What should I put in the location field (ORC-13)? | The location field is not mandatory but is for the location that the examination takes place. |