What is the attribute that identifies that a study is complete.

Question

I wanted to use StudyCompletionDate but since it is retired I would like to know the attribute to be used to determine whether a study is complete or is ready for Archival.

Answer 1

The preferred method for this type of operation would be through the use of the DICOM Instance Availability service, which is defined in DICOM Supplement 93. The beginning of the supplement describes several use cases similar to what you're discussing.

As far as just performing a DICOM C-FIND, and determining the study status, there's no real method to find out what you're looking for. The Instance Availability tag only tells if the study is Online, Nearline, or Offline. To see if its complete, and then you could monitor the Number of Study Related Instances tag to see if the number of instances is increasing. If its been stable for a configured amount of time, you could assume the study is complete.

Answer 2

I'm afraid Steve W is correct. There really is no way to tell that a study has been completed externally using only DICOM data. The real solution is to build your system to not expect a 'done' state. DICOM assumes a study is never static. This is probably because a study is not a concrete thing. A study is inferred via the actual instances. If you make the same assumption (that studies are not static), you should be fine. Good luck on your data model! :)

Also, you could use a performed procedure step to know that the study has moved forward in workflow. The problem with that, is that now you're talking HL7, and you're not talking to a PACS, you're talking to the RIS, that talks to the PACS. Maybe too indirect for a well engineered solution. However, this does not tell you that a study is complete, it only tells you that it has moved.The problem with number of related instances is that it tells you how many images were shot. It tells you nothing about how many images actually exist (read: whether the tech deleted bad images or not).