How to Query Retrieve

Cimar can be integrated with a local PACS to allow user’s to query for patient studies locally and retrieve them into the Cloud. This process is known as Query/Retrieve (QR for short). When integrated, a user can query for studies using several identifying fields such as: patient name, accession number, patient id, etc. The study can be uploaded into Cimar as a full study (complete study viewable in Cimar) or as a thin study (only study information viewable) to be retrieved at a later date.

A Cimar Gateway is required to be installed to allow query retrieve functionality in an account.

How to Make a Query

A query can only be performed when using the Classic View.

1. Click the “Add Study” Dropdown
2. Select “Query Retrieve”
3. Select the destination to query
4. Enter data into respective fields to query on
5. Click search

The system will process the query, feed it to the Cimar gateway, which will then interface with the local PACS by making a C-FIND DICOM query to find the right study. If a study is found, the corresponding information will be returned to the activity list in Cimar for retrieval.

How to Retrieve a Study

When a study has been queried a found, the found study will be populated in the activity list

1. Go to the “Activities” page
2. Go to the “Query Retrieves” tab
3. Identify the study to retrieve
4. Click the “Retrieve” button

The request to retrieve will be passed to the gateway, which will then make a C-GET DICOM query to the local PACS. The study is returned by PACS and then will be uploaded into Cimar and viewable in the work list.

Additional Information

How to query on other parameters

Should you need to query on study information not listed in the UI you will need to make a query retrieve using the API and the query_fields parameter.

See /destination/search API endpoint for further information.

The format to query a field is: “DICOM,TAG”:”VALUE”

Example

Querying:

• Institution name (0008,0080)
• Other Patient ID (0010,1000)

query fields → 

{"0008,0080":"CIMAR INSTITUTION","0010,1000":"123 456 7890"}

Custom Fields

A custom field can be configured to appear on the query retrieve form. When configured, the value provided during the search will be set on the study upon retrieval

Required Permissions

In order to make a query retrieve, your role must be configured with the “Supports manual query retrieve” permissions.

Retrieve Thin Study

A search can be configured to retrieve a thin study into the work list. A thin study does not contain the imaging data but contains all the metadata about the study. A retrieve icon will be clickable in the work list to allow the imaging data to be retrieved at a later date.

To retrieve the study as a thin study, click the “Create thin study” checkbox during the search.

Automatically Retrieve Study on Search

A search can be configured to automatically retrieve the study when making the search. This bypasses the need to go to the activities page and manually click the retrieve button.

To automatically retrieve the study, click the “Create study” checkbox during the search.