Image Viewer > Basic Viewing > Study Attachments

This is a premium feature and may not be available in all installations.

The Workstation supports the creation and viewing of DICOM Encapsulated PDF documents attached to a study.

The Study Attachments window provides an overview of all existing attachments for the study in the currently viewer workspace, as well as attachments for any related studies. Each study is represented by a folder icon. The attachments appear as document icons within their respective study folders.

To open the Study Attachments window, click the button on the main toolbar, or from the View menu. Alternatively, you can also view and create attachments from the study browser.

Viewing Attachments in the Study

To view an attachment, double click on the document icon in the Study Attachments panel. Alternatively, you can select the document icon and click the View Attachment button on the toolbar of the Study Attachments panel. The attachment will open in your default PDF viewer application.

Notes

•	If you do not have a default PDF viewer installed, the operating system will ask you to select a program with which you would like to open the document. There are a number of PDF viewers available for download free of charge, such as Adobe Reader.

•	Attachments can only be viewed for studies that exist in the local store or on a streaming server.

•	To view an attachment for a remote study on a non-streaming server, you must first retrieve the study to the local store and view the attachment from there.

Creating a New Attachment

To create a new attachment:

1.	In the Study Attachments window, select the study to which you would like to attach a document.

2.	Right click on the selected study, and click Add Attachment (alternatively, you may click the Add Attachment button on the toolbar of the Study Attachments window). The Attach File dialog box appears.

3.	Select the file you wish to attach. Use the browse button beside the text box to open the file dialog and select the file. Note that only PDF files are supported.

4.	Enter a description for the attachment. This field is mandatory, as a study can have multiple attachments and the description is the only means available for you to distinguish between documents. Typical descriptions include “Report”, “Study Requisition”, “Lab Results”, etc.

5.	Preview the attachment by clicking the Preview File link near the bottom of the dialog box. By default, the application will automatically open the selected file for you. This behaviour can be disabled by unchecking the Automatically open for preview check box.

Important Note

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For reasons of patient safety and confidentiality, it is strongly recommended that you preview each file prior to attaching it in order to ensure that the file you have selected is related to the patient. It is not possible to delete an attachment from the Workstation once it has been created, and you will need to contact your PACS administrator for assistance.

6.	Press the Attach button to attach the document.

7.	A new document icon appears in the Study Attachments window under the selected study, representing the newly created attachment.

Notes

•	Attachments can only be created for studies that exist in the local store or on a streaming server.

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To attach a document to a remote study on a non-streaming server, you must first retrieve the study to the local store, create the attachment there, then send the study back to the server (if your publishing configuration is set to automatically send back to the source server, your attachment will be automatically sent back to the server from which it was retrieved).

•	Depending on the manufacturer, it may take a few minutes for the attachment to be indexed on the server, however, you can confirm that the attachment was sent by checking "background sends" in the Send/Receive Activity Monitor.