The difference between Matching / Merging and Linking

UNDERSTANDING the difference between LINKING / MATCHING / MERGING

It is crucial to understand the difference between Linking, Matching and Merging BEFORE you take any of these actions:

• LINKING:

Linking images might be needed for the following reasons.

• • Radiology practice moved over to INFINITT RIS/PACS from a previous PACS system where images are migrated into INFINITT PACS.
  • Imported images from a CD or memory stick from another practice.

• MATCHING:

Matching of images will be needed when.

• • Images are taken before RIS entry has been done.
  • The DICOM worklist is not used when creating the images.
    • Thus, the images need to be MATCHED to the RIS entry.

• MERGING:

Merging images

• • If images from the same patient, and the same study were created separately then images need to be merged into the same study folder, eg.
  • Different modalities.
  • Different times.
  • But needs to be reported as the same study.
  • 2 or more sets of images are selected and merged together to create a single study.
  • This is manually done by the Radiographer in the matching module.
  • Prior images should never be merged into the active study (this action will be linking).

(The above-mentioned scenario will ideally be when a patient has been completed and additional views requested – where the DICOM entry is not active on the modality anymore, pt details manually entered on modality – manual merge images on Matching worklist, or where a patient has been examined for different modalities and the department request the images to be in the same folder – one of the examinations will be auto-matched when DICOM worklist is used and the 2^nd exam will be manually entered and manually merged on Matching worklist.).

Merging RIS entry

• • If a patient is captured twice by mistake (there should always be only one file per patient) – two RIS entries exist for the same patient.
  • RIS entry should be merged on RIS (patient search) to combine patient information into one folder.
  • When RIS entries are merged, patient information will merge into one patient folder and images currently in different image folders will be automatically merged into one image folder on PACS and therefore automatically available for comparison (manual merging of images is not necessary).
  • RIS merging is manually done by the receptionist or radiographer on the search patient module.

(The above-mentioned scenario will ideally be a RIS entry mistake and differ from the image merging due to the same patient with different images which you need to be in one folder). 

Please refer to the specific guides for Linking, Matching and Merging to enable you to perform these actions.