February 17, 2011 – A new feature on a picture archiving and communications system (PACS) automatically adjusts all patient demographic fields to DICOM standards on images received from outside the enterprise. By using conditional rules, the Opal-Forwarder feature, from Viztek, is able to identify and modify existing DICOM fields in non-standard image files to match Opal-RAD’s standard data fields.
When using the feature with the company’s PACS, compression allows for studies routing from any DICOM PACS vendor to Opal-RAD at a significantly faster rate. It also features a high-level of encryption without VPN access, enhancing the security of the PACS.
The feature identifies errors based on existing data and automatically corrects them to easily fall into existing fields in the PACS. These fields might include facility name, physician name, or patient ID.
“Patient ID, facility and physician names are often misspelled or placed in non-standard fields when imaging files arrive onsite from other institutions,” said Steve Deaton, vice president of sales for Viztek. “The new Opal-Forwarder feature recognizes these discrepancies and rapidly standardizes data for faster and easier reconciliation with other patient exams.”
It increases the ease of scrubbing data when importing outside studies, especially priors, with no manual intervention needed. By using simple coding rules, information can be translated to the appropriate fields in the user’s PACS.
For more information: www.viztek.net
May 21, 2025 
