All Around The Mulberry Bush....

My faithful readers know by now that when I'm on call at our local Trauma Center, little annoyances become BIG PROBLEMS. And so it is today.

There has been yet another ongoing problem with our IMPAX installation. In brief, when I try to look at a study, say a CT, which has more data coming in from the modality, say a sagittal reformat, the client crashes. We get the error dialogue below:

which contains the following text:

Application_ThreadException unhandled exception
Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at AgfaHC.Pacs.Application.ApplicationController.OnStatusUpdateEventArgs(IController source, StatusUpdateEventArgs statusArgs) at AgfaHC.Pacs.Application.ApplicationController.OnApplicationEventOccured(IController source, ApplicationEventArgs aeArgs) at AgfaHC.Framework.BaseController.FireApplicationEvent(IController source, ApplicationEventArgs appEvent) at AgfaHC.Pacs.Application.DictationControllers.StudiesByStatusListBuilder.FireUpdateStatusEvents() at AgfaHC.Pacs.Application.DictationControllers.ClassicDictationController.StartDictation(Object sender, ArrayList workListItemList) at AgfaHC.Pacs.Application.DictationControllers.BaseDictationController.OnDictationApplEventOccured(Object sender, DictationEventArgs args) at AgfaHC.Pacs.Application.ApplicationController.OnDictationEventArgs(IController source, DictationEventArgs args) at AgfaHC.Pacs.Application.ApplicationController.OnApplicationEventOccured(IController source, ApplicationEventArgs aeArgs) at AgfaHC.Framework.BaseController.FireApplicationEvent(IController source, ApplicationEventArgs appEvent) at AgfaHC.Framework.BaseController.FireApplicationEvent(IController source, ApplicationEventArgs appEvent) at AgfaHC.Pacs.ImageDisplay.DisplayController.dictate(DisplayToolbarButtonDictation dictationButton) at AgfaHC.Pacs.ImageDisplay.DisplayController.displaycontroller_FeatureClick(Object sender, FeatureClickEventArgs e) at AgfaHC.Pacs.ImageDisplay.DisplayBaseToolbar.OnFeatureClick(Object source, FeatureClickEventArgs eventArgs) at AgfaHC.Pacs.ImageDisplay.DisplayBaseToolbar.button_FeatureClick(Object source, FeatureClickEventArgs eventArgs) at AgfaHC.Pacs.ImageDisplay.DisplayToolbarButton.OnFeatureClickEvent(FeatureClickEventArgs e) at AgfaHC.Pacs.ImageDisplay.DisplayToolbarButton.OnClick(EventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent) at AgfaHC.Pacs.ImageDisplay.DisplayToolbarButton.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m) at System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m) at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m) at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m) at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m) at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

Have lots of fun reading that, folks.

The crash occurs AFTER I have clicked the study into "Dictation Started" status, and so when the client comes back to life, I have to remember the name of the victim, or the study runs the risk of being lost to me, only to turn up later in the "you didn't read this on time!" pile. Dare I even hint at the possibility of an impact upon patient care?

Here's the problem as I understand it: We don't want people reading studies before all the data is in. Thus a study has a built-in delay that should keep it off the worklist until it's ready. But sometimes there is an even longer delay between the acquisition of the various parts of the study, and it appears on the list anyway. But if we access the study whilst more data is coming in, the system gets confused, since we shouldn't be reading it, and it crashes. Hence, my image of the monkey chasing the weasel. POP goes the Impax!

There ought to be a solution for this. If there is, please let us deploy it. If there isn't, please create one. Very quickly, please.

POP goes the Dalai!