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Setting up your Ultrasound System

Your ultrasound machine can send its images straight to Pabau. The machine sends each image over your clinic network, using the DICOM standard, to Pabau Imaging Link on a computer in your clinic. Imaging Link passes the images to Pabau, where you file them to the right patient. Setting up a machine takes a few minutes and only needs to be done once.

This guide covers the set-up every machine shares. Then pick your machine from the list at the end for its own steps.

NOTE: The settings on an ultrasound machine are usually changed by the manufacturer's engineer or your IT company. Some machines ask for a service password before you can change network settings. If yours does, send your engineer the details from Step 3.

Step 1: Install Imaging Link on a Clinic Computer

Imaging Link receives the images from your machine. Install it on a Windows computer that is on the same network as the ultrasound machine and is switched on whenever you scan.

  1. In Pabau, go to Setup → Imaging → Imaging devices and click Download for Windows PC.
  2. Run the installer on the clinic computer.
  3. In Imaging Link, click Connect to your clinic. Imaging Link shows a pairing code.
  4. Someone with admin access clicks Open Pabau to approve (or enters the code under Setup → Imaging → Imaging devices), names the computer and clicks Approve this computer.

TIP: Ask your IT company to give this computer, and the ultrasound machine, a fixed IP address on your router (a DHCP reservation). The machine sends to that address, so if it changes, images stop arriving. In Imaging Link, also switch on Start when this computer starts under Settings.

Step 2: Turn On Receiving From the Network

  1. In Imaging Link, open the Equipment tab and click Add equipment.
  2. Choose A machine on the network. Imaging Link starts listening for machines on your network.

Step 3: Note the Details for Your Machine

Imaging Link now shows a card headed Give these to your X-ray engineer. It holds the three things your ultrasound machine needs. The same details apply to any DICOM machine, ultrasound included:

  • Address: the IP address of the Imaging Link computer, for example 192.168.1.25.
  • Port: usually 11112.
  • AE title: the name Imaging Link answers to, for example PABAU-RECEPTION.

Click Copy or Email to engineer to send them on. For what each value means, see Imaging Link Port, AE Title & IP Address.

Step 4: Add Imaging Link as a DICOM Destination on the Machine

On the ultrasound machine, add a new DICOM storage destination (it may be called a device, a store destination or a DICOM server) and enter:

  • Name / alias: Pabau
  • IP address: the Address from Step 3
  • Port: the Port from Step 3
  • AE title: the AE title from Step 3, typed exactly

Then link the destination to the button you press to store images. The guide for your machine shows exactly where each setting is.

Step 5: Test the Connection and Approve the Machine

  1. On the machine, run the connection test for the new destination. It may be called Verify, Echo, Ping or Test.
  2. Imaging Link then shows A machine got in touch, with the name and IP address the machine gave.
  3. Type a name you will recognise, such as Ultrasound Room 1, and click Yes, accept its images.

IMPORTANT: Imaging Link only stores images from machines you have approved. Until you click Yes, accept its images, the machine's test passes but every image it sends is refused. If you click No by mistake, open Advanced: port, AE title and connection history on the Equipment tab to find it again.

Step 6: Send a Test Image and File It

  1. Scan a test image and press the store or send button you set up in Step 4.
  2. In Pabau, go to Imaging and open the Queue tab. The image appears with the patient name, patient ID and date of birth the machine sent.
  3. Select it and click File to a patient. Choose the patient under Who are these images of?, then the scan under Which study for…?, and click File 1 image.

TIP: Images are filed into a scan that has been ordered on the patient's record. Order the scan in Pabau first. Enter the patient's name, date of birth and ID on the machine before scanning, and Pabau shows when the date of birth matches.

Imaging Link also lists every arrival on its own Queue tab, with buttons that open Pabau at the right place.

NOTE: To keep storage down, images stay on the Imaging Link computer until someone files them, and only then move to Pabau. Images nobody files are removed from that computer after 30 days.

Choose Your Machine

Each guide below shows where the DICOM settings are on that machine:

GE Ultrasound Machines

Mindray Ultrasound Machines

Samsung Ultrasound Machines

Philips Ultrasound Machines

Canon Ultrasounds

My Machine Isn't Listed

Any ultrasound machine that can send images over DICOM (often called DICOM Store or DICOM Storage) works with Imaging Link. Look in the machine's system or utility settings for a section called Connectivity, Network or DICOM, then follow Steps 4 to 6 above. If your machine can't send over DICOM but can save images to a USB stick or a shared folder, Imaging Link can watch that folder instead: in Imaging Link choose Add equipment → My X-ray software and pick the folder.

Once your machine is set up, see P Buttons / S Buttons / Send Buttons / Acquire for how to send images during and after a scan.