SU‐GG‐T‐444: Electronic Transmission of Gamma Knife Records to a Radiation Oncology Record and Verify System and E‐Mail

Abstract

Purpose: Create a mechanism for paperless documentation of Gamma Knife treatment plans (GammaPlan) in PDF format that can be integrated into a record and verify system for radiation oncology. The mechanism must not violate FDA approval of the GammaPlan computer environment. Method and Materials: GammaPlan has a separate binary database that is not directly importable into the Mosaiq record and verify system without the development of in‐house software, but inclusion of “foreign software” into the GammaPlan UNIX‐based computer platform would violate FDA approval. Therefore, a mechanism was devised that uses a combination of scripts in the UNIX environment and a generic Windows XP‐based PC that “listens” on the local network, to convert and combine user selected paper printouts into one PDF file. Various “Freeware” programs were installed on the PC, which include Ghostscript, Fictional Daemon, and ImageMagick. UNIX Korn shell scripts were written for the GammaPlan platform and are launched when each document is printed as a PostScript file by GammaPlan. These files are stored locally before sending them to the PC for conversion to a PDF document. The PDF file is uploaded to the eScan folder of Mosaiq for manual importing into the Documents folder. A Korn shell script uses Elm to e‐mail the PDF document with a comment and HIPAA notice to the physician's e‐mail account. Results: The software has been used for 7 months without significant problems. One potential problem is that the PC must be logged onto in order for the software to work. We check that the computer is up and running from the UNIX platform. Also, we had two instances when the PC was running https which blocks communications between GammaPlan and the PC. Conclusion: The software works well as it was designed under the constraints imposed by the FDA.