Veterinary Teaching Hospital

WSU Referral of Digital Images (Radiographs, MRI, CT or Ultrasound)

Diagnostic Imaging Referral Form     Fees
Please read the instructions below before completing this form.

For referrals where radiographs, MRIs, CT scans or other information is to be reviewed without the animal being presented to the WSU teaching Hospital:

• Please complete the Radiology Referral Form with all requested information. An accurate history is of great benefit to the Radiologists interpreting the films.
• Label all films with the patient’s name, date of exam and referring veterinary clinic.
• Payments for these referrals can be made via check, money order, VISA or Master Card. Referrals received without a payment and requiring billing will be charged and additional $10.00. There is no charge for follow-up referrals on WSU cases or previous referrals submitted within one year.
• Referral reports will be faxed and/or emailed within 24 hours of receipt of referral information.
• We do recommend submitting films via Federal Express. These will be delivered to the Radiology office by noon the following day. All other services (including UPS, US Postal Service, etc.) go through WSU campus mail and require an additional day of processing.
• For electronic referrals; images may be digitized and submitted via e-mail by sending them to radiology@vetmed.wsu.edu, thus saving time and postage. You will still need to fill out the Radiology Referral form, completely, and fax it to the Radiology office at 509-335-7812. Payments can be submitted using a VISA or Master Card by including the card number and expiration date on the referral form, or these referrals can be billed.

May 4, 2007

In past years, we distributed various information about sites to transmit digital images to WSU. This became too complicated and the computers you may have been previously instructed to send images to, including our previous FTP server, are now permanently decommissioned.
 
To avoid consultation service disruptions, and to make it more efficient for us to find your transferred digital exams, WSU Radiology Service has set up a DICOM server to accept all your referral DICOM images. DICOM format is the gold standard used in medical imaging to ensure accuracy of patient information, provide adequate depth and resolution of images and provide high quality diagnostic images and avoid a misdiagnosis due to image quality. Unfortunately, other file formats used for digital image transfer (jpg, tiff, bmp, etc) are not uniformly acceptable.
 
Those of you with CR or DR units just need to add the WSU Referral Server information to your remote server list or destination list to send cases to WSU using the following information:
 
Description: WSUradref
IP Address: 134.121.132.108
AE Title: WSUradref
Port: 4006
 
You or your IT service person should be able to insert this information into your system, be certain to enter the information exactly as listed above. If you need assistance, we would be happy to assist you in your initial setup.  Call us at 509-335-0711 if any help is needed.
 
To send us images, you simply select the case and WSUradref as the destination, then send.
 
A WSU Referral Request form faxed to 509-335-3330 or alternatively the same information sent via email (see link to form at the top or bottom of this page) must be sent to complete the referral submission process. The relevant patient history and information must be included on the fax or email. Also, it is very important to include the total number of images you sent and date of exam(s), so we can check to assure we received all images and understand the correct dates/times if appropriate.
 
IMPORTANT NOTE regarding other image formats: (jpg, tiff, bmp, etc)
In addition to being editable, jpg, tiff, bmp and other imaging formats (except DICOM) can severely limit the ability of the radiologist to adjust the image for optimum viewing and therefore have the potential to result in a misdiagnosis. These image formats limit the information available, important findings and information can be lost from the original DICOM file format.
 
Thanks for your cooperation as we strive to improve our referral image interpretation service.

Please complete and include the Diagnostic Imaging Referral Form