IT staff are able to change various settings for the Bone Mineral Density application as follows:

Registration Questionnaire

The questions relating to the Registration Form (see Entering registration details) are found in the XML formatted file:

“rippledown/bmd/BMD_RegistrationQuestions.txt”

Note: the names of the densitometer(s) defined in Settings.txt need to be available as options in the first registration question.

Clinical History Questionnaire

The questions relating to the Clinical History Form (see Entering clinical history) are found in the XML formatted file:

“rippledown/bmd/BMD_ClinicalQuestions.txt”

Note: changes made to either of the files BMD_RegistrationQuestions.txt or BMD_Questions.txt will take effect immediately, that is, no server or client restart is required.

Report directory setting

The directory where the approved reports are stored as PDF files is specified by the setting:

“Communicator_pk_out”

in the text file:

“rippledown/CommunicatorSettings.txt”

PDF Print Settings

The following print settings are available:

  • page size (default is A4, the alternative is Letter)
  • font (default is Courier, the alternative is Times)
  • page margins
  • font size
  • space between lines
  • whether a report should be automatically printed once approved
  • the text appearing after the signature

These settings are found in the text file:

“rippledown/bmd/Settings.txt”

An example settings file is as follows:

PAGE_SIZE = letter
FONT = times
MARGIN_LEFT_CENTIMETRES = 3
MARGIN_RIGHT_CENTIMETRES = 3
MARGIN_TOP_CENTIMETRES = 5.5
MARGIN_BOTTOM_CENTIMETRES = 2.5
SIZE_OF_NORMAL_FONT = 10
LEADING_(SPACE_BETWEEN_LINES) = 12
PRINT_AFTER_APPROVING_REPORT = true
SIGNATURE_TEXT = Dr C P BlacknPhD FRACP

Signature images

The image of the signatures of the clinical experts appearing at the end of each approved report is stored as the jpg formatted file, e.g.

“rippledown/bmd/Signature.jpg”

A separate image file is required for each signature.

Densitometer communcation settings

The name, IP address and port of the densitometers interfaced to this application are also specified in the text file:

“rippledown/bmd/Settings.txt”

Some example settings for 2 densitometers are shown below:

ROADRUNNER = 127.0.0.1:3773
BEAST = 192.168.1.100:3773
Similarly, the Lunar Prodigy application HL7 connectivity options should be set as follows:

  • Processing ID to “Production”
  • HL7 version to “2.3”
  • Use TCP/IP checked
  • Worklist mode checked
  • Receiving and Sending port to 3773
  • Use LLP checked

The Advanced HL7 options should be set as follows:

  • Application name for HL7 Messages should be set to the name given to the densitometer in Settings.txt
  • Application name for Report Recipient should be LabWizard
  • TCP/IP Address and port should be what is expected by the RippleDown server, namely CommunicatorAddress and CommunicatorPort in the RippleDown Server file CommunicatorSettings.txt.