Institution window

The Institution window of the Plan Menu is where you enter the institution name and professional identifers.

Institution

You can create institutional team presets in order to support multiple institutions or different groups of physicians (e.g. multiple ophthalmologists and/or radiation oncologists) within the same institution. To create an institutional Team preset:

  1. In the Institution controls group, fill out the various text fields. You can also include planning notes, a preferred treatment weekday, duration, Rx dose, isodose legend and other institution specific settings. Planning notes are intended to remind the planner of institutional and/or team specific requirements. For example, an institution or team may routinely want 3 mm PTV base-margins rather than the default 2 mm margins. Be sure a value for the PTV margin and QA distance are entered, the recommended default values are PTV = 2 mm and QA = 6 mm. Notes are initially displayed in red text to attract attention. Click the "thumbs up" emoji adjacent to the planning notes text field to acknowledge having reviewed the planning notes and remove the red text color.
  2. In the Team members database controls group at the bottom right of the window, enter a person name. (n) is the current number of names in the database (e.g. my database had 406 names at the time this user guide page was last updated). Names should be entered using the format "given name surname", e.g. John Doe, with a space between the person's given name and their surname. The green shaded + button adds new people to the PSpeople.sqlite database. The red shaded - button removes the people from the database. The - button is disabled if the current name doesnt exist in the database. A purple shaded update button replaces the otherwise green shaded + button if the person already exists in the database and will be overwritten rather than creating a new entry. This database is keyed by name and also saves contact (e.g. primary email address), alternate contact (e.g. an email address that does not have email attachment restrictions), phone, job title, and other information about each person. There is no specific limit to number of persons you can add to the PSpeople database although eventually you could exceed your available file storage capacity and access speed will slow as the database size increases. A practical limit to maintain access speed and disk space is probably a few thousand.
  3. In the Institution's logotype controls group you can drag and drop a 50x50 pixel custom logo for each institutional preset. Logo pictures are best saved as .png files with transparent backgrounds.
  4. In the Team preset members (n) controls group you can add up to 16 members to the team using either the popup menus (or the + buttons which copy whatever is currently displayed in the Team members controls group). (n) is the current number of members in the team. The - buttons clear the treatment team entries and the Edit buttons copy entry data back to the Team members controls group where you can edit the data and update the PSpeople.sqlite database.
  5. In the Team presets database (n) controls group, enter a unique presets dictionary key and click the + button to add the keyed preset to the presets database file PSclinics.sqlite. (n) is the current number of teams in the database. Most institutions consist of a single team, but some institutions require several teams that vary amongst multiple surgeons, surgical facilities and radiation oncology staff. To remove a keyed preset, select it from the popup menu and click the - button. To update (ie overwrite) an existing preset, simply select it from the popup menu, change the information, and click the circular purple icon button (this button alternatively appears as a green shaded circular icon with a + symbol if the preset does not yet exist in the database so you can add a new preset). Extremely old versions of PS6 kept these data in a .plist file rather than a database, so if you are upgrading from a pre-database version of PS6 you will need to manually recreate a presets database. The .sqlite database files are all located in the application's master data folder (e.g. the Plaque Simulator Data folder).
  6. Once you have created a PSclinics.sqlite database containing at least one team preset here, you may then select a default team preset in the Users Preferences pane.
  7. The buttons that enable merging of databases are intended primarily for Eye Physics use when synchronizing our databases amongst multiple users. Please contact Eye Physics for instructions re merging of databases.
Institution

Each member of a treatment team group may be tagged as being a recipient of email messages. Clicking the Send Email button in the toolbar transmits an Applescript message to the MacOS Mail app on your computer which creates an email message for the curently selected plaque, addressed and cc'd to the currently selected recipients. This message includes a brief summary of the treatment plan to which you may optionally add additional comments and/or attach an encrypted .pdf file of the full treatment plan. If you are comparing alternative plaque options you will need to create a separate treatment plan document and email for each alternative (e.g. plaque 1 vs plaque 2). In the Email group box you may elect to subdivide your plan (and email) to meet email attachment file size limitations.

The Treatment time zone group enables the Plaque Simulator (PS) application to operate as if it were located in a time zone other than the computer's local time zone. This feature is disabled by default and PS uses your computer's local time zone and calendar to calculate plaque removal time and/or implant duration in order to calculate the required source strengths at the time of plaque insertion. The primary reason for setting an application specific time zone is to plan a treatment that will take place in a time zone that observes daylight saving time differently than the local time zone of the planning computer for those infrequent instances when a daylight saving clock change occurs during the implant period and the plaque removal time is predetermined. More about time zones, how to enable this feature, and an example will be found in the Dates Preferences page of this user guide.