Create a worklist workflow that will enable AI systems and clinical staff to review, comment, and report

Worklist Workflow — Feature Brief

Delivered in Sonador 0.4 ("Secure Resource Sharing & Worklists"). This issue originally guided the design and development of the Worklist module; the feature has since been built and released. This description has been rewritten for documentation and close-out — the original issue had no description.

What it is

The Worklist workflow organizes studies into shared, assignable review queues and gives reviewers — clinical staff and AI systems alike — a fast, in-viewer way to work through them. It is a full-stack capability:

  • Data & API layer — worklist models and REST/DICOMweb endpoints in the Orthanc cloud plugin, a combined worklist+study DICOMweb endpoint, worklist item status/completion, and Kafka event export.
  • Platform & security — worklist filter endpoints and models in the Sonador web application, plus a dedicated worklist permission in the Access Control (ACL) framework so queues are governed like any other resource.
  • Client — Sonador IO client methods and functional tests for creating, assigning, and completing worklist items over both the standard and DICOMweb APIs.
  • UI — the OHIF-integrated Worklist Panel and Rapid Review Toolbar in the Sonador Studylist, with permission-aware navigation and Series Tagging.

What it solves

Before 0.4 there was no structured way to route studies to specific reviewers or to track the state of a review. Clinical staff and AI services had no shared queue, no notion of review status, and no efficient way to move through a batch of studies. Worklists close that gap:

  • Assign & organize — studies are added to a worklist from the study list via "Request Review" and assigned to a user or group.
  • Review efficiently — the Rapid Review Toolbar lets reviewers page through queued studies without leaving the viewer ("View and Process"), updating status and recording findings in one click.
  • Track state — each worklist item carries a review status so progress is visible and reportable.
  • Capture findings — Series Tags and Study/Series Comments record qualitative review data (e.g., "Image Accepted", "Motion Blur") alongside the queue, persisted to DICOM-SR.

How it improves the product

Worklists move Sonador from a place to store and view images to a platform for coordinated, multi-party review. They enable real clinical and research workflows — radiologist reporting, surgeon review, AI triage, QA acceptance — with assignment, review state, and access control built in. Because worklist events stream over Kafka, downstream systems can react in real time; and because the whole experience is permission-aware (the worklist ACL permission plus adaptive UI), review is both structured and secure.

Status

Implementation complete and shipped in 0.4. A full development summary with links to the implementing issues and merge requests is in the comment below. Follow-on enhancements are tracked in orthanc-sonador#54 (closed). Ready for final review and close-out.

Edited by Sonador Claude