The Importance of Body Part Labeling to Enable Enterprise Imaging: A HIMSS-SIIM Enterprise Imaging Community Collaborative White Paper

AbstractIn order for enterprise imaging to be successful across a multitude of specialties, systems, and sites, standards are essential to categorize and classify imaging data. The HIMSS-SIIM Enterprise Imaging Community believes that the Digital Imaging Communications in Medicine (DICOM)Anatomic Region Sequence, or its equivalent in other data standards, is a vital data element for this role, when populated with standard coded values. We believe that labeling images with standard Anatomic Region Sequence codes will enhance the user ’s ability to consume data, facilitate interoperability, and allow greater control of privacy. Image consumption—when a user views a patient’s images, he or she often wants to see relevant comparison images of the same lesion or anatomic region for the same patient automatically presented. Rel evant comparison images may have been acquired from a variety of modalities and specialties. TheAnatomic Region Sequence data element provides a basis to allow for efficient comparison in both instances. Interoperability —as patients move between health care systems, it is important to minimize friction for data transfer. Health care providers and facilities need to be able to consume and review the increasingly large and complex volume of data efficiently. The use ofAnatomic Region Sequence, or its equivalent, populated with standard values enables seamless interoperability of imaging data regardless of whether images are used within a site or acros...
Source: Journal of Digital Imaging - Category: Radiology Source Type: research