The DICOM Handling Challenge Summarized

DICOM is a comprehensive specification of content and structure, that defines communications protocols for images in the medical industry. Such files contain:

• Patient ID
• Site of origin
• Attributes
• The image

Having full control over DICOM images is not that easy. Firstly, they can’t be viewed directly on a personal computer without a proper interpreter. Secondly, their file sizes are quite large. Thirdly, as their data is encoded within the header, it becomes challenging to completely analyze the patient’s state.

The DICOM Images Challenge Summarized

DICOM images are files used in fields such as orthopedics, general practice, chiropractic, podiatry or veterinary. They contain personal patient information grouped into data sets and are important in exchanging and transmitting medical images.

In contrast with other image file formats such as JPEG or TIFF, the individual DICOM files are not recognized by operating systems as images. As a result, people are not able to view the contents of the image by simply double-clicking on them. It becomes a headache to review the images, let alone edit them. Usually, users need to: 

• Install applications
• Download applets
• Customize browsers

The Radiology Application Challenge 

Medicine has made great strides thanks to top-notch diagnostic technology available. The challenge for doctors today is how to save and transfer the patients’ relevant diagnostics information. This creates a need for a synced database.

The Imaging Software Challenge 

While a lot of software exists for the imaging of human bodies, not many are so readily available for animals. Moreover, the software that does exist for animal anatomies is often somewhat incomplete. The challenge lies in figuring out how to create complementary software that can support the systems that are already in place for such diagnostics.

The Image Portability Challenge Summarized

Interpreting medical images is an essential part of a radiologist’s workflow. The relevant technology and services to perform this has changed and adapted throughout the years. The data has been transferred through satellite communication, telephone lines up to its full digitized recording. Radiologists used to work on-call, just because these images couldn’t be easily portable and so it was cheaper to move the specialist. This led to lots of idle time and low productivity.

The Challenge 

Many vets are still using paper-based documentation systems that take up valuable time and make storing, managing and accessing pet files a great challenge. It is also very common for pet owners to lose vital medical information about their pets. 

Furthermore, the transfer of important documents rarely occurs whenever a pet is adopted by a new owner. With no access to previous illness history, latest test results, vaccination history, and pet allergy reports, the vetinary’s job becomes a lot more complicated.

The Medical Media Challenge Summarized

Handling DICOM and non-DICOM formats in radiology imagery is often translated to heavy work and complexity. There are several challenges that make these images hard to access. For example, places with a central data access system may encounter a lack of proper IT infrastructure in remote locations.

Radiologists are often required to burn the images onto individual CDs for patients, which is both costly and time-consuming. There is also the hassle of having to process outside CDs into the PACs.

The MRI Imaging Challenge Summarized

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has been playing an increasingly important role in biomedical research and clinical diagnosis. The techniques of MRI have experienced rapid development and found wide applications in recent years.

The wide proliferation of MRI techniques has led to ever-increasing applications of magnetic resonance imaging and enormous new findings in basic biomedical research as well as clinical sciences. The challenge is to produce apps that are accurate and that go hand-in-hand with other relevant technology doctors use in their diagnostic work.

The Image Exchange Challenge Summarized

For healthcare companies, the process of exchanging electronic medical data can become timely and costly, as well as potentially slow-down the rest of the business workflow and productivity. Here are some of the associated challenges:

• They require the building of a dedicated system that handles electronic health record software solutions (EHR) which are quite expensive..
• There are ongoing costs of: Compact Discs, Ink Cartridges, Disc Publishers, Service Plans and Shipping Fees.
• There is risk of data leakage.
• The staff generally needs extra time of training to understand the system.