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There are many interactions between the RIS/PACS system and human operators, such as technologists and clerks, etc. Even the best trained professionals migth occasionally make a mistake which causes images to get temporarily lost, studies not show up on a worklist, procedures not being transcribed and/or billed, etc. One of the key jobs of the PACS SA is to manage these occurrences, and, if possible take corrective action by changing the exam status, fixing image headers, move queue, etc.

This article describes how PACS networks still suffer from DFT (DICOM Frequent Traps) such as the display of inverted images, database case-sensitivity, occurrence of orphan images, and lack of specificity in DICOM Conformance Statements. In addition, there are issues with regard to LUT (Look Up Table) support and locking a reading worklist for a radiologist.

This power point shows what is IHE (Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise) activity, what it is NOO, and a couple of IHE profile definitions such as Scheduled Workflow (SWF), Patient Information Reconciliation (PIR),  Consistent Presentation of Images (CPI), Presentation of Grouped Procedures (PGP), and Key Images (aka Key Object Notes or KON).

This power point presentation describes the HL7 current standard, including some of the Trigger Events, ADT and ORM messages, CCOW for exchanging context information, and CDA or Clinical Document Architecture as well as EHR or Electronic Health Records. Differences between both DICOM and HL7 are shown and the DICOM protocol in the workflow context. New developments in DICOM are listed.

Image and Information Management (IIM) are addressed by DICOM, HL7 and IHE. Challenges for IIM are large, especially with regard to increase in data volume, new applications and the integration with new modalities. These are addressed in DICOM using DICOM Storage Commitment (STC), Modality Performed Procedure Step (MPPS), new SOP Class definitions, many tools for integration such as Key Images.  HL7 addresses these with new, persistent object definitions, such as CDA and IHE addresses them by specifying many profiles.