DICOM
DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) is a standard that was developed to facilitate the handling, sharing, storage and printing of medical imaging information and allow integration of different devices into a picture archiving and communication system (PACS).
The protocol is mainly the result of collaboration between The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), representing hardware manufacturers, and the American College of Radiology (ACR), representing users from the medical community. This standard requires that manufacturers create a statement of conformance when claiming DICOM compliance, including specifically stating supported DICOM classes. The latest version of the DICOM standard, 3.0, runs on top of the TCP/IP stack (the Transport and Network layers of the OSI model) and is compatible across different networks, unlike previous versions which focused on direct connections.
DICOM files are embedded with clinical data as well as imaging content, and include a header that contains various attributes such as patient info and imaging file dimensions. Supported standards under DICOM include SNOMED, JPEG and MPEG.
Unlike HL7, DICOM is an Information Technology standard that promotes interoperability among different medical imaging devices, and is not a comprehensive backbone upon which health care information exchange systems can be built.
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Submitted by Jeremy Tran
