th
1300THE
North
17 Street,
Suite
1847
DICOM
2013
INTERNATIONAL
Rosslyn, VA 22209
CONFERENCE
(703)
841-3285 & SEMINAR
Fax (703)
841-3385
March
14-16, 2013
Bangalore, India
ABSTRACT
Title of presentation/poster
Primary Author (to be listed if
only one name is listed) name, job title,
employer/affiliation, and email
Other/Co- Author(s)
name(s), job title(s),
employer(s)/ affiliation(s)
Effective Strategy for verifying the DICOM conformance of a Healthcare Product
Venkateswara Goud ,
Sr.Technical Specialist -Testing, Philips Healthcare
E- Mail:[email protected]
1) Chitrai Senthamil Selvam
Technical Specialist-Testing, Philips Healthcare
E-Mail: [email protected]
2) Kishan Harwalkar
Sr.Domain Specialist-Interoperability, Philips Healthcare
E-Mail: [email protected]
Name of the author
conducting correspondence
on behalf of all authors
Venkateswara Goud
Postal address of
corresponding author
Venkateswara Goud.S
Philips Electronics India Ltd
Philips Innovation Campus
MFAR Manyata Tech Park
Nagawara, Bangalore -560045
India
Repeat e-mail address of
corresponding author
E-Mail: [email protected]
Telephone of corresponding
author
+91 - 9986666112
Preferred format:
Yes Oral presentation or poster
___ Oral only
___ Poster only
Abstract: (200-750 words, in
English)
Advanced Visualization workstations play a very important role in providing
patient care in Hospital workflow. Two major aspects involved in the
development of such workstation are Functionality and Interoperability. While
functional front depends on the availability of different clinical applications and
generation of right results for diagnosis, Interoperability deals with the
connectivity and integration with other systems (like Modalities, PACS & RIS)
and compliance to standards.
Compliance to standards is very crucial for the products to be interoperable with
other systems, their by facilitating smooth and faster diagnosis to patient care.
Ensuring DICOM compliance during product development is a process that
every product undergoes before going to the market. But, the key question
remains to verification team is how to effectively test the Interoperability
Compliance of a Healthcare product?
This paper talks about the aspects involved in the DICOM Connectivity and
compliance test strategy, addressing the problem statement mentioned above
and gives an analogy to the overall interoperability model shown below.
DICOM Services Verification: This step deals with the detailed verification of
DICOM services (Verification, Store, Storage Commitment, Query/Retrieve, Print
and Modality Worklist) by checking DICOM command sequences, considering
the VM and VR of the each DICOM attribute.
Consistent Presentation of Images: Deals with consistent representation of
Images across different systems, including various DICOM parameters like
Overlays, LUTs, GSPS etc.
Transfer Syntax Verification: Addresses data consistency scenarios in which
the data passes through various DICOM nodes (i.e: Scanner->Workstation>PACS->Workstation) involving different Transfer Syntax conversions.
Compliance to DICOM data model: DICOM compliance of various IODs
generated by each clinical application.
DICOM data conversions: Deals with on the fly conversion of DICOM
tags/DICOM IOD, based on the capabilities supported by remote node.
Harmonization of DICOM data: Deals with consistency of generated IODs
across clinical applications pertaining to different modalities.
Connectivity Hazard Scenarios: Checks the product hazard/safety aspects
related to connectivity. For example, consistent usage of Date/Time across
different applications/products.
Connectivity Performance: Measuring DICOM connectivity transfer speed in
terms Images Per Second (IPS) to various Remote DICOM nodes with/Without
transfer syntax conversions.
Media Interoperability: Checks the Interoperability of DICOM media
(CD/DVD/USB) created on the host system and being read on other systems
and vice versa.
Connectivity Stress operations: Addressing the reliability and consistency of
DICOM connectivity stack under stress conditions (e.g: Size of the data, multiple
parallel DICOM services like Store and Query/Retrieve etc).
Along with the verification steps defined above, the process would also call for
following aspects, which need to be taken care of during the Verification:
Connectivity Open Source Tools: Usage of various open source tools that
help in verifying the DICOM compliance of the product.
Common Interoperability Problems: A database of various interoperability
problems encountered to help in understanding the interoperability defect
patterns and forming the effective test design & verification.
DICOM Dataset Classification & Selection: Effective data set classification
strategy is required to choose right dataset (including multi-vendor), for
verification.
In summary The above various approach of DICOM verification ways addresses
level 1, level 2 and level 3 of the interoperability model and below is the mapping
of the same.
The overall strategy defined above not only applies to workstation, but if followed
in true sense, can be applied for checking the DICOM compliance of any product
(Modality, PACS or any other DICOM node). By designing the proposed
verification strategy, the entire DICOM verification of the product will be very
effective, leading to a strong DICOM compliant product, thus enabling seamless
DICOM interoperability.
2012 Rev. 5