The 2013 DICOM International conference and symposium was recently held in Bangalore (for the first time ever in our fair city). As a member of the organizing committee, and the chair of Clinical Day 3, it was a very rewarding experience for me to interact with the other committee members and delegates and learn about DICOM. The venue, at the Indian Institute of Science Auditorium was appropriately selected as it was “vendor agnostic”. About 250 enthusiastic delegates from all the major technology companies filled the hall on all three days.
I learnt a lot about DICOM over the course of the conference but the three most interesting learnings for me were from:
Kevin O’Donnell of Toshiba who explained that DICOM is the “tide that raises all boats” – that it is a precompetitive technology standard that vendors collaborate on in the true spirit of promoting interoperability.
Harry Solomon of GE who mentioned that he estimated that an 8.6 bn dollar industry in PACS and Teleradiology has grown out of the DICOM standard.
Dr Larry Tarbox of Mallinckrodt who in describing the history of the DICOM movement (he was the only member of the committee who has been involved in it from its inception in 1993), said that DICOM began because radiologists sat down with engineers and communicated to them their need to be able to review scans on a workstation separate from the scanning console.
Out of this simple beginning grew a great movement that sustains itself today two decades later. A host of other related interoperability initiatives such as HL7 and IHE have arisen since, but the success of DICOM in ensuring that images seamlessly flow from modality to PACS is truly what makes all Teleradiology possible in the first place.
Another remarkable thing about the conference was how it was organized so seamlessly by Stephen Vastagh, the Secretary, and the rest of the committee remotely from their locations in the US and Europe. The meticulous planning and attention to detail was a revelation and inspiration to me personally.
Day 3 was a pleasure for me to chair, along with my good friend Dr John Carrino from Johns Hopkins University, who is the ACR representative to the DICOM committee (and much else besides!), and Veeren Shetty from Siemens, Bangalore. We had a morning session dealing with Teleradiology issues, including mobile Teleradiology, workflow, and medicolegal aspects. In the afternoon the telemedicine session had experts discussing a number of interesting topics ranging from Telecardiology, Telesurgery, TeleICU to Teleopthalmology. And the interactive panel discussion threw up some challenges for the technology teams to focus on in the days ahead.
As our world becomes increasingly complex from the standpoint of healthcare IT, the importance of interoperability standards will only continue to increase, and conferences such as this one are critical to keeping the communication channels open and disseminating the learning. The bonhomie with which competing vendors come together at such a forum to discuss freely and openly collaborate is to me the most heartwarming feature of DICOM – may its tribe ever increase!