Integrated use of the DICOM fields information within HIS-RIS: an added value by PACS in hospital wide patient management

A knowledge-based automation of the medical imaging activity can be used in order to optimise the examination planning of the patient; facilitate and speed up the access to relevant clinical information for the radiologist and to the results of these examinations for the clinician. This goal asks however for a hospital-wide, integrated approach of the process. A first move towards this aim is to share with the HIS the information imbedded in the DICOM headers. The image-related (PACS) alphanumerical data incorporated within the DICOM fields can be divided in three “functional” entities: • Medico-administrative: patient identification, date/time, examination description; • Organisational and technical: technical parameters of the exam, image data, work list data; • Clinical references: referring physician, clinical info, link to the electronic patient record. The authors report their experience about integration of an automated knowledge based scheduling module within the HIS/RIS in conjunction with the functionality of the DICOM work list, tests with several commercially available products for automatic routing of examinations to the requesting physician via intranet; and different options of integration with the electronic patient record.