DICOMweb and FHIR Interoperability Harry Solomon Interoperability Architect, GE Healthcare Co-Chair, DICOM Standards Committee Credit: René Spronk (Ringholm), “FHIR Overview for executives”
DICOMweb is not the only thing happening in healthcare web services General healthcare interoperability being addressed in other standards organizations, particularly HL7
FHIR Fast Healthcare Interoperable Resources New standard from HL7 Currently Draft Standard for Trial Use (DSTU) HL7’s response to same strategic needs that drive DICOMweb™
FHIR Resources Small, discrete concepts that can be maintained independently Akin to HL7v2 segments, DICOM IEs Resources are smallest units of transaction Built-in extension mechanism Elements used by 80% of implementers are part of the base resource. All other elements are handled as extensions Resources have a ‘textual description’
FHIR Resources
Example – Patient Resource References to other Resources
Extensions
Extension with reference to its definition Human Readable Summary Standard Data Content: MRN Name Gender Date of Birth Provider System for gender is wrong . . .
StructureDefinition Resource (profile) “After” “Before” GET http://myfhirserver.com/StructureDefinition?resource=Patient
OperationDefinition Resource (Profile) Read Search Standard FHIR REST Update Custom Operations Check Drug Interaction Merge Patient Search on Maiden name
Computable Profiles Publication Compliance GET http://myfhirserver.com/Conformance Publication Compliance
DICOM Related FHIR Resources Resources aligned with DICOM Allow navigation and reference of DICOM resources from FHIR WADO-RS specified as method to access DICOM objects ImagingStudy – Basic metadata and content (by reference) ImagingObjectSelector – Equivalent to Key Object Selection instance IHE Key Image Note, XDS-I Manifest
DICOMweb & FHIR Study Query Comparison QIDO – Retrieves requested attributes as managed by server database (C-FIND equivalent) WADO-RS metadata – retrieves all attributes from DICOM header as stored in instances in server FHIR ImagingStudy – retrieves fixed set of typically used Study, Series, and Instance attributes