February, 2006

Joint NIST/NIH/ATA USMS Workshop On Medical Imaging and Telemedicine Held At NIST

A USMS Workshop on Medical Imaging and Telemedicine, co-sponsored by NIST, NIH, and the American Telemedicine Association (ATA), was held at NIST on December 7, 2005. Approximately 60 people attended the workshop. Standards for critical diagnostics and techniques are required for the evaluation of medical images, medical imaging devices (includes both image acquisition devices such as digital cameras and microscopes, and display devices such as CRTs and LCDs), the evaluation of computer assisted diagnostic (CAD) tools, and the effects of compression on image quality. These evaluation processes are increasingly important as new medical diagnostic and imaging techniques become available and as new or improved display technologies come into use. There is also a growing need to communicate and render image information across different information display systems. Diagnosticians in many areas have integrated new imaging devices into their practice, often without regard to fidelity issues. Thus, it has become routine, for example, for many doctors to take images home for viewing after hours and to email images to consulting physicians without regard to whether the displays on which they are viewed meet minimum performance standards. Images may be compressed for storage or for transportation across wireless systems. Improved rendering of transmitted medical images will lead to lower cost healthcare services; especially for remote, sparsely populated regions of the U.S.

These new USMS challenges were explored through a series of plenary talks by individuals from NIST, NIH, ATA and industry focusing on the following areas:

" Standards, protocols, procedures, and metrics for validating the accurate rendering of transmitted images from acquisition to display.
" Development of an industry-based infrastructure for meeting interoperability use-case testing needs for medical devices.
" Transmission protocols, compression, decompression, handling of medical records, and computer aided diagnostics issues.
" Development of international standards and networks that consistently support telehealth and e-health.

The results of this and an earlier USMS telemedicine workshop held at the ATA Technology Summit in September 2005 will be compiled into a set of measurement needs and a white paper. The workshop organizers consist of NIST staff from the ATP, EEEL, ITL, and PL.

Contact: Paul Boynton, phone 301-975-3014