DICOM
Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine — the universal standard for medical-imaging file formats and network communication. Every modern scanner, PACS, reading workstation, and modality-information system speaks DICOM. Maintained by the DICOM Standards Committee under NEMA.
Why it matters to buyers: Interop is non-optional. The vendor's conformance statement is the authoritative document on exactly what the device supports — query / store / print / worklist services, transfer syntaxes, IODs (Information Object Definitions). Mismatches between scanner and PACS conformance statements are a leading cause of go-live integration failures.
Why it matters to engineers: Common trip points include case-sensitive AE titles, transfer syntax (Explicit / Implicit VR, JPEG / JPEG2000 / RLE compression), Modality Worklist compatibility, structured reports, and SR / dose-report variants. Document AE titles, IPs, ports, and tested compatibilities at acceptance — undocumented integrations break six months later when no one remembers the setup.
Related
- PACS
- RIS
- AE title
- DICOM Modality Worklist
- DICOM Store (C-STORE)
- MPPS
- FHIR (modern adjacent / complementary standard)
- Biomed Engineer
- Imaging Center Administrator