THE DICOM STANDARD - A BREAKTHROUGH FOR DIGITAL INFORMATION EXCHANGE IN CARDIOLOGY

The DICOM Standard for network communication has been approved by ACR and NEMA in October 1993. The ACC has joined the effort in 1992 and dr ives the extension of DICOM for Media Interchange with a focus on defi ning a digital recording standard for communication between catheteris ation laboratories. This is a necessary foundation towards cinefilm re placement. DICOM networking is being adopted as a European Standard ca lled MEDICOM and the increasing interest of the ESC is likely to resul t in the adoption of DICOM Media Storage and interchange as an extensi on of MEDICOM in 1995. This represents a major breakthrough in the com munication of medical images in electronic form. DICOM has been design ed to offer an integrated approach to the increasing use of high speed computer networks in health care as well as larger and higher through put storage media. This article focuses on the network communication a s well as introduces the extension of DICOM for Media interchange whic h has been approved early 1995.