Nuclear Medicine Image
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Nuclear Medicine Image (NMI) specifies how Nuclear Medicine images and result screens are created, exchanged, used and displayed.
Summary
The Nuclear Medicine Image (NMI) Profile specifies basic display capabilities that are required in nuclear medicine, and provides vendors information as to what features users expect in products that "work well" with nuclear medicine images. Portions of the profile deal with both cardiac and general nuclear medicine. Other sections of the profile ensure that nuclear medicine images can be stored and retrieved properly.
Benefits
In many medical centers nuclear medicine images are interpreted on dedicated nuclear medicine workstations. However, nuclear medicine networks have increasingly been linked to hospital and enterprise PACS, to allow images to be viewed by other physicians. This profile helps ensure that others can view nuclear medicine images properly, and that the images are stored in a manner that allows accurate retrieval.
Complying with NMI can help:
- Nuclear medicine physicians by allowing them to distribute their images with confidence that they will be displayed well, and stored in a manner that will ensure they they will be fully functional on retrieval.
- General radiologists, by providing proper display of comparison nuclear medicine images.
- Consulting cardiologists, by making it easier for them to view properly formatted nuclear medicine cardiac images when reviewing patient data.
- Patients's physicians, by making it easier for them to view nuclear medicine images when planning patient treatments.
Details
When nuclear medicine (NM) images are stored as DICOM images, they utilize a specific DICOM format unique to nuclear medicine. Some PACS, particularly older ones, do not accurately deal with the "multi-frame" NM format. The NMI profile clarifies the NM format, and explains what types of image displays are expected by the user.
When manipulating NM images, users typically need image controls that are slightly different that the controls needed for CT or plain radiographs. This profile details the types of controls required for NM display, while leaving exact user interface details up to the various vendors.
Cardiology organizations have agreed that cardiac nuclear medicine images should be displayed in a standardized format, in order to avoid misinterpretation. The NMI profile provides details of that format to vendors, so that they can be in compliance with the standards.
Since some systems deal primarily with cardiac images, and other systems deal primarily with general nuclear medicine images, the image display portion of this profile has two main options--general and cardiac--and one or both may be chosen for implimentation.
Systems Affected
- Modalities may create, store, and transmit NM images.
- PACS systems may store, manage, and/or display NM images.
- Display systems may query, retrieve and display NM images.
- Workstations may retrieve, process and display NM images, and may create evidence documents.
Actors & Transactions:
Specification
Profile Status: Trial Implementation
Documents:
<Provide direct links to the specific volumes or supplements, and list the volume sections relevant to this profile. This is a simple inventory of official normative and informative text. If you would like to provide a reading guide or walkthrough of what is in each of the different sections for implementers or users, do that in the Profile FAQ or the Profile Implementation Page linked below. If the profile uses transactions from multiple Tech. Frameworks, repeat the structure below.>
IHE Radiology Technical Framework:
Underlying Standards:
<list all the standards on which the profile is based; if possible with links to sources>
See Also
<The following sections can be left out if there is nothing to point to. This is just to show where such information can go.>
Related Profiles
<List profiles this one depends on, profiles that depend on this one, profiles that are synergistic with this one. Start with the name of the other profile as a link and then explain the relationship.>
- Reporting Workflow [RWF] may use Evidence Documents as inputs to the reporting process.
- Simple Image & Numeric Reports [SINR] may include data copied from Evidence Documents.
- Cross-enterprise Document Sharing for Imaging [XDS-I] can be used to share Evidence Documents between sites over a network.
- Portable Data for Imaging [PDI] can store Evidence Documents on media such as CDs.
- Import Reconciliation Workflow [IRWF] can fix patient ids, etc. of Evidence Documents when importing.
Consumer Information
The Profile FAQ Template answers typical questions about what the Profile does. <Replace the link with a link to the actual FAQ page for the Profile>
The Profile Purchasing Template describes considerations when purchasing equipment to deploy this Profile. <Replace the link with a link to the actual Purchasing page for the Profile>
Implementer Information
The Profile Implementation Template provides additional information about implementing this Profile in software. <Replace the link with a link to the actual Implementation page for the Profile>
Reference Articles
<List References (good and bad) (with link if possible) to Journal Articles that mention IHE's work (and hopefully include some analysis). Go ahead, Google: IHE <Profile Name> abstract or Google: IHE <Profile Name> and under the "more" select "Scholar". You might be surprised. >
This page is based on the Profile Overview Template