Encounter Based Imaging Workflow - Brief Proposal

From IHE Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search


1. Proposed Workitem: Encounter-Based Imaging Workflow (EBIW)

  • Proposal Editor: Kevin O'Donnell / Kinson Ho
  • Proposal Contributors: Elliot Silver, Christopher Roth, Dawn Cram, Alex Towbin, Ken Persons, Paul Lipton, ...
  • Editor: Kevin O'Donnell / Kinson Ho
  • Contributors: See Support & Resources
  • Domain: Radiology

2. The Problem

Encounter-based Imaging (a burgeoning area of activity) is needs to be supported as well as Order-based Imaging (aka Scheduled Workflow).

EBI needs the same kind of committee analysis we did for SWF:

  • Use Cases - what are the different ways encounter-based imaging is performed
  • Metadata - what context details need to be captured, stored, conveyed (to support capture, search and review)
  • Linkage - what other artifacts/results do the images need to be linked to, and how
  • Organization - how is the data organized to meet the needs of its users, how do the images fit into the medical record (sometimes images augment a procedure - surgical video, sometimes images are the procedure - diagnostic)
  • Communication - what notifications and "loop-closures" are needed
  • Data Transfer - what protocols should be used for the different artifacts


Even with many vendors converging on similar concepts, the SWF exercise in the late 90's was valuable to tease out subtle details, resolve elements of disagreement and confusion in the implementer community, and nail down various technical details. It contributed to an extended period of robust departmental interoperability.

An EBI exercise and profile could provide similar benefits in the expanded medical imaging community.

Costs of Status Quo: Sites have highlighted EBI related problems like:

  • Images Absent from or Scattered throughout EHR
  • Silo-ization of the medical imaging record
  • Images Not Available to Care Team
  • Images Placed in Paper Record or Scanned into EHR
  • Limited Access to Images within EHR Context
  • Limited Data Sharing w/ Acquired & Affiliated Hospitals

Specific Technical Gaps (e.g. relative to Scheduled Workflow):

  • Order Placement:
  • Procedure codes are appropriate for some encounter based imaging but an order per se is not necessary (and would disrupt their workflow)
  • While image metadata achieved through the placement of an order is unarguably necessary, requiring the placement of an order is not necessary to achieve the same end result when images are captured following an encounters based workflow as addressed in this profile proposal.
  • Loop Closure
  • In Order based there is an order and a report to close the loop
  • EBI has multiple kinds of results - endo images, surg notes, all linked to the procedure
  • EMR can backfill orders, but the cross result linkage on a different system is a problem, esp when exchanging with other institutions
  • DICOM Study is a grouping method, but with a JPEG on a disk, the context/linkage metadata is missing.
  • Data flow
  • should get the same end result as if the clinician placed the order
  • Want to support the same analytics, access/indexing of the imaging
  • Capture Process
  • Consider focusing initially on the capture process (there is some risk in the varied usage needs in the different departments/use cases)
  • Although downstream usage of the data can't be completely ignored.
  • What is the end result of the first profile - e.g. what is passed to the EHR to index, find, display, provide to physicians
  • A big gap is labelling/tagging to know the procedure behind the encounter image
  • Body part is not well populated (2,000 for some dermatology groups, 1 for others) - device should provide it, but often not well done, also tags are lacking for some purposes
  • Sharing tags with order-based makes it easy to pair, but need it to be easy
  • Will need to be clear what we will/will not do (e.g. start with standard tag/location but standardizing procedure codes is not typically done yet)

3. Key Use Case

  • Dermatology
  • Wound Care/Management
  • Infectious Diseases
  • Burn Care
  • Ophthalmology
  • Otolaryngology
  • Plastic Surgery
  • Podiatry
  • ER/Trauma
  • Dentistry
  • Sports Medicine
  • Pathology Samples
  • Point of Care Ultrasound
  • Nursing/Clinic Photography
  • Procedure Video (e.g. Surgery, the video isn't ordered)
  • Sleep Lab Video (More likely to be ordered?)

Use Case 1: Basic Encounter-Based Imaging for non-DICOM capable devices

Numerous departments capture clinical photos for documentation, follow up care, and in some cases, diagnostics (such as dermascope or OCT). Capture devices include digital cameras, smartphones and tablets and run on platforms including iOS, Android and camera specific operating systems.

Option 1a: Unmanaged capture (bad)

  • images lack a source of metadata so only an image is captured lacking important details like:
    • patient demographics, visit/encounter details/context, body part examined
  • linking image content in the EHR or HIS, and future retrieval, and multidisciplinary relativity is virtually impossible without cumbersome and sometimes inaccurate manual indexing workflows
  • downstream EHR image consumers need this information to know if clicking through a hyperlinked set of images will be valuable for them or not, and having a relevant procedure name helps them greatly decide that.
  • many image creators need this metadata for teaching file granularity purposes (to identify a set of images as a specific body part, and differentiate it from other images from the same encounter).
  • hospital credentialing people need to see what procedures providers are performing to make sure they are performing in the scope of their work (this was a big issue at one of the contributor institutions)
  • providers want to know what kind of case volumes they had, and driving analytics later requires a level of specificity to orders metadata current unavailable without the cumbersome workflows.

Option 1b: Require order placement (bad)

  • cumbersome workflow for clinical care providers
    • they must interrupt their clinical workflow to interact with a different system and generate order details, some of which are irrelevant, others should be generated automatically

Option 1C: Encounter-based imaging (good)

  • use the systems/information associated with the current patient encounter to generate the needed context details and populate them in the image artifacts created.
  • the images (clinical photos) that will be taken are not known prior to the visit, but rather, are at the provider's discretion during the visit.
    • Patient makes appointment for Dermatology visit.
    • Patient arrives for Dermatology visit and is registered/checked in, as a patient class of OP (outpatient)
    • EHR or HIS triggers an ADT^A04 release
    • Provider may or may not decide to take clinical photos of the patient during the visit to document disease processes, pathologies or disorders.
      • If the provider decides to take clinical photos for evidentiary or diagnostic reasons (ie - dermascope), image content may include photos of multiple body parts.

Note: Basic video capture and store is part of scope. Advanced video management (e.g. annotation, point of interest, editing, etc.) are out of scope.

Use Case 2: Point-of-Care Ultrasound (DICOM capable devices deployed in an unmanaged non-order based workflow)

TODO: Write some text here

Use Case X: Patient provided images (e.g. Dermatology) (Future scope)

Use Case Y: Post-Acquisition Imaging Process (Future scope)

TODO: Update text here

    • Annotation
    • QA
    • Color correction

Use Case 2: Surgical documentation (Future scope)

During a surgical case, and pre and post-surgery, various image capture devices/modalities are used to document the procedure and provide diagnostic information required to monitor patient care or ensure xxx during the procedure. Scope video and still images, US (usually performed by anesthesia), external photography (often used by plastics), and ECG monitoring are some of the image content captured pre, during, and post procedure following an encounters based workflow. Orders are not a required element clinically and capture is either at the discretion of the Surgeon, as with video capture, or is inherently part of the procedure itself as with ECG monitoring.

There may be some common needs between this and the Cardiac Cath Workflow profile.

Other imaging may be requested of a diagnostic specialty by the Surgeon pre, during, or post procedure, requiring an orders based workflow, as with x-rays performed by Radiology, OCT performed by Ophthalmology or Neurodiagnostic monitoring.

This creates a two-fold problem where:

  • placing orders for the image content performed at the discretion of the provider creates a cumbersome workflow, often requiring manual reconciliation intervention by staff following the procedure
  • all imaging associated with the procedure is divided across orders which may not be tied to the surgical visit/encounter, since the orders placed for the requesting department often generate their own visit/encounter.

Additional complexity is noted when the procedure is performed on a patient already admitted as an inpatient. Whereas when an ambulatory surgical patient is registered/arrived specifically for a surgical visit/encounter an ADT^A01 (admit) or ADT^A04 (registration), depending upon EHR or information system and technical build) will be triggered and can follow the same workflow as with an outpatient Dermatology visit, an already admitted inpatient will trigger an ADT transfer which does not include the encounter/visit number of the admitting surgical department.

Inpatient Imaging

TODO: Merge into Use Case 1

Photos and other images captured on inpatients by unit. Orders are not a required element clinically and capture is at the discretion of the care provider and may be used to document various states of wounds, bedsores, or other disorders.

The DICOM MWL SCP requires update of patient location following unit transfers for MWL distribution. The Storage SCP requires update of patient location following unit transfers and retention of all unit locations through an admission encounter for reconciliation workflows and including exception workflows.


4. Standards and Systems

Potential Systems

  • Image Acquisition Devices (both Lightweight and Heavy/Integrated)
  • Image Archiving Devices
  • Electronic Medical Record Systems
  • Patient Management Systems
  • Encounter Management System (office/departmental system that provides the encounter context)
  • QA System
  • Encounter Imaging Consumer

Potential Standards

  • Existing Profiles: PAM, WIC, SWF, MHD-I, XDS*, CARD IEO
  • DICOMweb
  • DICOM (DIMSE)
  • HL7
  • PCD domain Encounter-based Patient Identification Management whitepaper
  • FHIR
  • Consumer formats: JPEG, MPEG, PDF, RAW, etc

Relevant Whitepapers:

Relevant Current and Past Activities:

5. Discussion

<Include additional discussion or consider a few details which might be useful for the detailed proposal>

<Why IHE would be a good venue to solve the problem and what you think IHE should do to solve it.>
<What might the IHE technical approach be? Existing Actors? New Transactions? Additional Profiles?>
<What are some of the risks or open issues to be addressed?>
Retrieved from "http://wiki.ihe.net/index.php?title=Encounter_Based_Imaging_Workflow_-_Brief_Proposal&oldid=102904"