Overview of DICOM

What is DICOM?

DICOM seems to have become one of the biggest buzzwords in the digital dental industry. So, what is DICOM exactly? DICOM (short for Digital Image Communication in Medicine) is a global standard that is used in virtually all hospitals worldwide.  It is designed to ensure interoperability between systems used to:  Produce, Store, Display, Process,  Send,  Retrieve,  Query or Print medical images and related documents, as well as to manage the workflow.

DICOM enables the integration of scanners, servers, workstations, printers, and network hardware from multiple manufacturers into a picture archiving and communication system. The different devices come with DICOM conformance statements which clearly state the DICOM classes they support.

Overall, this standard protocol for formatting and transferring images and related information allows for a smoother, more complete exchange of medical information alongside the image. No wonder why DICOM is rapidly becoming the preferred standard of information exchange for medical and dental software and imaging devices.

Who needs DICOM?  

Hospitals, clinics, imaging centers, specialists and other institutions that need to move dental or medical data with others already using DICOM.

By purchasing hardware and software that conform and use the DICOM Standard, you can ensure that these tools will work together to produce, manage and distribute your images regardless of your previous, current or future vendors.

DICOM conformance ensures that every medical imaging facility is a potential customer, because your equipment can work with any workflow or electronic health record systems.

When purchasing and installing peripheral equipment (e.g., film scanners, printers, computer monitors and workstations, image archives), DICOM conformance ensures that your products can work with all current or future imaging modalities and related peripheral equipment – regardless of vendor.  DICOM’s purpose is to meet each of these diverse requirements.

Who Benefits from DICOM?

By using DICOM standards at your office and with your peers, you typically have better access to images and reports. With the proper connections, you can move your information globally to specialists for pending diagnosis, or to a clinic to report back.

Patients have a greater possibility to obtain faster and more effective care when the DICOM Standard is used to send their information through the healthcare enterprise.

Payers may benefit through a potentially lowered cost of care resulting from the efficiency of the DICOM Standard.