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DICOM - Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine
DICOM Standards Committee exists to create and maintain international standards for communication of biomedical diagnostic and therapeutic information in disciplines that use digital images and associated data. The goals of DICOM are to achieve compatibility and to improve workflow efficiency between imaging systems and other information systems in healthcare environments worldwide. DICOM is a cooperative standard. Therefore, connectivity works because vendors cooperate in testing via scheduled public demonstration, over the Internet, and during private test sessions. Every major diagnostic medical imaging vendor in the world has incorporated the standard into their product design and most are actively participating in the enhancement of the standard. Most of the professional societies throughout the world have supported and are participating in the enhancement of the standard as well. DICOM is used or will soon be used by virtually every medical profession that utilizes images within the healthcare industry. These include cardiology, dentistry, endoscopy, mammography, ophthalmology, orthopedics, pathology, pediatrics, radiation therapy, radiology, surgery, etc. DICOM is even used in veterinary medical imaging applications.
Health Level Screen (HL7)
Founded in 1987, Health Level Seven, Inc. is a not-for-profit, ANSI-accredited, standards developing organization that provides standards for the exchange, management, and integration of data that supports clinical patient care and the management, delivery, and evaluation of healthcare services. Its 2,200 members represent over 500 corporations, including 90 percent of the largest information systems vendors serving healthcare. HL7's endeavors are sponsored, in part, by the support of its benefactors: CAP Gemini Ernst & Young U.S. LLC, Eclipsys Corporation, Eli Lilly & Company, IDX Systems Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, McKesson Information Solutions, Microsoft Corporation, Philips Medical Systems, Quest Diagnostics Inc., Siemens Medical Solutions Health Services, Sun Microsystems and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
NCI External Standards Review - Report
NCI External Standards Review - Appendices
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is supporting a broad initiative to develop standard tools and practices that include controlled vocabularies, common data elements (CDEs), and logical models of entities within and across life science domains. In the health information arena, a number of standards have been developed to define the way organizations record disease types, identify health care provider information, and specify patient information. An NCI External Data Standards Review has been completed that outlines current standards developed by organizations outside of the NCI. This review is intended to be a starting place for consideration of external data standards to be adopted by the NCI for use in the collection, storage, and reporting of information.
NCI Center for Bioinformatics (NCICB)
The NCI Center for Bioinformatics (NCICB) provides biomedical informatics support and integration capabilities to the cancer research community. We work with both intramural and extramural groups to develop Initiative-Specific Modules. These modules are connected through intelligent interfaces, coordinated through an NCI Core Module and deployed through open source tools and systems. The NCICB also serves as a focal point for cancer research informatics planning worldwide. We work with research organizations, biomedical informatics groups and standards bodies to facilitate the identification and adoption of information exchange standards, thus connecting research information sources wherever they may reside.
Cancer Bioinformatics Infrastructure Objects (caBIO)
The caBIO modeling effort is an on-going effort to model the domains of cancer research. The caBIO domain objects simulate the behavior of actual components in biomedicine such as genes, chromosomes, sequences, agents, trials, ontologies, etc. They provide access to a variety of data sources including GenBank, Unigene, LocusLink, Ensemble, GoldenPath (through DAS), and NCICB's CGAP (Cancer Genome Anatomy Project) data repositories. The current object model was designed via the interaction of domain experts and IT professionals. The object model is designed using an iterative software development approach to accommodate new requirements for modeling genomic information. Details of each object were identified during domain analysis and include information provided by domain experts as well as industry standards. caBIO is an "open source" software project.
CODATA - Committee on Data for Science and Technology
CODATA, the Committee on Data for Science and Technology, is an interdisciplinary Scientific Committee of the International Council for Science (ICSU). CODATA was established over 30 years ago and its secretariat is located in Paris, France. CODATA seeks: 1) improvement of the quality and accessibility of data, as well as the methods by which data are acquired, managed, analyzed and evaluated, with a particular emphasis on developing countries; 2) facilitation of international cooperation among those collecting, organizing and using data; 3) promotion of an increased awareness in the scientific and technical community of the importance of these activities; and 4) consideration of data access and intellectual property issues.
SANE - Scanner Access Now Easy Image Data Format
SANE stands for "Scanner Access Now Easy" and is an application programming interface (API) that provides standardized access to any raster image scanner hardware (flatbed scanner, hand-held scanner, video- and still-cameras, frame-grabbers, etc.). The SANE API is public domain and its discussion and development is open to everybody. SANE is a universal scanner interface. The value of such a universal interface is that it allows writing just one driver per image acquisition device rather than one driver for each device and application. So, if you have three applications and four devices, traditionally you'd have had to write 12 different programs. With SANE, this number is reduced to seven: the three applications plus the four drivers. Of course, the savings get even bigger as more and more drivers and/or applications are added.
Cancer Informatics: Essential Technologies for Clinical Trials
"Cancer Informatics: Essential Technologies for Clinical Trials" is a book published in January 2002 that describes the National Cancer Institute's vision of a Cancer Informatics Infrastructure (CII). By exploring the best that the Internet and information technology have to offer, the CII will facilitate clinical trials, for all who are involved, including the patient along with the myriad of health professionals involved in cancer trials.
NIH Data Sharing Policy
NIH expects and supports the timely release and sharing of final research data from NIH-supported studies for use by other researchers. Investigators submitting an NIH application will be required to include a plan for data sharing or to state why data sharing is not possible. This is an extension of NIH policy on sharing research resources.
Open Source Health Care Resources
Open source refers to software that comes with the source code in a form that customers can modify for their own needs and resell or give away to others under the same terms.
CTSim
CTSim is an open source computed tomography simulator. It simulates the process of transmitting X-rays through phantom objects. These X-ray data are called projections. CTSim reconstructs the original phantom image from the projections using a variety of algorithms. Additionally, CTSim has a wide array of image analysis and image processing functions.
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