The need for sharing data and the introduction of digital imaging in radiology have prompted the use of portable media (e.g. recordable compact disc [CD] and digital versatile disc [DVD]) to distribute patient data. Exchange of Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) data using such media has been defined in the DICOM standard, including the requirements of the storing formats, structure and profiles [1–3]. Meanwhile, the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) initiative [4] provides a profile of portable data for imaging (PDI) for the necessary standardisation for portable data exchange [5].
Distribution of patient data using recordable CDs is beneficial in terms of cost and shipping when compared with the previous situation using physical hard copy film [6, 7]. It prevents loss of studies compared with the film-based distribution and provides the patients with the possibility of a self-maintained archive of their own imaging records which is claimed to improve patient care [7].
Although portable media offer benefits, they also have some disadvantages. The actual viewing of images becomes one of the main problems, since each vendor provides its own viewer on the CD. This hampers the evaluation of the image data by inexperienced users. The DICOM reader and information on the origin of the data that are included in the media make the data vulnerable to alteration, which could be considered as an unsafe method to distribute DICOM images [8]. Furthermore, local installation of a software package to view the data from portable media is prohibited in most hospitals due to security reasons and patient privacy aspects. Different policies and workarounds of handling data in each hospital, such as a hospital-specific identification (ID), also disrupts the interchange of imaging data [9].
The uncertainty of IHE PDI compliance can also challenge the reliability of image distribution. Compliance of digital media with the IHE PDI is only achieved by less than a quarter of the heath institutions in the United States (U.S.) [10]. Kalia et al. [10] mentioned that the uncertainty of IHE PDI compliance will hamper image availability in the Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) of receiving institutions with a strict policy of importing images provided by outside institutions.
To tackle the problems stated above, a system was designed and implemented that incorporates the study data from the CDs into the normal hospital workflow using a decentralised upload of the CD data [11]. The outcome is a new procedure for external image data at our institution, which was first introduced in August 2005. This procedure incorporates the DICOM image data on CDs from other institutions into our normal workflow either on the institutional web server or on the radiology PACS. This procedure enables the clinical physicians to use the hospital’s viewers embedded into their electronic medical record (EMR) to access the imported images and not necessarily require separate query to the PACS or a new image viewer they are not used to. Literature and practice show that importing the image data from CDs into the local PACS leads to a significant reduction of imaging examination repetition, for example in the emergency department [12]. A novelty in our set-up was that the CDs remain at the requesting department and are uploaded to a central service at the radiology department, where they are handled further for inclusion into the normal workflow. By implementing the upload in a decentralised way, the CDs remain available for review at the requiring department; CDs are not brought to radiology or sent there by internal mail and stacks of CDs at the radiology department are avoided. At the time of implementation, assumptions were made about the number of CDs that will have to be processed. However, with several subsequent improvements in the software tools used for this task, both the interest in this possibility and the amount of CDs processed steadily increased.
In this study we describe the current procedures and software tools used and then evaluate the status of the number of CDs and images uploaded using this procedure for over 7 years. Furthermore, we discuss the pitfalls and consequences of the upload of data on CD.