title: An automated DICOM database capable of arbitrary data mining (including radiation dose indicators) for quality monitoring.
abstract: The U.S. National Press has brought to full public discussion concerns regarding the use of medical radiation, specifically x-ray computed tomography (CT), in diagnosis. A need exists for developing methods whereby assurance is given that all diagnostic medical radiation use is properly prescribed, and all patients' radiation exposure is monitored. The "DICOM Index Tracker©" (DIT) transparently captures desired digital imaging and communications in medicine (DICOM) tags from CT, nuclear imaging equipment, and other DICOM devices across an enterprise. Its initial use is recording, monitoring, and providing automatic alerts to medical professionals of excursions beyond internally determined trigger action levels of radiation. A flexible knowledge base, aware of equipment in use, enables automatic alerts to system administrators of newly identified equipment models or software versions so that DIT can be adapted to the new equipment or software. A dosimetry module accepts mammography breast organ dose, skin air kerma values from XA modalities, exposure indices from computed radiography, etc. upon receipt. The American Association of Physicists in Medicine recommended a methodology for effective dose calculations which are performed with CT units having DICOM structured dose reports. Web interface reporting is provided for accessing the database in real-time. DIT is DICOM-compliant and, thus, is standardized for international comparisons. Automatic alerts currently in use include: email, cell phone text message, and internal pager text messaging. This system extends the utility of DICOM for standardizing the capturing and computing of radiation dose as well as other quality measures.
authors.affiliation: School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering, Arizona State University, 699 S. Mills Ave., Tempe, AZ 85287, USA.
authors.forename: Shanshan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Pavlicek
authors.forename: Catherine C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Roberts
authors.forename: Steve G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Langer
authors.forename: Muhong
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Mengqi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Richard L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Morin
authors.forename: Beth A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Schueler
authors.forename: Clinton V
authors.initials: CV
authors.lastname: Wellnitz
authors.forename: Teresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wu
mesh_terms: D057225:Data Mining / Q000379:methods*; D003628:Database Management Systems; D016208:Databases, Factual; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods; D008490:Medical Informatics / Q000379:methods; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D011829:Radiation Dosage; D011873:Radiology Information Systems; D012984:Software; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000592:standards*
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