title: A system architecture for sharing de-identified, research-ready brain scans and health information across clinical imaging centers.
abstract: Progress in our understanding of brain disorders increasingly relies on the costly collection of large standardized brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data sets. Moreover, the clinical interpretation of brain scans benefits from compare and contrast analyses of scans from patients with similar, and sometimes rare, demographic, diagnostic, and treatment status. A solution to both needs is to acquire standardized, research-ready clinical brain scans and to build the information technology infrastructure to share such scans, along with other pertinent information, across hospitals. This paper describes the design, deployment, and operation of a federated imaging system that captures and shares standardized, de-identified clinical brain images in a federation across multiple institutions. In addition to describing innovative aspects of the system architecture and our initial testing of the deployed infrastructure, we also describe the Standardized Imaging Protocol (SIP) developed for the project and our interactions with the Institutional Review Board (IRB) regarding handling patient data in the federated environment.
authors.affiliation: University of Southern California, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Ann L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Chervenak
authors.forename: Theo G M
authors.initials: TG
authors.lastname: van Erp
authors.forename: Carl
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kesselman
authors.forename: Mike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: D'Arcy
authors.forename: Janet
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sobell
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Keator
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Dahm
authors.forename: Jim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Murry
authors.forename: Meng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Law
authors.forename: Anton
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hasso
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ames
authors.forename: Fabio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Macciardi
authors.forename: Steven G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Potkin
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D001927:Brain Diseases / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination / Q000379:methods*; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods*; D020407:Internet; D008490:Medical Informatics / Q000379:methods*; D011873:Radiology Information Systems / Q000458:organization & administration*