Dear authors,
On behalf of the IHE-Spain (Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise), the Spanish Medical Physics Society (SEFM) and the Spanish Radiation Protection Society (SEPR) I would like to make the following comments about the Page 44 section 2.5. Data collection methods (paragraphs 98 and 99):
We strongly belief that DICOM RDSR should be described as the current standard, instead of start mentioning MPPS in paragraph 98. DICOM RDSR should be strongly emphasized as the recommended data collection mechanism, as opposed to legacy use of MPPS (or OCR of dose screens for that matter).
In the report we would like to see IT standards to exchange patient exposure information in a interoperable way. In particular Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) has established a well accepted standard worklow to ensure interoperability among modalities, PACS, dose report systems and even national archives. This standard is the profile of IHE named IHE REM and is based only in the use of the DICOM RDSR.
The future use of DICOM RDSR for NM and PET as well as its incorporation in the new IHE REM-NM profile should be mentioned, since the report discusses PET and hybrid imaging.
Finally, it's worth mentioning that a crucial data collection integrity issue is related with a consistent procedure code mapping during data collection and this is one of the key points to start any kind of data collection and to be able to analyze consistently the data collected. It should probably also be referred in the document.
-
On behalf of IHE-Spain, SEFM and SEPR
Julio Almansa López
Medical Physicist