The Medical Imaging and Technology Alliance (MITA) said it will add a new activity by its Working Group 17 (WG-17) to promote the use of DICOM in storing and managing 3D printing models in healthcare.
The new project will create standards to promote efficient care by avoiding problems in interoperability, MITA said, and it will benefit from a wide range of experts in 3D printing who will work together with experts in DICOM. Together, the teams will create extensions for 3D printing within the DICOM standard, bringing the rapidly expanding field under the aegis of one of the most widely deployed healthcare interchange standards in the world, according to the organization.
By incorporating the well-established DICOM standard into medical additive manufacturing, MITA and WG-17 will advance hospital-based 3D printing and ensure consistency across clinical medicine, including PACS.
New objectives for WG-17 include the following:
- Identify and maintain a road map of use cases and compatibility concerns to be addressed.
- Develop or consult on relevant change proposals.
- Serve as a liaison between multiple stakeholder groups.
- Facilitate the inclusion of data related to 3D printing into DICOM objects.
- Enable PACS and vendor-neutral archive (VNA) vendors to incorporate data related to 3D printing within existing database infrastructure.
- Create best practice guidance and reference implementations to promote the use of DICOM in 3D printing applications.
The WG-17 co-chairs will be Allan Noordvyk, executive director of research, imaging, and workflow at McKesson, and Justin Ryan, a research scientist at Phoenix Children's Hospital, MITA said.
