The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is seeking comment on whether the adoption of technical standards and/or certification criteria for health IT would improve the access, exchange, and use of diagnostic images, according to the American College of Radiology (ACR).
"The objective is to understand current diagnostic quality image-sharing capabilities in the U.S., and whether the agency’s regulations related to EHR certification can help advance exchange of information without reliance on discs or other physical media," the ACR said in a January 29 bulletin.
The initiative is timely, as HHS Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy Thomas Keane, MD, is an interventional radiologist with direct expertise and longstanding advocacy for image exchange, the society noted.
Key questions the HHS is posing include, but are not limited to, the following:
- What barriers do patients experience with electronic access to diagnostic images?
- What existing policies do you believe limit or interfere with diagnostic image access, exchange, and use?
- What technical, operational, and policy approaches can best support health care providers in transitioning from physical media (e.g., CDs and DVDs) to secure, electronic exchange-based methods for sharing diagnostic images outside of their operating environment/healthcare organization system?
- Do healthcare providers and/or patients (including patient-facing apps) need access to the full resolution diagnostic images stored in PACS or is a reference image (such as a DICOM image rendered as a JPEG) sufficient for clinical decision-making and use by healthcare providers and patients?
- Do healthcare providers and/or patients need access to quantitative parameters derived from images for clinical decision-making and use by providers and patients?
The comment period closes March 16, 2026. Access the HHS request via the U.S. Federal Register here.
