Web Validation Service for Ensuring Adherence to the DICOM Standard

The DICOM Standard has been fundamental for ensuring the interoperability of Picture Archive and Communications Systems (PACS). By compiling rigorously to the standard, medical imaging equipment and applications from different vendors can share their data, and create integrated workflows which contributes to better quality healthcare services. However, DICOM is a complex, flexible and very extensive standard. Thus, it is difficult to attest the conformity of data structures produced by DICOM applications resulting in unexpected behaviors, errors and malfunctions. Those situations may be critical for regular PACS operation, resulting in serious losses to the healthcare enterprise. Therefore, it is of paramount importance that application vendors and PACS administrators are confident that their applications follow the standard correctly. In this regard, we propose a method for validating the compliance of PACS application with the DICOM Standard. It can capture the intricate dependency structure of DICOM modules and data elements using a relatively simple description language. The modular nature of our method allows describing each DICOM module, their attributes, and dependencies on a re-usable basis. As a result, our validator is able to encompass the numerous modules present in DICOM, as well as keep up with the emergence of new ones.