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MINUTES
DICOM STANDARDS COMMITTEE (DSC)
May 12, 2015
Societe Francaise de Radiologie
Paris, France
Members Present – Manufacturers
Carl Zeiss Meditec AG
GE Healthcare
Philips Healthcare
Pixel Med Publishing
QualiTest Group
Siemens Healthcare GmbH
Toshiba Medical Research Institute USA
Represented by
Karl-Heinz Fleischer
Harry Solomon
Jeroen Medema
David Clunie
Win Swarr
Nikolaus Wirsz
Kevin O’Donnell
Members Present – Users
American College of Radiology
American Dental Association
Deutsche Rontgengesellschaft
Société Française de Radiologie
Represented by
James Philbin
Gregory Zeller
Marc Kaemmerer for Elmar Kotter
Joel Chabriais
Members Present – General Interest
Represented by
JIRA
Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance
Makoto Suzuki for Yukio Ito
Stephen Vastagh
Alternate Voting Member Representatives, Observers and Guests Present
American Dental Association
Veeratrishul Allareddy
b<>com Institute of Research & Technology
Amandine Le Maitre
b<>com Institute of Research & Technology
Yannick Morvan
GE Healthcare
Francisco Sureda
Laitek
Fred Behlen
Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology
Lawrence Tarbox (P)
Siemens Healthcare GmbH
Andreas Klingler
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Members Not Represented –Manufacturers Voting Representative
AGFA Healthcare
Geert Claeys
*Bayer Radiology and Interventional
Srikanth Mruthik
*Boston Scientific
Rahul Choudhury
*Carestream Health
Jonathan Belanger
*Corista
Eric Wirch
*Fujifilm Medical Systems
Masao Murata
Hologic
Janet Keys
*Konica Minolta Medical & Graphic
Michael Laconti
*Leica Biosystems
Dave Toomey
*McKesson Medical Imaging Group
Elliott Silver
*MEDIS Medical Imaging
Robert Goedhart
*MediVision Medical Imaging
Noam Allon
*Merge Healthcare North America
Ronald Cowan
*Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
Kazuhiko Nakane
*Panasonic Healthcare
Katsuya Watanabe
*Sectra
Krister Valtonen
*Sony Corp.
Michitada Kobayashi
*SuperSonic Imagine
Jacques Souquet
Members Not Represented –Users
AAOMR
AAPM
*American Academy of Ophthalmology
*American Association of Orthodontists
*American College of Cardiology
*American College of Veterinary Radiology
*College of American Pathologists
*European Society of Cardiology
Radiological Society of North America
*Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine
*Spanish Health Informatics Society
Voting Representative
Allan Farman
Donald Peck
Mark Horton
Kirt Simmons
Andrew Keller
Dennis Ballance
Mary Kennedy
Nico Bruining
Chris Carr
Paul Nagy
Marcial Garcia Rojo
Members Not Represented-General Interest Voting Representative
*Brazil Nat’l Inst. of Science &Technology
Alexandre Savaris
*Canada Health Infoway
Attila Farkas
CIMICS
Jianming Qu
*India Centre for Development of Adv.
J.S. Bhatia
Computing
Korean PACS Standards Committee
Hee-Joung Kim
*National Cancer Institute
Carl Jaffe
*U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Kish Chakrabarti
*Web3D Consortium
Nicholas Polys
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* = Does not count toward a quorum at this meeting.
P = By phone
Presiding Officers:
H. Solomon, Co-Chair-Industry
J. Philbin, Co-Chair-Users
1. Opening
The meeting was called to order at 9:00 am. The Secretary reviewed the antitrust rules. The Agenda was
approved. The Minutes of the previous meeting were approved.
2. Administrative Matters

A budget for DICOM Secretariat Operations may be developed for 2016

It is expected that the MITA RT industry will organize a more focused association within
another organization. Direct DICOM secretarial support of WG-07 will discontinue in 2016 if
no RT industry is contributing MITA dues; because, the DICOM Secretariat is significantly
subsidized by MITA dues.

Discussion of covering the cost of a new DICOM website continues

Niki Wirsz has resigned as long time Siemens representative to DICOM. He introduced
Andreas Klingler as his successor. Andreas was elected to the Executive Committee. The
Committee thanked and applauded Niki for his service to DICOM.

Election: the first two-year term of H. Solomon expires 12/31/2015. A nominating committee
was appointed: J. Philbin, Chair, Kevin O’Donnell, Greg Zeller. The nominating committee was
asked to present a nomination at the next DSC meet3ing.
3. Membership Applications
The Committee reviewed and approved the application of QualiTest Group for DSC membership. The
Committee welcomed the new member company, represented at the meeting by Win Starr.
There were no applications for voting membership on Working Groups. The Secretary noted that the
staff has no time to pursue increasing the voting membership of Working Groups by
advising/encouraging Observers individually. However, he noted that new Observers are requesting
addition to the e-mail lists, daily. These new Observers receive a welcome letter with instructions on ftp
access, DICOM Calendar, etc. The instructions include explanation of the Observer and Voting Member
statuses and an application for WG Voting membership.
4. New Working Group Proposal(s)
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H. Solomon submitted the recommendation for a new WG (WG-31) for conformance. . Committee
reviewed and discussed the proposal .The approved proposal is posted in the meeting folder <
ftp://medical.nema.org/MEDICAL/Private/Dicom/WORKGRPS/Committee/2015/2015-05-12/OtherRpts-Docs/New_DICOM_WG-31_(Conformance)_Approved.docx
>.
The purpose of the Group will include facilitating conformance verification and testing in locales
without the English language skills to interpret the normative Standard. The DSC invites and welcomes
participation in this new Working Group 31 from all parties that are interested in conformance testing and
validation, especially those working on national conformance requirements and processes. The DICOM
Standards Committee will be issuing a call for participation in the next few weeks. Participants do not
need to be members of the DICOM Standards Committee, but members of the DSC have automatic
voting membership on the Working Group.
5. New Work Item Proposals (NWIP)
Proposals have been posted in the meeting folder 2 weeks before the meeting. The Committee will
review the proposals:
New Work Item
Proposal
Number
2015-05-A
W
G
30
Proposal Title
Discussion
Addition of an IOD for
Preclinical Small Animal
Imaging Acquisition Context
D. Clunie
introduced the
proposal.
Disposition
Approved
6. Translation of DICOM in China
H. Solomon proposed a draft of the recommended DSC position on translation and localization of the
DICOM standard in China. After a thorough discussion and revisions to the proposal, the Committee
approved the DSC position, which was posted in the meeting folder.
The important points of the position on translation are:
 The only normative text of the DICOM Standard is the English language version, and product
conformance is to that publication.
 DICOM and NEMA will grant permission under the copyright for translations. Any translation
(of either part of or the entire Standard) must not include any intentional changes.
 The DICOM Standards Committee offers linking or storing of translations on the official DICOM
web site with hyperlinks to the DICOM standard.
 It is not appropriate or accurate to refer to translations as “Country X DICOM” or “Country Y
DICOM”, which could be misinterpreted as a normative publication approved by the DICOM
Standards Committee. Rather, a translation should be identified and referenced as a “[Language]
translation of the DICOM Standard”.
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

National requirements (localization) can be expressed in several ways:
o They could be proposed to the DSC as Change Proposals, which is easy to do. Once
approved using the standard DICOM process, they would become part of the “DICOM
Standard”.
o They could be specified in a separate local requirements or profiling document. Such
documents should NOT be called a “Country X DICOM Standard”; rather they should be
called something like “Supplementary Country X Requirements related to DICOM
conformance”.
 DICOM has been the successful and revolutionary standard for medical imaging, benefiting
patients worldwide, specifically because it has been a single worldwide standard. Not only do all
countries benefit from the availability of products from around the world that implement the
single DICOM Standard, but similarly exports from all countries can (and do) find markets
abroad because they conform to the single DICOM Standard. A divergent standard in any
country threatens the worldwide market and trade for medical imaging.
The DICOM Standards Committee will do everything it can to assist all countries in effectively using
the DICOM Standard.
It was also noted that Korea and Taiwan are also interested in translating the Standard.
7. Discussion on the continued use of SNOMED codes in DICOM.
H. Solomon reported that the negotiations with SNOMED are ongoing. D. Clunie stressed the need
for free licensing for implementers; he also noted to be mindful of existing translations that include
the current codes. The detailed positions on this issue are posted in the meeting folder. H. Solomon
will report at the next DSC meeting or sooner as new developments warrant.
8. Working Group 6 Report
The report of Rob Horn, Chair of WG-06 is posted in the meeting folder. Rob Horn (Agfa Healthcare)
replaced Bas Revet as chair of Working Group 6. David Clunie (PixelMed) volunteered to take the role
of managing the CPs for WG-06.
As incoming Chair, Rob reviewed the Scope of WG-06:
WG6 maintains the overall consistence of the DICOM standard. It provides technical guidance to all
DICOM working groups and serves as the technical coordination point. It also develops extensions
(Supplements) to DICOM typically related to overall systems enhancements. Some of the responsibilities
include:
 Executing the DICOM Maintenance Process (Correction Proposals). The process is used to make
“corrections and minor changes” to the current versions of the Standard. Any corrections made are
processed using the normal Letter Ballot procedures as defined by NEMA.
 Provision of technical coordination and guidance for all WGs. This includes review and official
approval before the Public Comment, Letter Ballot, and Final Text draft releases of all supplements.
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 Development of Supplements to the standard related to Print, Image Management, Workflow
Management, etc.
 Tracking the progress of workitems and supplement and report stalled items (no activity over a period
of three years) to the DICOM Standards Committee.
 Coordination of joint development efforts with ASTM (DICOS), ISO and JIRA.
 Coordination with MITA for the publication of DICOM.
The Committee expressed again its appreciation to Bas Revet for his past service and Rob and David for
their continued service to WG-06 in their new roles.
9. Reports from all Working Groups
Working Group activity reports were posted in the meeting folder for WGs -2, -5, -6, -7, -13, -14, -15, -18, 20, -23, and -30. The Committee thanked the Co-Chairs for posting the reports.
The following additional verbal reports and discussions took place:
WG-08
D.Clunie encouraged promoting use of DICOM CDA in Canadian activities.
WG-09
The new supplements are being used in IHE profiles.
WG-10
The Co-Chairs reported on the meeting.
WG-11
The multi-dimensional presentation state supplements are progressing. The Web3D Consortium
is not participating lately.
WG-12
K. O’Donnell reported on Sup. 169. He discussed how Sup 169 modeling aligns with LOINC
(not SNOMED because observable measurements are LOINC.)
WG-14
L. Tarbox reviewed his written report and posing the question whether DICOM should issue a
paper or statement addressing security related issues and respective roles and responsibilities of
the of the parties. It was concluded that the mitigation of security issues is education.
WG-10 will include in its SWOT and WG-29 should discuss publicizing.
WG-16
D. Clunie reported on the work on Sup 181 (DTI and on fMRI. Noted the interest in using
parametric mapping.
WG-21
Sup 121 and Multienergy Supplement are in development.
WG-22
Working on dose attributes.
WG-23
WG-24
Implementers have identified several areas where the Application Hosting API could be
improved, and have expressed interest in addressing these areas. A White Paper may be
developed for review by the January 2016 meeting of WG-10.
No report.
WG-25
No report.
WG-26
Preparing for work on new supplement for multi-spectral presentation states for whole slide
imaging.
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WG-27
J. Philbin reported on supplements in progress and the priorities. D. Clunie noted that there are
multiple solutions provided in the standard for some functions. He also suggested to define
scope of DICOMweb (RS only?) and evaluate WADO-WS and its security-related capabilities
vs. WADO-RS.
WG-28
Work on Patient RDSR is nearing First Read to WG-06
WG-29
The Co-Chairs reported on the meeting. The two workshops were discussed in detail. The
additional discussion by the Committee suggested to more narrowly define the scope and
activities of the WG.
10. XML Encoding of the DICOM Standard
This is a permanent Agenda item for receiving reports on usability, utility, and comments.
It was reported that there are plans to add more semantics into XML.
Members reported that ‘chunk html’ feature is extremely useful; it makes the Standard more accessible to
users.
I was also reported that ISO TC 215 is monitoring the results of issuing the DICOM Standard in machine
readable format.
11. Other Reports on DICOM activities.
M. Suzuki reported on the activities of JIRA, JAHIS, and JSRT. His presentation is posted in the
meeting folder.
12. New Business and Agenda Items
13. Time and Place of Future Meetings
The Committee’s practice has been to hold, each year, one meeting in the USA, one in Europe and a third in
another part of the world to maintain direct communication with the global participants.
The following is the current schedule:
Asia 2015 -- Aug 25-27, 2015, Yonsei University, Korea
See: http://www.dicomconference.org/2015-dicom-workshop-in-korea/
Aug 25 WG-10 and WG-29
Aug 26 DSC
Aug 27 DICOM Workshop
North America 2015 – Thursday Dec. 3, 2015 – Chicago, RSNA
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Europe 2016 –
April 15, 2016 WG-31 tentative Bochum, Germany on the site of IHE Connectathon
April 18, WG-10 & WG-29 hosted by Visus – Near Dusseldorf
April 19, DSC, hosted by Visus – Near Dusseldorf
11. Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at
Submitted by
Stephen Vastagh, Secretary
Reviewed by counsel: Clark Silcox
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