Achieving an Interoperable Data Format for Neurophysiology with DICOM Waveforms.
Modern healthcare faces multiple challenges: diagnosis and treatment happens multidisciplinary and distributed. The key principle to accomplish this is interoperability. Some disciplines like radiology are well experienced in interoperable workflows and cross institution data exchange; other disciplines just realize the growing importance. In this paper we analyze the situation in neurology and give an overview of attempts made in the past to establish an interchangeable, interoperable data format for biomedical signal data, which would be suitable for neurology, too. Focusing on EEG data we will discuss how DICOM Waveforms could be used to cover many of the requirements. As a result necessary adaptions and remaining issues are identified. With DICOM Waveforms a specification is available that covers most of the interoperability requirements. With only little adjustments DICOM Waveforms could establish data interoperability in neurology.