How Does DICOM Work?

Abstract

To introduce order into the complex medical environment, DICOM uses its own lingo, based on its model of the real world (DICOM information model). Here is that model in a nutshell. All real-world data – patients, studies, medical devices, and so on – are viewed by DICOM as objects with respective properties or attributes.3 The definitions of these objects and attributes are standardized according to DICOM Information Object Definitions (IODs). Think about IODs as collections of attributes, describing each particular data object. A patient IOD, for example, can be described by name, medical record number (ID), sex, age, weight, smoking status, and so on – as many attributes as needed to capture all clinically relevant patient information. In a broader sense, a patient (just like any other DICOM object) is the set of attributes of which he consists, as you can see on Fig. 2. DICOM maintains a list of all standard attributes (more than 2000 of them), known as the DICOM data dictionary, to ensure consistency in attribute naming and processing. For example, our patient attributes – name, date of birth, sex, and so on – are also included in the DICOM Data Dictionary. All DICOM attributes are formatted according to 27 value representation (VR) types, corresponding to dates, times, names, and so on.