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Radiation Exposure Monitoring


Radiation Exposure Monitoring (REM) is a framework developed by Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE), for utilizing existing technical standards, such as DICOM, to provide information about the dose delivered to patients in radiology procedures, in an interoperable format.

Ready access to dose information aids medical staff, including radiographers, radiologists and medical physicists, in the radiation protection goal of reducing doses to a level "as low as reasonably practicable".

A challenge in automating the reporting of radiation exposure estimations has traditionally been a function of whether the record of dose provided by a manufacturer is persistent (i.e. stored electronically) or transient (i.e. displayed on a read-out). Many current radiology devices provide only transient records, either in the form of human-readable dose screens that require manual intervention (i.e. pencil and paper) to permanently capture the patient exposure, or else in the equally perishable data generated by a modality-performed procedure step (MPPS) created to help manage the scheduling system.

MPPS is insufficient, having a limited ability to encode complex data, and no options for long-term storage or queries. Newer scanners are able to create DICOM radiation dose structured reports (RDSRs) alongside the images themselves. REM addresses perishable dose data by creating a persistent record that can be sent to a central repository, and then queried and analyzed by health information systems for either a specific patient's history or for analysis of radiation exposure levels among patient groups, platforms, or clinical operations. RDSRs, and the use of the IHE REM framework are part of the IEC 61910 standard.

Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) is an initiative by healthcare professionals and industry to improve the way computer systems in healthcare share information. IHE "Integration Profiles" are designed make systems easier to implement and integrate, and help care providers use information more effectively. IHE Integration Profiles describe clinical information management use cases and specify how to use existing standards (HL7, DICOM, etc.) to address them. Systems that implement integration profiles solve interoperability problems. For equipment vendors, Integration Profiles are implementation guides. For healthcare providers, Integration Profiles are shorthand for integration requirements in purchasing documents. Integration Statements tell customers the IHE Profiles supported by a specific release of a specific product.


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