CHAPTER 20
DICOM-Based Medical Imaging Informatics
Biomedical Informatics (BMI) is loosely categorized into four levels of study: bioinformatics (molecular level), imaging informatics (cellular, tissue, and organ system level), clinical informatics (individual healthcare system), and public health informatics (population level). The concepts of and methodologies used in these four levels overlap each other. In this chapter we focus on imaging informatics.
Medical informatics has gradually evolved and established itself as a rigorous scientific discipline during the past fifteen years. There are now at least 10 to 15 major training programs supported by the National Library of Medicine (NLM), and more from other U.S. federal government agencies and institutions around the world, training students the concepts and methods of health information gathering, data structure, information extraction, retrieval and distribution, and knowledge representation.
Medical Imaging Informatics is a subset of medical informatics that studies image/data information acquisition; processing; manipulation; storage; transmission; security; management; distribution; visualization; image-aided detection, diagnosis, surgery, and therapy; as well as knowledge discovery from large-scale biomedical image/data sets. Although imaging informatics is based on many existing concepts, theories, terminology, and methodology derived from medical informatics, different types of data are involved, including multidimensional ...
