The American Academy of Ophthalmology is urging imaging device manufacturers to standardize image formats to promote more efficient patient care, enable comprehensive datasets and develop algorithms for machine learning.
The organization published a report in the American Academy of Ophthalmology Journal with two recommendations for compliance with the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine standard, according to an April 8 news release.
The recommendations are to "Provide machine-readable, discrete data for user-selected reports of ophthalmic imaging or functional testing" and "Use lossless compression for pixel or voxel data to encode the same raw data as used by manufacturers." These recommendations would bring all patient data into one place and improve image quality.
The recommendation has been backed by the American Society of Retina Specialists, the Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology, the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists.
Read the full report here.