DICOM Standards Committee launches working group to address 3D printing

Administraion officials of the Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) Standards Committee (DSC) announced that they will be launching Working Group 17 (WG-17) that will focus on the promotion of the DICOM standard for the creation, storage and management of 3D printing models in a healthcare setting. 

"This emerging technology will benefit from a Working Group of experts drawn from the medical 3D printing community, working in tandem with imaging experts familiar with the nature and structure of DICOM. Together we will create extensions for 3D printing with the DICOM Standard, thus bringing this rapidly expanding field fully into the fold of one of the most widely deployed healthcare interchange standards in the world," said WG-17 Co-Chair, Allan Noordvyk, Executive Director of Research, Imaging & Workflow Solutions at McKesson. 

“By leveraging the well-established DICOM Standard for medical additive manufacturing, MITA and WG-17 will further enable hospital-based 3D printing and ensure consistency across the clinical landscape, including PACS” said WG-17 Co-Chair, Justin Ryan, Research Scientist of the Cardiac 3D Print Lab, at Phoenix Children's Hospital in a press release. 

The new Working Group 17 will aim to: 

• Identify and maintain a roadmap of use cases and compatibility concerns to be addressed.
• Develop or consult on relevant change proposals (CPs) and Supplements.
• Serve as a liaison between the multiple stakeholder groups involved.
• Facilitate the inclusion of data relevant to the 3D printing imaging community in DICOM objects.
• Enable PACS and VNA vendors to consistently incorporate data relevant to 3D printing within existing database infrastructure.
• Provide best practice guidance and reference implementations to promote the use of DICOM in 3D printing applications.

Allan Noordvyk, Executive Director of Research, Imaging & Workflow Solutions, at McKesson (Industry Co-Chair) and Justin Ryan, Research Scientist at Phoenix Children's Hospital (User Co-Chair) will both oversee WG-17.