I believe there is an opportunity for the IHE to deliver clear definitions of VNA actor and transaction behaviors. In addition, the interface between a VNA image database and archive needs to be clearly defined.
Also, despite several attempts, a VNA standard for internal archiving format has yet to be determined. This means that several vendors store data in a proprietary format, which is the antithesis of vendor neutral.
Here's some of my key requirements for a VNA:
- It must be patient-centric. This means that all the information about a particular patient should be available, not just data from radiology, or cardiology, or whatever.
- It should be truly multimedia, covering not only images but waveforms, reports, structured reports with measurements, voice files, and MPEG's for the video captures from endoscopes and laparoscopes.
- There should be no place for proprietary data formats.
- Synchronization between multiple institutions should be possible using IHE standards for patient queries, and the reconciliation of multiple patient ID’s is a critical part of this.