Coordination of research efforts to develop the most adequate technological framework for the management of multimedia electronic healthcare records (data and images) through the Internet. The Action will consolidate the most renowned research references in the field of informatics applied to Anatomic Pathology in order to eventually develop, with support of national and other European programs, the fusion standards to represent, interpret, browse and retrieve digital medical images while preserving their diagnostic quality as needed for clinical, learning and research purposes. In a latter stage, this coordinated research shall bring about a comprehensive R&D project which will deliver a much needed world wide search engine based on WebServices. This will definitively open the path to integration, search, access, exchange and upgrade of digital pathological images and associated reports among different hospital information systems regardless of their location. Based on common standards developed by European Normalization Committee (CEN), the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and other bodies (DICOM, HL7, SNOMED), the direct result of this Action shall be a new Pathology Technical Framework (IHE Pathology) to be taken as a new reference standard by the specialized E-health industry as well as the entire medical community.
Keywords: Image Communication, Electronic health record, Pathology PACS, JPEG 2000 protocol, IHE initiative.
