New Interoperability steering group formed to lead common standards for eye care images in the UK

A new Eye Care Interoperability Steering Group has been established to accelerate the adoption of consistent diagnostic test standards across eye care so images and other investigations can be saved, viewed and shared seamlessly and consistently between all primary and secondary eye care settings. 

Co-chaired by The College of Optometrists and the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, with work funded by the Optical Suppliers Association, the group will also be informed by representatives from across the eye care sector and major ophthalmic imaging device manufacturers. 

The new steering group will build on the work of a DICOM¹ Task and Finish group that was initially set up by NHS England, expanding the work to be relevant across the UK nations. It will set out an action plan of key project stages to develop, test and roll out cross-sector adoption of an agreed common set of diagnostic test standards, together with an audit mechanism to support compliance and adherence to the standards. 

The Eye Care Interoperability Steering Group has three clear objectives for its initial activities:

1. To ensure patient identifiers and file formats are readable and standard across all eye imaging
2. To support OCT B-Scans that can be consistently view-scrollable in all devices/viewers, to enable a move away from using pdf versions. This also includes the ability to view ophthalmic photos and visual field plots and associated metrics digitally
3. To define the set of clinically important-meta data needed, such as nerve-fibre layer thicknesses and visual field indices, that are relevant for medical retina and glaucoma imaging and management.

The steering group will identify the priority DICOM tags that should be adopted by all UK eye care device manufacturers and suppliers to enable a simple, effective user experience for all eye care professionals. This work will be delivered by Opticare Innovations Ltd, a subsidiary of the Optical Suppliers Association (OSA), to ensure independence and protection of commercial sensitivities. The OSA is funding this work.

The Interoperability Steering Group plans to independently audit conformance with the new standards for all devices within eye care. The results would guide and inform future purchasing and procurement decisions across the eye care sector.

The group’s work will also support research at scale by advancing the availability of images in an open format for analysis. This will be critical for the development of AI decision support and safety tools in eye care to improve patient care.