Minutes of LDIP conference call Jan. 27, 2006 The conference call began 1:00 PM Eastern and ended at 2:00 PM Eastern. Attendees: Bruce Friedman Bruce Beckwith Ul Balis Al Floyd Bob Leif Mark Tuthill Stan Schwartz Tony Pan Jack Zeineh Kemp Watson Andy Lowe Jules Berman Agenda The minutes of the prior months ldip conference were approved. The upcoming Vancouver APIII meeting in August was discussed. LDIP will be discussed under three different venues at the meeting. 1. There will be an open LDIP workshop. The published description of the workshop follows: ----------- API Imaging Working Group The Association for Pathology Informatics (API) is committed to creating a new specification for pathology-related images. The specification will permit pathologists and researchers to annotate images with clinical, histologic, and analytic data and convey this information along with the binary image object, in a well-described format. The project is called the Laboratory Digital Imaging Project (LDIP). We are currently in the second year of this effort (that began in October, 2004). The LDIP committee has over 40 members and is composed of software vendors, service pathologists, informaticians, image experts, and researchers. Currently we are creating an XML namespace for image data elements using an RDF (Rich Description Framework) model. The RDF model was chosen to support data integration with diverse data sets and to facilitate the future development of applications that will port image data between preferred standards (e.g., DICOM and OME). The purpose of the APIII session is to review the work done so far, and to provide LDIP committee members with a forum for soliciting ideas and opinions from the user community. The Imaging Working Group session is open to all attendees of APIII. ------------ 2. There will be a workshop to discuss general image standards issues, focusing on LDIP and DICOM. The description of the LDIP presentation follows: ----------------- Jules J. Berman, Ph.D., M.D. President, Association for Pathology Informatics Length of talk: 25 min. The Laboratory Digital Imaging Project (LDIP) is a three year effort (that began in October, 2004) to provide pathologists and image vendors with a way of conveying well-specified clinical and research information within pathology image files. The LDIP committee has over 40 members and is composed of software vendors, service pathologists, informaticians, image experts, and researchers who have a stake in developing a comprehensive and complete image specification. The LDIP image specification will enhance the utility of pathology images, will enable pathology image data to be integrated with data derived from diverse biomedical data sets, and will support portability to standard image formats, including DICOM. The purpose of this session's presentation is to review LDIP's progress to date, and to invite discussion of future goals for the LDIP committee. --------------- 3. LDIP will also be discussed within the API Business meeting. The published description of the API Business meeting follows: ------------- The Association for Pathology Informatics (API), a joint-sponsor of APIII, will hold an annual business meeting at APIII 2006. This meeting is open to members as well as non-members who may be interested in joining API. The purpose of the API is to advance pathology informatics as an academic discipline and a clinical subspecialty of pathology. The main goal of the business meeting will be to update members on API organizational activities and progress. The meeting also provides an opportunity for potential new members to meet the API leadership and learn about our member services. Anyone involved in or interested in any aspect of pathology informatics is strongly encouraged to join API. Membership application materials for those wishing to join API will be available through the APIII conference and are also available on-line at www.pathologyinformatics.org ----------------- There was much discussion of what to cover and who to include in the open ldip workshop. It was suggested that someone from HL7 be invited and Jules indicated that he would contact Clem McDonald and Gunther Schadow. Bob leif suggested that some of the people involved in cytometry standards be invited, and he agreed to contact several people, including some who work in Vancouver. The remainder of the discussion was devoted to the DICOM element file sent around by Bruce Beckwith. After some discussion, we decided that the data elements could be incorporated into the RDF specification for ldip but that we would need all the data typing information for the elements (e.g., the full syntax of the allowed data elements and restrictions on the allowed data (e.g. required, optional, number of occurrences, etc.) Ul Balis volunteered to acquire this information and add it to the file that Bruce sent around, on 1/26/06, 20060122_DICOM_tags_SM.xls). - Jules prepared by Jules Berman, 2/23/06