Table 1.
Glossary of terms and abbreviations
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| Cloud computing | A computing architecture where servers are remote to the client. The client (e.g. computer application, app, website) accesses the server typically via the Internet |
| Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) | An international information technology (IT) standard used to transmit, store, retrieve, process, and display medical images and associated metadata. DICOM is both a file format as well as a protocol for the electronic exchange of medical imaging and associated metadata. All picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) use DICOM as the underlying IT protocol |
| Disaster recovery | Disaster recovery is both the duplicate storage of data and the plan to recover data after a disaster (e.g. flood, fire). The duplicate data storage is in a separate geographical location to the primary image repository |
| Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) | A PACS is a medical image repository used by most hospitals and health‐care organisations. PACS is built on the DICOM standard. A PACS may be installed on the premise of the hospital or alternatively be cloud based. PACS are ubiquitously used to store radiology images |
| Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) | RAID is an architecture which groups hard disk drives into sets or arrays of disks. Data are stored across multiple disks in the array. If one of the disks fails, the data stored on this disk can be recovered. However, if multiple disks in the array fail this may result in lost data |
| Referrer | The general practitioner (GP) or other clinicians who referred the patient for a specialist dermatology consultation. The referrer or their representative (e.g. clinical nurse practitioner, practice nurse) may accompany the patient during a real‐time videoconsultation during which their role is to assist with the examination |
| RTVC | Real‐Time Videoconsultation. For the purposes of these guidelines, RTVC involves a dermatologist consulting with a geographically separate patient using video conferencing |
| SAF | Store‐and‐Forward. The capture and storage of a digital image typically by the referrer/managing clinician that is subsequently forwarded to the dermatologist for review. SAF uses asynchronous communication meaning the referrer and the dermatologist do not need to be present at the same time |
| Telehealth/Telemedicine | The delivery of clinical health services where the clinician delivering the service is distant from the consumer of the health service and uses information and communication technologies to bridge the separation of the clinician and the consumer. Synonymous terms for the purposes of these guidelines |
| Teledermatology | The practice of dermatology using information communication technology. A subset of telehealth |
| Vendor Neutral Archive (VNA) | A VNA is a medical imaging repository that provides centralised storage of all of an organisation’s images regardless of the medical speciality that produced the images. A VNA may integrate with the organisation’s electronic medical record to provide a patient‐centric view of all imaging. VNA is built on the DICOM standard |