The Digital Imaging Adoption Model (DIAM), launched at ECR 2016, was jointly developed by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Analytics Europe and the European Society of Radiology (ESR) to support organisations in planning and implementing imaging IT.

The model is the first of its kind worldwide and comprises ten focus areas essential to the digitisation in imaging IT. These areas include patient engagement, personalised medicine and clinical documentation, amongst others.

Similar to the HIMSS Analytics EMR and Continuity of Care Adoption Models, DIAM has 8 stages, with Stage 0 indicating low maturity and Stage 7 representing advanced maturity. One significant difference is that the highest three stages in DIAM reflect specialised branches that can be achieved separately.

Organisations will need to master at least one of these for Stage 5, two of them for Stage 6, and all three for Stage 7.

Participants complete a survey that gathers information on the current imaging IT environment at their institution. The DIAM survey enables institutions to utilise a structured approach for assessing imaging IT infrastructure.

More than 40 hospitals from 12 countries have already taken the DIAM survey and benefit from their individual gap report, metrics for benchmarking on different levels (region, country or global), recommendations for IT system improvement and other practical advice. Several DIAM workshops will be organised at major radiological events in different countries and free DIAM introduction webinars are planned for the upcoming months.

HIMSS Europe

DIAM Survey

Our participants share their comments on the DIAM project:

Ms. Lonneke Vermeulen, Clinical Informatics trainee, Medisch Spectrum Twente

“We have adopted the DIAM model to determine our IT maturity and go-forward strategy making use of current and beneficial Imaging IT within the department.

The DIAM assessment and Gap Report are easy to understand and the recommended actions will be taken into account during our current process of selecting and implementing a new Radiology Information System.”

Prof. Sergey Morozov, MD, PhD, MPH, the president of the European Society of Medical Imaging Informatics (EuSoMII), Chief regional radiology officer, Moscow, Russia

"The Digital Imaging Adoption Model (DIAM) project is a great example of the cooperation between IT specialists, radiologists, and workflow managers. An information system is one of the tools to make the work of medical organisations more effective and efficient, particularly in priority areas like the methods of diagnostics, quality assurance and image analysis. These principles are part of many standards in radiology and ESR projects. The DIAM project, for its part, helps physicians understand the variety of the information systems available and determine what to strive for in the development of the radiology department. DIAM also helps IT professionals better understand the needs of physicians in IT solutions.

Therefore, DIAM is an example of the harmonisation of the work of radiologists, clinicians, IT specialists and administrators.

Most importantly, doctors receive specific recommendations for the development of their department and IT infrastructure according to the results of a self-assessment. At present, work is under way on the end-to-end integration of the DIAM project with other ESR projects. This will facilitate even better mutual understanding between representatives of medicine and the world of IT."

Prof. Valentin Sinitsyn, MD, PhD, the president of the Russian Radiology Society, Head of the Center for Radiation Diagnostics at the Federal State Institution of Health Care of the Russian Federation

DIAM is a unique project. We know that information technology is an essential tool for the further development and improvement of radiology diagnostics. In Russia, the digitisation of radiology diagnostics is only just beginning. The DIAM project gives us an opportunity to understand the most important areas of using these technologies in radiology,  

to assess their maturity in a particular medical institution and the level of integration with other services of a medical institution. It is very important that the results of self-assessment give the participants important recommendations for further development of digitisation of imaging IT.