How Clinical Data Moves: The Infrastructure Behind Modern Imaging

This four-part, after-hours series introduces imaging informatics and its role in modern medicine, helping students and trainees understand how imaging data, technology, and clinical workflows come together to improve patient care, while also highlighting emerging innovations and potential career paths in the field. Register for each session separately. 

April 20 | Session 1

What is Clinical & Imaging Informatics

April 27 | Session 2

How Clinical Data Moves: The Infrastructure Behind Modern Imaging

May 4 | Session 3

The Imaging Lifecycle: Workflow, Bottlenecks, and Safety

May 11 | Session 4

The Future of AI – Algorithms and Data Sets

Session 2 will explore how clinical and imaging data move across healthcare systems through the technical and operational architecture that supports them. This conversation is designed for undifferentiated medical students, trainees and residents who want to better understand imaging informatics and its role in clinical practice. 

Participants will follow an imaging order from entry in the EHR through transmission to RIS, modality acquisition, PACS storage, reporting, and the return of results. Core interoperability standards (e.g., DICOM, HL7, and FHIR) will be explained in clinician-relevant terms, with a focus on how infrastructure design impacts data integrity, workflow reliability, analytics capability, and AI readiness. 

Objectives

1. Describe the end-to-end flow of clinical and imaging data across core systems 
2. Differentiate the functions of EHR, RIS, PACS, VNA, and data warehouses 
3. Explain the roles of DICOM, HL7, and FHIR in enabling interoperability 
4. Identify common failure points in data exchange and their clinical consequences 
5. Recognize how infrastructure decisions impact efficiency, reporting, and research capability