Feasibility of cross-vendor linkage of ophthalmic images with electronic health record data: an analysis from the IRIS Registry

Purpose: To link compliant, universal Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) ophthalmic imaging data at the individual patient level with the American Academy of Ophthalmology IRIS Design: A retrospective study using de-identified EHR registry data. Subjects Participants Controls: IRIS Registry records. Materials and Methods: DICOM files of several imaging modalities were acquired from two large retina ophthalmology practices. Metadata tags were extracted and harmonized to facilitate linkage to the IRIS Registry using a proprietary, heuristic patient-matching algorithm, adhering to HITRUST guidelines. Linked patients and images were assessed by image type and clinical diagnosis. Reasons for failed linkage were assessed by examining patients' records. Main Outcome Measures: Success rate of linking clinicoimaging and EHR data at the patient level. Results: A total of 2 287 839 DICOM files from 54 896 unique patients were available. Of these, 1 937 864 images from 46 196 unique patients were successfully linked to existing patients in the registry. After removing records with abnormal patient names and invalid birthdates, the success linkage rate was 93.3% for images. 88.2% of all patients at the participating practices were linked to at least one image. Conclusions and Relevance: Using identifiers from DICOM metadata, we created an automated pipeline to connect longitudinal real-world clinical data comprehensively and accurately to various imaging modalities from multiple manufacturers at the patient and visit levels. The process has produced an enriched and multimodal IRIS Registry, bridging the gap between basic research and clinical care by enabling future applications in artificial intelligence algorithmic development requiring large linked clinicoimaging datasets.