How to Identify and Assess Tasks and Challenges of Medical Image Processing

Research in Medical Image Processing (MIP) is mainly driven by a technology-oriented point of view. However, as an application-oriented field, MIP research should always be able to give an answer to the question of what is the potential benefit of a solved MIP problem or a newly developed MIP-based system supporting a diagnostic or therapeutic process, in terms of outcome criteria like e.g. Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) for the patient or cost savings in health care. As one subtask of establishing a Reference Image Database for MIP R&D Groups, the Working Group on Medical Image Processing of the European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI WG MIP) works on an answer. This paper presents the concept and the strategy of how the Most Relevant MIP problems (MRMIP) shall be identified and assessed in the context of improving evaluation of MIP solutions.