Report WAEH Community of Practice – FAIR Images in Ophthalmology | 27 August 2026
On Thursday 27 August 2026, the WAEH held its Community of Practice on FAIR Data in Ophthalmology, led by Ciara Bergin, Chief Data Officer at Fondation Asile des Aveugles in Lausanne. The session was moderated by Maaike van Zuilen, Global Lead of WAEH, and brought together eye hospital professionals from Switzerland, the Netherlands, USA, Sweden, France, United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, Brazil and the Philippines.
FAIR stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable, and while widely applied in research, the Community focuses on its operational implementation in eye hospitals. Given the vast volume and diversity of ophthalmic imaging data, FAIR data management is critical to improving workflows, enabling AI deployment, strengthening research quality, and ultimately enhancing patient care.
Ciara and the participants discussed shared challenges around ophthalmic imaging, particularly inconsistent metadata, limited DICOM standardisation, proprietary formats, difficulties integrating devices into PACS, and the loss of image provenance. A key message was that integration does not necessarily mean interoperability, and that interoperability needs to be considered already at procurement of technological solutions.
A key priority is the development of a shared canonical metadata mapping to translate device- and software-specific information into common concepts and support reliable reuse of historical and current images. The group agreed to share and critically review the existing resources, map devices across participating hospitals, broaden participation, and explore a consensus paper and future workshop.
Agreed Next Steps
The Community of Practice agreed to develop an inventory of imaging devices across the network to guide mapping priorities, broaden participation, including additional hospitals and clinical and research communities and explore development of a consensus paper and opportunities for workshops and external dissemination.
A workshop at the WAEH Annual Meeting in November 2027 was identified as a potential longer-term milestone, allowing time to test and strengthen the resources.
A Collaborative Path Forward
The meeting marked a shift from identifying FAIR imaging challenges towards developing practical, shared solutions. By pooling institutional experience and creating reusable mapping and governance resources, the CoP aims to reduce duplicated effort, improve clinical and research data reuse, and strengthen interoperability across ophthalmology.
Read the full report and watch the full recording on the Knowledge Hub website (for members only).
The Community of Practice – FAIR Images in Ophthalmology will reconvene online on 25 March 2027, as part of WAEH’s ongoing programme of Communities of Practice on key topics in eye hospital management.
Read more about the Communities of Practice here.
Note: the WAEH Community is for members only. Not registered yet? Please register yourself here for the WAEH Community using your hospital email address. Need help? Send an email to .