Although historically, imaging informatics has focused on the radiology department, there are several image intensive specialties outside of radiology negotiating similar issues, such as surgical specialty clinics, cardiology, and veterinary medicine. These specialties have similar hurdles for existing in the digital realm, but each has their own specific workflow and productivity issues, different from radiology.

An increasingly important focus of imaging informatics is image utilization outside of PACS. This growing field evaluates image utilization outside of radiology, as well as DICOM and non-DICOM image integration into EMRs, image visualization, and collaboration tools, which are outside of the classic workflow of a radiology department.