A system and method to pre-fetch comparison medical studies

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016292155-A1
Application number	US-201415036870-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Nov 26, 2014
Priority date	Nov 28, 2013
Publication date	Oct 6, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A system for pre-fetching in a medical imaging and archiving platform a subset of comparison medical studies in relation to an active medical study includes a medical study database to store medical studies; a relevancy rule database to store relevancy rules that express relevancy of a comparison medical study in view of an active medical study; a relevancy rule manager enabling to define the relevancy rules; and a relevancy rule engine to select for the active medical study applicable relevancy rules from the relevancy rule database, and to apply the selected relevancy rules to pre-fetch the subset of comparison medical studies. The relevancy rules include enhanced relevancy rules using contextual information stored in a medical report, an order, or procedure information that forms part of the medical studies.

First claim

1 - 13 . (canceled)

14 . A system for pre-fetching in a medical imaging and archiving platform a subset of comparison medical studies in relation to an active medical study, the system comprising:
a relevancy rule engine that selects for the active medical study applicable relevancy rules from a relevancy rule database, and that applies selected relevancy rules to pre-fetch the subset of comparison medical studies; wherein the relevancy rules include one or more relevancy rules extracted from contextual information stored in a medical report, an order, or a procedure information included in the subset of comparison medical studies.

15 . The system according to claim 14 , wherein the contextual information includes Radiology Information System data.

16 . The system according to claim 14 , further comprising a relevancy rule manager that defines the relevancy rules in a translatable domain specific language.

17 . The system according to claim 16 , wherein
the relevancy rule manager defines the relevancy rules as if-then rules; and the relevancy rule engine verifies fulfilment of the if-then rule of the selected relevancy rules in order to select the applicable relevancy rules, and to execute the “then” part of the if-then rule of the selected relevancy rules to pre-fetch the subset of comparison medical studies.

18 . The system according to claim 14 , wherein the relevancy rule engine pre-fetches and stores the subset of comparison medical studies on a server of a data processor that includes the relevancy rule engine.

19 . The system according to claim 14 , wherein the relevancy rule engine pre-fetches and stores the subset of comparison medical studies on a client-side desktop.

20 . The system according to claim 14 , further comprising:
a client desktop that lists the subset of comparison medical studies.

21 . The system according to claim 20 , wherein the client desktop automatically opens comparison medical studies that form a part of the subset of comparison medical studies.

22 . The system according to claim 14 , further comprising:
a log memory that stores, for a selected comparison medical study, the relevancy rules that determine that the selected comparison medical study is relevant.

23 . A computer-implemented method for pre-fetching in a medical imaging and archiving platform a subset of comparison medical studies in relation to an active medical study, the method comprising the steps of:
selecting for the active medical study relevancy rules from a relevancy rule database that express relevancy of a comparison medical study in view of the active medical study; and applying selected relevancy rules to pre-fetch the subset of comparison medical studies from a medical study database that stores medical studies; wherein the relevancy rules include one or more relevancy rules extracted from contextual information stored in a medical report, an order, or procedure information included in the subset of comparison medical studies.

24 . A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising software code adapted to carry out the steps of claim 14 when run on a computer.

Assignees

• Agfa Healthcare Nv
• Agfa Healthcare

Inventors

• Adriaensens Roel
• Felix Joost
• Kieckens Wannes

Classifications

• G06F16/24564

  Applying rules; Deductive queries · CPC title

• G16H30/20

  for handling medical images, e.g. DICOM, HL7 or PACS · CPC title

• G06F16/93 Primary

  Document management systems · CPC title

• G06F17/30507

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F19/321

  Physics · mapped topic