Medical imaging study retrieval system

Abstract

A programmed computer system receives an imaging study of the patient including metadata associated with the study. The metadata are analyzed to determine an anatomic region represented by the study. Additional imaging studies for the same patient are requested and the metadata associated with the additional studies are analyzed to determine relevant studies for the same or adjacent anatomic regions. Once the relevant prior studies have been identified, the computer requests the images associated with the identified prior imaging studies including the associated reports for review by a physician or other medical personnel.

I/We claim: 
     
         1 . A computer system for retrieving imaging studies of a patient, comprising:
 a memory that stores a sequence of program instructions;   a processor configured to execute the instructions in order to:
 receive an imaging study of a patient; 
 analyze metadata associated with the received imaging study to identify the patient and to identify an anatomic region depicted in the imaging study; 
 request metadata for prior imaging studies performed on the patient; 
 analyze the metadata to identify at least one prior imaging study that is relevant to the received imaging study; 
 request images and associated reports for the at least one prior relevant imaging study. 
   
     
     
         2 . The computer system of  claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to execute instructions that cause the processor to identify the relevant prior imaging study based on heuristics applied to the metadata for the prior imaging studies. 
     
     
         3 . The computer system of  claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to analyze a DICOM study description tag contained in the metadata of a prior imaging study against a number of positive and negative keywords representing different anatomic regions to identify relevant prior imaging studies. 
     
     
         4 . A non-transitory computer readable media having instructions stored thereon that are executable by a processor to retrieve prior imaging studies of a patient, by:
 receiving an imaging study of a patient;   analyzing metadata associated with the received imaging study to identify the patient and to identify an anatomic region depicted in the imaging study;   requesting metadata for prior imaging studies performed on the patient;   analyzing the metadata to identify at least one prior imaging study that is relevant to the received imaging study.
 request images and associated reports for the at least one prior relevant imaging study.