Context driven summary view of radiology findings

Abstract

A system, method and computer readable storage medium for generating a context driven summary view of medical findings by retrieving a current study including at least one image to be analyzed, extracting current context information from the current study and storing the current context information in a database and matching the current context information with prior context information from prior studies to return a set of relevant prior studies.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method, comprising:
 retrieving a current medical study of a patient including at least one image to be analyzed;   extracting current context information from the current medical study;   matching the current context information with prior context information from prior studies to identify a minimum set of findings to be reported in the current medical study, the minimum set of findings including most recent prior studies of the patient, wherein the matching the current context information with the prior context information includes an ontological approach;   displaying a summary view of a set of relevant prior studies comprising finding related information for the relevant prior studies.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the summary view further comprises images related to the set of relevant prior studies. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the summary view further comprises annotations on the images related to the set of relevant prior studies. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 filtering the summary view based on a user preference.   
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein filtering the summary view comprises one of modifying the current context information, identifying a type of lesion, identifying a time period for relevant prior studies, or indicating a number of relevant prior studies to be shown. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the current context information comprises one of a modality or a body part in the at least one image to be analyzed. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the current context information comprises clinical indications from an image exam order of the current medical study. 
     
     
         8 . A system, comprising:
 a memory storing a current medical study of a patient including at least one image to be analyzed and one or more prior medical studies of the patient;   a processor configured to:
 retrieve the current medical study including the at least one image to be analyzed; 
 extract current context information from the current medical study; 
 match the current context information with prior context information from the prior medical studies to identify a minimum set of findings to be reported in the current medical study, the minimum set of findings including most recent prior studies of the patient, wherein matching the current context information with the prior context information includes an ontological approach; and 
 display a summary view of a set of relevant prior studies comprising finding related information for the relevant prior studies. 
   
     
     
         9 . The system of  claim 8 , wherein the summary view further comprises images related to the set of relevant prior studies. 
     
     
         10 . The system of  claim 9 , wherein the summary view further comprises annotations on the images related to the set of relevant prior studies. 
     
     
         11 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to:
 filter the summary view based on a user preference.   
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 11 , wherein filtering the summary view comprises one of modifying the current context information, identifying a type of lesion, identifying a time period for relevant prior studies, or indicating a number of relevant prior studies to be shown. 
     
     
         13 . The system of  claim 8 , wherein the current context information comprises one of a modality or a body part in the at least one image to be analyzed. 
     
     
         14 . The system of  claim 8 , wherein the current context information comprises clinical indications from an image exam order of the current medical study. 
     
     
         15 . A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising a set of instructions that when executed by a processor causes the processor to perform operations, comprising:
 retrieving a current medical study of a patient including at least one image to be analyzed;   extracting current context information from the current medical study;   matching the current context information with prior context information from prior studies to identify a minimum set of findings to be reported in the current medical study, the minimum set of findings including most recent prior studies of the patient, wherein the matching the current context information with the prior context information includes an ontological approach;   displaying a summary view of a set of relevant prior studies comprising finding related information for the relevant prior studies.   
     
     
         16 . The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of  claim 15 , wherein the summary view further comprises images related to the set of relevant prior studies. 
     
     
         17 . The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of  claim 16 , wherein the summary view further comprises annotations on the images related to the set of relevant prior studies. 
     
     
         18 . The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of  claim 15 , further comprising:
 filtering the summary view based on a user preference, wherein filtering the summary view comprises one of modifying the current context information, identifying a type of lesion, identifying a time period for relevant prior studies, or indicating a number of relevant prior studies to be shown.   
     
     
         19 . The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of  claim 15 , wherein the current context information comprises one of a modality or a body part in the at least one image to be analyzed. 
     
     
         20 . The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of  claim 15 , wherein the current context information comprises clinical indications from an image exam order of the current medical study.