Methods and systems for automated scan protocol recommendation

Abstract

Methods and systems are provided for automated protocol recommendation and selection in a medical imaging system. In one example, a method may include receiving, from a hospital-specific user interface, a standard procedure ID, determining a medical imaging procedure based on the standard procedure ID, and, responsive to having previously received the standard procedure ID, generating one or more protocol recommendations based at least on the determined medical imaging procedure, and performing the determined medical imaging procedure based on at least one of the one or more protocol recommendations.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method, comprising:
 receiving, from a hospital-specific user interface, a standard procedure ID;   determining a medical imaging procedure based on the standard procedure ID; and   responsive to having previously received the standard procedure ID:
 generating one or more protocol recommendations based at least on the determined medical imaging procedure, and 
 performing the determined medical imaging procedure based on at least one of the one or more protocol recommendations. 
   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein receiving the standard procedure ID comprises:
 receiving, at the hospital-specific user interface, a modality worklist (MWL) entry; and   determining the standard procedure ID based on the MWL entry.   
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein generating the one or more protocol recommendations is further based on additional information from the MWL entry. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 displaying, at the hospital-specific user interface, the one or more protocol recommendations; and   receiving, from the hospital-specific user interface, a selection of the at least one of the one or more protocol recommendations.   
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising, responsive to not having previously received the standard procedure ID, displaying, at the hospital-specific user interface, an indication that no protocol recommendations were generated. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , further comprising:
 receiving, from the hospital-specific user interface, a manual protocol selection; and   performing the determined medical imaging procedure based on the manual protocol selection.   
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein performing the determined medical imaging procedure based on the one of the one or more protocol recommendations comprises:
 initiating an imaging scan session according to the at least one of the one or more protocol recommendations; and   diagnosing a patient based on the imaging scan session.   
     
     
         8 . A medical imaging system, comprising:
 an intelligent automated protocoling system configured to map DICOM tags to imaging protocols;   a mapping database comprising a plurality of imaging protocols;   a display device; and   a processor communicably coupled to each of the intelligent automated protocoling system, the mapping database, and the display device, the processor configured with instructions in non-transitory memory that when executed cause the processor to:
 receive, from a user, a modality worklist (MWL) entry, the MWL entry corresponding to one or more DICOM tags; 
 automatically generate one or more protocol recommendations; and 
 responsive to the one or more protocol recommendations corresponding to at least one of the plurality of imaging protocols:
 display to the user, via the display device, the one or more protocol recommendations, and 
 responsive to receiving a selection of a first imaging protocol from the one or more protocol recommendations, initiating a medical imaging scan according to the first imaging protocol. 
 
   
     
     
         9 . The medical imaging system of  claim 8 , wherein the processor is further configured to:
 correlate the MWL entry to a local procedure ID; and   select, from the mapping database, the at least one of the plurality of imaging protocols based on the local procedure ID.   
     
     
         10 . The medical imaging system of  claim 8 , wherein the processor is further configured to, responsive to at least one second imaging protocol from the one or more protocol recommendations not corresponding to any of the plurality of imaging protocols, log an indication that the at least one second imaging protocol is not stored in the mapping database. 
     
     
         11 . The medical imaging system of  claim 8 , wherein the processor is further configured to map, via the intelligent automated protocoling system, the one or more DICOM tags to the at least one of the plurality of imaging protocols. 
     
     
         12 . The medical imaging system of  claim 8 , wherein receiving the selection of the first imaging protocol from the one or more protocol recommendations comprises:
 automatically selecting the first imaging protocol from the one or more protocol recommendations; and   receiving, from the user, confirmation of the automatically selected first imaging protocol.   
     
     
         13 . The medical imaging system of  claim 8 , wherein receiving the selection of the first imaging protocol from the one or more protocol recommendations comprises receiving, from the user, a manual selection of the first imaging protocol. 
     
     
         14 . The medical imaging system of  claim 8 , wherein the processor is further configured to, responsive to not receiving the selection of the first imaging protocol from the one or more protocol recommendations:
 receive, from the user, a manual selection of a second imaging protocol, the second imaging protocol not included in the one or more protocol recommendations, and   initiating the medical imaging scan according to the second imaging protocol.   
     
     
         15 . The medical imaging system of  claim 14 , wherein the processor is further configured to update the mapping database with the second imaging protocol. 
     
     
         16 .- 20 . (canceled)