JPH09325999A - Medical image preserving communication system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a medical image preserving communication system with which the time for reading image data out of an image preserving device is apparently shortened without increasing the load of system. SOLUTION: In the medical image preserving communication system for which an image preserving device 10 having a large capacity low-speed storage medium 14 and a small capacity high-speed storage medium 16 is connected through a network 30 to an image referring device 20 having a monitor 40 and a small capacity high-speed storage medium 26, before a reading request comes from a doctor, an image having possibility to be referred to by the doctor such as the image for examination, which is not explained to a patient by the doctor, is migrated from the large capacity low-speed storage medium 14 to the small capacity high-speed storage medium 16 or previously transferred to the small capacity high-speed storage medium 26.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a medical image archiving communication system in which an image archiving apparatus for electronically archiving medical images and an image referencing apparatus capable of referring to these images are connected via a network.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a medical image archiving communication system,
Since medical image data has a larger amount of data than text data and the like, it has a high storage density as a storage medium and is stored in a large capacity medium such as an optical disk or a magneto-optical disk. The data reading speed of such a large-capacity storage medium is generally low, and it takes time to transfer data as compared with a medium having a small capacity but a high speed such as a magnetic disk.

Further, in such a system, a jukebox device is generally provided to store a plurality of storage media on shelves in the jukebox. When a data read request is issued, the media on which the data is recorded is searched for,
The procedure is to change the medium from the shelf to a disk drive and read the data. Therefore, in addition to the slow speed of the medium itself, an additional overhead time of switching is required.

Furthermore, the communication time of image data also takes longer than the transfer of text data. Further, if such a delay becomes large, the system must have a performance capable of withstanding such a large load, and the system must be expensive in terms of cost.

With respect to such a problem, the following two methods have been considered in order to shorten the apparent read time from the user. First, in the image storage device, image data stored in a large-capacity low-speed medium is transferred to a medium with a faster data read time, such as a magnetic disk, in advance (that is, before a doctor requests it). This is a method of moving past image data of a patient. This technique is called migration. As a result, the data can be read out at an apparently high speed in response to the request from the doctor. Further, as another method, in order to reduce the communication time, it is considered to transfer the past image data of the patient from the image storage device to the image reference device in advance. The second technique is called pre-forwarding.

The following is a summary of these conventional techniques. 1) At a certain time, the migration or advance transfer program is activated.

2) Retrieving the past image examination of a patient. 3) For the inspection selected by the search, the image data is migrated from the large-capacity low-speed medium in the image storage device to the small-capacity high-speed medium in the image storage device or is pre-transferred to the small-capacity high-speed medium in the image reference device. .

In such a system, all the images of the past image examination are simply copied onto a medium which can be accessed at high speed, so that even images which are not actually referred to by a doctor are copied, and an unnecessary load is imposed on the system. I may call. In addition, an unnecessary load may end up causing a problem of long access time.

In order to reduce the excessive load on such a system, it is conceivable to transfer the images for a fixed number of examinations, but this may prevent the examination images desired by the doctor from being copied. Therefore, when it is desired to refer to an image by the image reference device, it is necessary to transfer the data from the large-capacity low-speed medium in the image storage device to the image reference device, and the access time may not be shortened after all.

[0010]

As described above, in the conventional medical image archiving communication system, in order to apparently shorten the time for reading the image data from the large-capacity low-speed archiving medium in the image archiving apparatus, the past time is simply set. If all the images for the image examination are transferred to a medium that can be accessed at high speed, the images that are not actually referenced by the doctor may be transferred, or only the images for a fixed number of image examinations can be accessed at high speed. If it is transferred to a medium, the examination image that the doctor wants to reference may not be transferred, and in any case, the access time could not be shortened.

The present invention has been made in order to cope with the above-mentioned circumstances, and its purpose is to reduce the apparent read time of image data from an image storage device without imposing an excessive load on the system. An image archiving communication system is provided.

[0012]

A medical image archiving and communication system according to the present invention is a medical image archiving and communication system having a large-capacity low-speed storage device and a small-capacity high-speed storage device. It is characterized in that it is transferred from the low-speed storage device to the small-capacity high-speed storage device in advance.

Here, the images that are likely to be referred to are images of examinations that the doctor has not explained to the patient, images of examinations that the doctor has not referred to, images that the doctor has not explained to the patient. The image of the examination and the image of the examination with the same attributes as this examination, the image of the examination that the doctor has not referred to and the image of the examination with the same attributes as this examination, the examination marked by the doctor as an important examination Image, an image marked by a doctor as an important examination, an examination image including an image marked by a doctor as an important examination, an image of the latest past examination of each patient, and the like.

According to the medical image archiving and communication system of the present invention, since the examination images that are likely to be referred to by the doctor are transferred from the large capacity low speed storage device to the small capacity high speed storage device in advance, an extra load is imposed on the system. It is possible to apparently shorten the read time of the inspection image to be referred to without adding the time.

[0015]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A first embodiment of a medical image archiving communication system according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the first embodiment. This embodiment includes an image storage device 10, an image reference device 20, which are connected to each other via a network 30, and a monitor 40 connected to the image reference device 20.

The image storage device 10 has a large capacity low speed medium 14 for storing image data and a small capacity high speed medium 16 for storing patient data, examination data and incidental information of image data. The media 14 and 16 are connected to a bus line, and the control device 12 and the communication control device 18 are also connected to the bus line. The communication control device 18 is connected to the network 30.

An example of incidental information of patient data, examination data, and image data (hereinafter also referred to as image incidental data) is shown in Table 1.
~ Shown in Table 3. Here, it is assumed that the data is stored as a database table. Patient data is patient I
D, patient name, previous medical treatment date, examination data location (medium name, address), and examination data size. The inspection data is provided for each patient, and includes an inspection ID, a requesting department, an inspection date and time, a modality, a site, an inspection mark, a mark department, a mark doctor, a location of image supplementary data, and a size of image supplementary data. The image supplementary data is provided for each examination, and the image ID, the image part, the imaging direction, the imaging date and time, the image mark, the mark department,
Mark consists of doctor, image location (medium name, address), and image size.

[0018]

[Table 1]

[0019]

[Table 2]

[0020]

[Table 3] Further, the small-capacity high-speed medium 16 of the image storage device 10 also stores medical appointment information as shown in Table 4.

[0021]

[Table 4]

The image reference device 20 comprises a small-capacity high-speed medium 26 for storing various data, a control device 24, a communication control device 22, and a display control device 28, which are connected to each other via a bus line. The communication control device 22 is connected to the network 30, and the display control device 28 is connected to the monitor 40.
Connected to.

An optical disk, a magneto-optical disk or the like is used as the large capacity low speed storage medium 14, and a magnetic disk, a flash memory or the like is used as the small capacity high speed storage medium 16, 26.

Next, the operation of the first embodiment thus constructed will be described with reference to the flow chart shown in FIG. In this embodiment, by migrating or pre-transferring an image of an examination that has not been explained to the patient,
The access time is apparently shortened.

As shown in step S10, at a predetermined time every day, the migration or advance transfer program in the control device 12 in the image storage device 10 is started. It is preferable that the predetermined time is a time when the operating rate of the system is low in consideration of the load on the system.

In step S12, the control device 12 of the image storage device 10 reads out the medical treatment reservation information (Table 4) from the small-capacity high-speed medium 16, and the patient who has the medical treatment reservation on the next day (for example, today is May 14, 1991). In case of day, patient ID: 10
01, 1002) is searched and selected.

In step S14, the previous medical treatment date of the patient data (Table 1) of a selected patient is taken out, and it is examined whether or not there is an examination performed between the previous medical treatment date and the present medical treatment date (next day). Check by searching the inspection date and time of the data (Table 2). When the patient A is selected, as shown in Table 2, the examination (examination ID:
2000001) corresponds to this condition.

Such a search is performed for all the patients selected in step S12 (step S18), and the examination is specified. In step S20, the location of the image data is searched from the image supplementary data (Table 3) of these searched / specified examinations, and in step S22, the image data is copied to the small-capacity high-speed medium. The location of the image in Table 3 is OD #
“1” indicates that it is the first optical disc in the large-capacity low-speed medium 14. Copying to small capacity high speed media
This includes a case of migrating to the small-capacity high-speed medium 16 in the image storage device 10 and a case of pre-transferring to the small-capacity high-speed medium 26 in the image reference device 20.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the access time can be apparently shortened by migrating or pre-transferring an image of an examination that has not been explained to the patient.

Another embodiment of the medical image archiving communication system according to the present invention will be described below. The configuration of the other embodiments is the same as that of the first embodiment shown in FIG. 1, and therefore detailed description thereof will be omitted.

The second embodiment will explain an examination that has not been explained to a patient and a method of migrating or pre-transferring an image of an examination having the same attributes as this examination. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the second embodiment. Here, as the same attribute, for example, a test in which modalities match will be described. However, the attribute is not limited to this.

The procedure (up to step S16) until selecting an examination that has not been explained to the patient is the same as in the first embodiment described above. When these examinations are searched, the examination of the same modality (X-ray in this example) as this examination (examination ID: 200001) is searched for in the past examination of this patient in step S30. Inspection ID: 2000 here
Two tests, 002 and 200003, are relevant.

Then, similar to the first embodiment, such a search is performed for all the patients selected in step S12 (step S18), and the examination is specified. In step S20, the location of the image data is searched from the image supplementary data (Table 3) of these searched / specified examinations, and in step S22, the image data is transferred from the large-capacity low-speed medium 14 to the small area in the image storage device 10. Migration to the high-capacity high-speed medium 16 or pre-transfer to the small-capacity high-speed medium 26 in the image reference device 20.

According to the present embodiment, by performing the migration or the pre-transfer of the examination image which has not been explained to the patient and the examination image having the same attribute as this examination,
The access time can be apparently shortened.

Even if the item to be searched has another inspection attribute, for example, the inspection type, the site, the image capturing direction, or a combination condition thereof, the same procedure can be performed.

Next, referring to FIG. 4, as a third embodiment, an image of an examination that has not been referred to by a doctor (here, it is an examination newly registered in the image storage device 10) is migrated or The method of advance transfer will be described.

Registration of image data in the image storage device 10 is performed as follows when an image acquisition device (also referred to as a modality) such as an X-ray CT device or an X-ray image diagnostic device is connected to the network 30. To be done.

First, after the images are collected by the image collection device, they are transferred to the image storage device 10 in the form of digital data via the network 30 in step S40. In step S42, the image storage device 10 receives the image data through the communication control device 18 and writes it in the large capacity low speed medium 14.

Further, the control device 12 causes the step S44.
Then, the data of each item of patient data, examination data, and image supplementary data is registered as database information in the small-capacity high-speed medium 16.

When these registrations are completed, step S4
In step 6, the location of the image data of the registered data is searched, and in step S48, the data is migrated from the large capacity low speed medium 14 to the small capacity high speed medium 16 in the image storage device 10 or in the image reference device 20. Pre-transfer to the capacity high-speed medium 26.

According to the present embodiment, the access time can be apparently shortened by migrating or pre-transferring the images of the examination that the doctor has never referred to.

Although the image data is copied from the large-capacity low-speed medium to the small-capacity high-speed medium for each image unit here, when the end of the inspection is clearly notified by communication from the image collecting apparatus, the inspection is performed. Data may be copied in response to the end notification.

Next, with reference to FIG. 5, as a fourth embodiment, an examination that has not been referred to by a doctor and a method of migrating or pre-transferring images of an examination having the same attributes as this examination will be described. . Here, as the same attribute, for example, a test in which modalities match will be described. However, the attribute is not limited to this.

The procedure for registering the image data and copying the image data to the small-capacity high-speed medium (up to step S48) is the same as in the third embodiment. afterwards,
In step S50, the database for the inspection data of the small-capacity high-speed medium 16 in the image storage device 10 is searched using the information (inspection ID or the like) that identifies the inspection in the incidental information of the received image data, and the same inspection is performed. Search whether it is already registered. If it is determined by the search that there is no identical examination, it can be determined that the examination is newly registered, and in step S52, an examination other than the registered examination having the same attribute, that is, the same modality is searched. If there is an inspection that meets the conditions, the image location of the searched inspection is searched for in step S54, and the image data is migrated from the large capacity low-speed medium 14 to the small capacity high-speed medium 16 in the image storage device 10 in step S56. Alternatively, it is pre-transferred to the small-capacity high-speed medium 26 in the image reference device 20.

If it is determined in step S50 that the same inspection as the received image data already exists,
Do not search for past images. That is, it is determined that the past inspection having the same attribute has already been searched and the migration or the pre-transfer has been executed.

According to the present embodiment, an image that has not been referred to by a doctor and an image of an image having the same attribute as this image are migrated or transferred in advance,
The access time can be apparently shortened.

Even if the item to be searched has other inspection attributes, for example, the inspection type, the site, the image capturing direction, or the combination condition thereof, the same procedure can be performed.

Next, as a fifth embodiment, there is a method of migrating or pre-transferring images of an examination that has not been referred to by a doctor and the latest past examination having the same attributes as this examination, but this is the same. This is the same as the fourth embodiment except that only the latest past examination is selected from among the examinations retrieved as the past images having the attribute of and the migration or the pre-transfer is performed.

In the second to fifth embodiments, a doctor who has not explained to a patient and a test which the doctor has never referred to have the same attributes and are tests of the same requesting department. You may add things. Similarly, in the second to fifth embodiments, it is a test requested by the same doctor with the same attribute as a test that the doctor has not explained to the patient and a test that the doctor has not referred to. You may add things.

Next, with reference to FIG. 6, as a sixth embodiment, a method of migrating or pre-transferring an image of an examination marked by a doctor in advance will be described. Similar to the first embodiment, in step S10, at a predetermined time every day, the migration or advance transfer program in the control device 12 in the image storage device 10 is activated, and in step S12, the medical appointment is made the next day. Search for and select a patient.

In step S60, past examinations are searched for the selected patient, and the examination previously marked by the doctor is searched. Such a search is performed for all applicable patients (step S18) to identify the examination.

In step S20, the location of the image data is searched from the image supplementary data of these searched / specified examinations, and in step S22, the image data is migrated to the small-capacity high-speed medium 16 in the image storage device 10. Alternatively, it is pre-transferred to the small-capacity high-speed medium 26 in the image reference device 20.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the access time can be apparently shortened by migrating or pre-transferring the images of the examination marked by the doctor in advance.

In the above description, the doctor searched for the image of the examination marked in advance, but it is also possible to search for the image of the examination marked by the doctor or the image of the examination including the image marked by the doctor. Can be done in the same way.

Further, it is possible to search only the marks given by the doctor of the department to be treated, or to search only the marks given by the doctor to be treated. next,
As a seventh embodiment, a method of migrating or pre-transferring the latest past examination of a patient will be described with reference to FIG. 7.

Similar to the first embodiment, step S10
Then, at a predetermined time every day, the image storage device 10
The migration or advance transfer program in the control device 12 therein is activated, and in step S12, a patient having a medical treatment appointment on the next day is searched and selected.

In step S68, the past examination is searched for the selected patient, and the latest examination is searched. Such a search is performed for all applicable patients (step S
18), specify inspection.

In step S20, the location of the image data is searched from the image supplementary data of these searched / specified examinations, and in step S22, the image data is migrated to the small-capacity high-speed medium 16 in the image storage device 10. Alternatively, it is pre-transferred to the small-capacity high-speed medium 26 in the image reference device 20.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the access time can be apparently shortened by migrating or transferring in advance the latest past examination of a patient.

The latest past examination may be migrated or transferred in advance for each modality. An eighth embodiment realizing this is shown in FIG. Seventh Embodiment, Eighth
In the embodiment, it is also possible to limit the examinations to be migrated or transferred in advance to only the past examinations requested by the department to be treated, or only the past examinations requested from the doctor to be treated.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment,
Various modifications are possible. For example, even if the transfer destination from the image storage device is an image server provided in each department having a high-speed storage medium, and the image reference device reads data from the image server, the present invention is still possible. Applicable. Further, in the above description, the control is performed on the side of the image storage device 10, but the control device 12 of the image storage device 10 does not always perform the control.
It may be configured to be executed by the controller 24 in 0.
Further, it is possible to provide a control device other than the image storage device 10 and the image reference device 20 in the system and control the device.

The data necessary for inspection and image selection do not necessarily have to be stored in the image storage device 10.
(Hospital information system) and RIS (radiology department information system) have data, which can be realized by using the data of the system.

Also, an example of performing migration or pre-transfer using outpatient medical appointment information has been shown, but using this as hospitalization information, the planned medical treatment date is read as the planned hospitalization date, and migration or pre-transfer is performed. Is also possible.

[0064]

As described above, according to the present invention, since the inspection image data having a high probability of being referred by the doctor is moved to the high-speed medium, the access time for image reference can be apparently shortened, and the system can be realized. Provided is a medical image archiving communication system that reduces unnecessary load.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a first medical image archiving communication system according to the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of the first embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the second embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the third embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the operation of the fourth embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the operation of the sixth embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the operation of the seventh embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing the operation of the eighth embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 ... Image storage device 12 ... Control device 14 ... Large capacity low speed medium 16 ... Small capacity high speed medium 18 ... Communication control device 20 ... Image reference device 22 ... Communication control device 24 ... Control device 26 ... Small capacity high speed medium 28 ... Display control Device 30 ... Network 40 ... Monitor

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Ichiro Maeda 1385-1 Shimoishigami, Otawara-shi, Tochigi Prefecture Toshiba Medical Engineering Co., Ltd.

Claims (9)

[Claims] 1. In a medical image archiving communication system having a large capacity low speed storage device and a small capacity high speed storage device, an image that is highly likely to be referenced is transferred from the large capacity low speed storage device to the small capacity high speed storage device in advance. A medical image archiving communication system characterized by the following. 2. The medical image archiving and communication system according to claim 1, wherein the image that is highly likely to be referred to is an image of an examination that the doctor has not explained to the patient. 3. The medical image archiving and communication system according to claim 1, wherein the image that is highly likely to be referred to is an image of an examination that has not been referred to by a doctor. 4. The image that is highly likely to be referred to is an image of an examination that a doctor has not explained to a patient and an image of an examination that has the same attributes as this examination. The medical image archiving communication system according to. 5. The image that is highly likely to be referred to is an image of an examination that has not been referred to by a doctor and an image of an examination that has the same attributes as this examination.
The medical image archiving communication system according to. 6. The medical image archiving and communication system according to claim 1, wherein the image that is highly likely to be referred to is an image of an examination that a doctor has marked as an important examination. 7. The medical image archiving and communication system according to claim 1, wherein the image that is highly likely to be referred to is an image marked by a doctor as an important examination. 8. The medical image archiving and communication system according to claim 1, wherein the image that is highly likely to be referred to is an image of an examination including an image marked by a doctor as an important examination. 9. The medical image archiving and communication system according to claim 1, wherein the image that is highly likely to be referred to is an image of the latest past examination of each patient.