JP2001290880A - Medical server system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a medical server system which can control and retrieve medical data on patients decentralized to plural servers without using a control server. SOLUTION: The medical server system comprises the medical servers which store electronic medical data, a terminal device, and an information network which connect the both together; and each medical server is equipped with an information managing means which sends an answer to an inquiry sent from the terminal device back to the terminal device and transfers the inquiry to other medical servers, and sends answers to it from other medical servers to the terminal device.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a medical server system for managing medical electronic data such as medical finding data and medical image data, and more particularly, to general management of a plurality of medical servers connected to an information network. The present invention relates to a medical server system capable of performing the following.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, in medical practice, images obtained by an X-ray apparatus, CT, or MR apparatus (hereinafter referred to as a modality apparatus) are replaced with a film such as an X-ray or the like, instead of DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communicatio).
(ns in Medicine) standard and the like, and stored as medical image data in an X-ray image server, a CT image server, or the like.

[0003] In addition, a finding report, which describes a doctor's findings regarding an examination performed on a patient, has also been converted into electronic data as finding data, and has been stored in a finding server.

[0004] These medical servers are connected by an information network, and are capable of searching for and displaying electronic data of a target patient on a screen of a terminal device.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing an example of such a conventional medical server system. In FIG. 1, a terminal device 10, a finding server 20, an X-ray image server 30, and a CT image server 40 are connected via an information network L such as an intranet.

In the medical server system having such a configuration, when the user wants to refer to the finding data of a certain patient, a search screen provided in the finding server 20 is called on the screen of the terminal device 10, and the patient's patient number and the like are displayed. The finding data in the finding server 20 is searched using the patient information such as the patient name as a key, and the finding data of the target patient is displayed.

Similarly, when the user wants to refer to the X-ray image data of a certain patient, the user calls up a search screen provided in the X-ray image server 30 on the screen of the terminal device 10 and uses the X-ray image server 30 as a key with the patient information as a key. The X-ray image data in the target is searched to display the X-ray image data of the target patient.

Further, in the medical server system having such a configuration, when a patient has undergone a plurality of examinations such as an X-ray examination and a CT examination, it is necessary to repeat the same search operation for the number of examinations, which makes the operation complicated. Therefore, there is also a medical server system including an integrated server capable of centrally managing a plurality of medical servers.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing an example of a medical server system provided with an integrated server 50.

In the medical server system shown in FIG. 1, when the user wants to refer to the finding data of a certain patient, the user calls a search screen of the central server 50 on the screen of the terminal device 10 and inputs the patient information of the patient.

The central server 50 transfers the patient information input to the search screen to each server connected to the information network L, collects the responses returned from each server, and returns them to the terminal device 10.

As described above, in the conventional medical server system, by using the general server, it is possible to collectively search the medical data of the patients distributed to the plurality of servers.

[0013]

However, the conventional medical server system has a problem that the search request from the terminal device and the response from each server are concentrated on the central server, so that the load is concentrated on the central server. .

In a conventional medical server system,
Since an integrated server capable of high-speed data processing is required, there has been a problem that the cost of the medical server system is increased.

Furthermore, if the central server fails, it becomes impossible to perform a general search for the patient's medical data distributed to a plurality of medical servers. Therefore, as in the medical server system shown in FIG. There is a problem that the medical data of the server must be searched, and the operation becomes complicated.

The present invention solves the above problems,
An object of the present invention is to provide a medical server system that can collectively search medical data of patients distributed to a plurality of servers without using a general server.

[0017]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a medical device comprising a plurality of medical servers for storing medical electronic data, a terminal device, and an information network connecting the two. In the medical server system, the medical server returns a response to the inquiry transmitted from the terminal device to the terminal device, transfers the inquiry to another medical server, and responds to the response from the other medical server. And information management means for sending a reply to the terminal device.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, the medical server has at least a network address of the other medical server and an operation whether or not the medical server is operating. The server management information including the status is stored.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, the information management means refers to the server management information and transfers the inquiry only to the operating medical server. It is characterized by having such a configuration.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the invention, when the operating state of the own server changes, the information management means transfers the operating state of the own server to another medical server. It is characterized by having such a configuration.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, each of the server management information stored in the plurality of medical servers is used when a new medical server is connected to the information network. Alternatively, the medical server is configured to be updated when an existing medical server is removed from the information network.

[0022]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing one embodiment of a medical server system according to the present invention.

8 differs from the conventional example described with reference to FIG. 8 in that the general server is eliminated and the server management information of the other medical servers connected to the information network L is stored in each of the medical servers 20 to 40. In response to the inquiry transmitted from the terminal device 10 based on this information, the response is returned to the terminal device 10, the inquiry is transferred to another medical server, and the response from the other medical server is The point is that information management means 21 to 41 for replying to the device 10 are provided. The other configurations are the same as those of the conventional example, and thus the same reference numerals are given and the description thereof is omitted.

Each of the information management means 21 to 41 stores the network address and port number of another medical server connected to the information network L, and the operating status of whether each medical server is operating. Have been.

The information stored in each of the information management means 21 to 41 is, for example, the network address (generally an IP address) of each server shown in FIG. 1, and the finding server 20 10.0.114.128 X-ray image Server 30 10.0.114.129 CT image server 40 10.0.114.130, port number of each server is 4002, and operating status of each server is expressed as "1" when operating normally, and "0" when stopped. In this case, the result is as shown in FIG.

If the CT image server 40 is stopped, the operation states stored in each medical server are as shown in FIG.

The operation of the medical server system of the present invention configured as described above will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a medical server system according to the present invention.
2 shows a flow of operation in the case where the medical data of the target patient distributed in the general search is collectively searched.

First, the terminal device 10 transmits a request for searching for a target patient to one of the medical servers. (ST1)

The server that has received the search request searches the medical data of its own server, and transmits the search result to the transmission source of the search request. (ST2)

It is determined whether the source of the search request is another medical server or a terminal device. At this time, when the transmission source of the search request is another medical server, the process ends, and when it is a terminal device, the process proceeds to ST4. (ST
3)

One server information is extracted from the server management information stored in the information management means. (ST
4)

From the server information extracted in ST4,
Refer to the operation status. At this time, if the server is operating, the process proceeds to ST5, and if the server is stopped, the process proceeds to ST10. (ST5)

The search request is transferred to the medical server of the server information extracted in ST4. (ST6)

The process waits for a response from the medical server to which the search request has been transferred. If there is a response, the process proceeds to ST8; otherwise, the process proceeds to ST9. (ST7)

The response (search result) from the medical server that has transferred the search request is transmitted to the terminal device. After the transmission of the response is completed, the process proceeds to ST10. (ST8)

The server management information of the medical server to which the search request has been transferred is updated to “stopped”. (ST9)

The next server information is extracted from the server management information stored in the information management means, and the process proceeds to ST4. At this time, if there is no next server information, the process ends. (ST10)

FIG. 5 is an operation conceptual diagram of the medical server system of the present invention described above. In the figure, for example, when the user sends a search request for a certain patient from the terminal device 11 to the X-ray image server 30, the X-ray image server 30 searches for X-ray image data in the server itself and sends the search result to the At the same time, the search request is transmitted from the terminal device 11 to the finding server 20 and the CT image server 40.

After that, the X-ray image server 30
The search results transmitted from the finding server 20 and the CT image server 40 are transmitted to the terminal device 11.

As described above, in the medical server system of the present invention, the server management information of another medical server is stored in each medical server, and the search request is sequentially transferred by using the server management information. Without this, it is possible to collectively search the medical data of patients distributed on a plurality of servers.

The server management information stored in each medical server is automatically updated, for example, according to the procedure of the flowchart shown in FIG.

When the medical server is started or stopped (when the shutdown processing is performed), the start notification information or the stop notification information and the server management of its own server are transmitted to all the other medical servers. Submit information. (ST
1)

A medical server other than the medical server started or stopped in ST1 receives the information transmitted in ST1. (ST2)

The medical server receiving the above information in ST2 determines whether the received server management information is a medical server already registered in the server management information of its own server, and is already registered. If it is a medical server, the process proceeds to ST4, and if it is an unregistered medical server, the process proceeds to ST5. (ST3)

The operating state registered in the server management information of the own server is updated according to the received start notification information or stop notification information and the server management information. (ST4)

According to the operation state of the received server management information, the notification source medical server is newly registered in the server management information of the own server. (ST5)

In the medical server system of the present invention, the server management information stored in each medical server can be automatically updated in this way.

In the above description, an example of the medical server system in which the server management information is updated at the timing when the medical server is started or stopped has been described. The server management information transmission request may be transmitted at regular intervals, and as a result, the server management information may be updated based on the returned information.

It should be noted that the foregoing description has been directed to specific preferred embodiments for the purpose of illustration and illustration of the invention. Therefore, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and includes many more modifications without departing from the spirit thereof.
This includes deformation.

[0051]

As is apparent from the above description,
According to the first and second aspects of the present invention, the user can obtain the search results of all the medical servers connected to the information network regardless of which medical server makes a search request. It is possible to perform a general search without being conscious.

Further, according to the present invention, since a general server capable of high-speed data processing is not required for performing the general search, a medical server system can be realized at low cost and a search request from the terminal device can be obtained. The response from each server is not concentrated on a specific server, so that the load on each medical server can be distributed.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, even when an individual medical server is stopped, no inquiry is made to the stopped medical server. Becomes possible.

According to the fourth and fifth aspects of the present invention, when the server management information of the own server changes, the operating state of the own server is transferred to another server. When adding a new medical server to a medical server system, the new medical server can be added to the medical server system without performing any special operation.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing one embodiment of a medical server system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing server management information of the medical server system according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing server management information of the medical server system according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an operation conceptual diagram of the medical server system according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of updating server management information.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of a conventional medical server system.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of a conventional medical server system.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Terminal device 20 Finding server 30 X-ray image server 40 CT image server 21, 31, 41 Server management information L Information network

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A medical server system comprising a plurality of medical servers storing medical electronic data, a terminal device, and an information network connecting the terminal devices, wherein the medical server sends a response to an inquiry transmitted from the terminal device to the medical server. Reply to the terminal device,
A medical server system comprising information management means for transferring the inquiry to another medical server and returning a response from the other medical server to the terminal device. 2. The medical server according to claim 1, wherein said medical server stores at least a network address of said another medical server and server management information including an operation state of whether said medical server is operating or not. 2. The medical server system according to 1. 3. The information management device according to claim 1, wherein the information management means refers to the server management information and transfers the inquiry only to the operating medical server. Medical server system. 4. The information management means according to claim 1, wherein said information management means is configured to transfer the operation state of the server to another medical server when the operation state of the server changes. Medical server system. 5. The server management information stored in each of the plurality of medical servers, when a new medical server is connected to the information network, or when an existing medical server is removed from the information network. The medical server system according to claim 1, wherein the medical server system is configured to be updated at any time.