Medical Study Image Retrieval Prioritization for Low-Latency Viewing
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Solution Overview
Problem
The latency issues experienced when viewing large medical studies, such as CT scans, over high-speed internet connections due to the large size and number of high-resolution images, result in a poor user experience.
Innovation Solution
A cloud-based system with an aggregator and retriever that prioritizes the processing of image requests based on object type, importance, and metadata, routing high-priority objects through high-cost/high-performance paths and low-priority objects through low-cost/low-performance paths, using a client-side webserver adapter to manage local storage and remote retrieval.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If medical studies are stored and transmitted over the network, then accessibility and convenience are improved, but latency and user experience deteriorate due to large file sizes
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the medical study data into multiple image series and individual images, allowing selective retrieval and prioritized processing of different image groups based on clinical importance, thereby reducing overall transmission latency while maintaining accessibility
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-tagging and categorizing images by importance levels during study ingestion, enabling rapid prioritization and selective retrieval of critical images without transmitting the entire study, thus reducing latency while preserving accessibility
2Loss of information
If all images are transmitted with equal priority, then completeness is improved, but transmission time and network resource usage worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by assigning different transmission priorities and quality levels to different images within the same study based on their clinical importance, allowing critical images to be transmitted first with high quality while less critical images are transmitted later or with reduced quality, thus reducing overall transmission time while maintaining information completeness
3Speed
If high-performance processing paths are used for all objects, then processing speed is improved, but cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system changes the performance parameter of the processing path dynamically based on image priority, routing high-priority images through high-performance (high-cost) paths and low-priority images through standard-performance (lower-cost) paths, thus optimizing the balance between processing speed and cost
Data Source
AI summary
In order to improve the transfer of studies to a viewing application through a network, a cloud-based system is provided that optimizes the performance of imaging workflows. A client side application receives requests from an image viewing application. If the study is stored locally, the study including objects, are provided to the viewing application locally. Otherwise, the request is provided to the cloud-based system. The cloud-based system may include two processing components, an aggregator, and a retriever. The aggregator may collect the metadata about the study and may provide the metadata to the viewing application. The aggregator receives request for objects (e.g. images) from the viewing application and may priority the retrieval and processing of the requests based on information about the object such as its type, importance, and the metadata associated with the study.