Computer-implemented method for mapping a scan protocol for scanning a patient to a standardized scan protocol

1 . A computer-implemented method, the method comprising:

receiving a scan protocol, wherein the scan protocol comprises protocol information pertaining to a set of imaging parameters for imaging a patient;

extracting at least one textual protocol parameter from the received scan protocol;

generating a combined dataset based on the extracted textual protocol parameters;

determining at least one keyword score, the determining the at least one keyword score includes applying a keyword scoring algorithm to the combined dataset to determine the at least one keyword score;

determining a selected standardized scan protocol based on the at least one keyword score, the determining the selected standardized scan protocol includes selecting the selected standardized scan protocol of a plurality of standardized scan protocols;

mapping the scan protocol to the selected standardized scan protocol;

providing the mapping of the scan protocol to the selected standardized scan protocol; and

determining at least one protocol attribute for the received scan protocol based on the at least one extracted textual protocol parameter, wherein,

the at least one determined protocol attribute pertains to a clinical intent of the received scan protocol,

the at least one determined protocol attribute is one of a plurality of protocol attributes which are stored in a first database,

the first database comprises the plurality of standardized scan protocols, each of the standardized scan protocols is associated with at least one of the plurality of protocol attributes, the plurality of protocol attributes represent a clinical intent of the associated standardized scan protocol, and

the generating generates the combined dataset based on the determined at least one protocol attribute.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the extracting extracts at least one of a protocol name, an anatomical region, a high-level category description, a scan mode, a scanner model, a protocol customization information or a scan time as the extracted textual protocol parameter.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining the at least one keyword score is based on a weighting of at least one of the extracted textual protocol parameters or the protocol attributes, wherein at least one of extracted textual protocol parameters or protocol attributes pertaining to at least one of a body region or anatomical information are weighted highest.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining at least one keyword score determines a similarity measure as at least one of the keyword scores based on at least one of the combined dataset or the first database.

5 . The method of claim 4 , the determining the at least one keyword score determines a part score as a similarity measure based on a textual intersection between the combined dataset and standardized scan protocols of the first database.

6 . The method of claim 4 , wherein the determining the selected standardized scan protocol comprises a score sorting of at least one of the keyword score or the similarity measure, wherein the standardized scan protocol related to a highest keyword score or similarity measure is selected as the standardized scan protocol.

7 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

determining if the received scan protocol is a single step or a multistep scan protocol, wherein the received scan protocol is split into split scan protocols if the received scan protocol is a multistep multiregion scan protocol, and

the extracting at least one textual protocol parameter is based on the split scan protocols.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the generating the combined dataset comprises,

checking at least one of the extracted textual protocol parameters or the protocol attributes for at least one of spelling mistakes or abbreviations, wherein the at least one of the spelling mistakes or the abbreviations are corrected in the at least one of the extracted textual protocol parameters or the protocol attributes.

9 . An apparatus for mapping a scan protocol to a standardized scan protocol, the apparatus comprising:

at least one processing unit; and

a memory communicatively coupled to the at least one processing unit, the memory comprising a protocol mapping module configured to cause the apparatus to perform the method of claim 1 when executed by the at least one processing unit.

10 . A system for mapping a scan protocol to a standardized scan protocol, the system comprising:

a first database comprising a plurality of standardized scan protocols; and

the apparatus of claim 9 .

11 . A computer program product comprising machine readable instructions, that when executed by a processing unit of a system, cause the system to perform the method of claim 1 .

12 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the extracting extracts at least one of a protocol name, an anatomical region, a high-level category description, a scan mode, a scanner model, a protocol customization information or a scan time as the extracted textual protocol parameter.