Virtual worklist for analyzing medical images

1. A method for automating and managing workflow for healthcare data retrieval, display, and analysis on a healthcare enterprise network and providing interoperability between nodes of the healthcare enterprise network, the method comprising:

receiving a study order for a patient from a first workstation of an imaging system on the healthcare enterprise network, wherein the study order contains data associated with at least one study image;

storing the study order in a master worklist on a network server as an uncompleted study order;

collecting and organizing network locations of data related to a patient in an enterprise-wide database using interrelated data structures in a computer memory to store the data related to the patient so that programmed rules provided to a workflow manager can test the contents of the various fields of the data structures to determine the destination of a study order in the worklist;

testing the contents of the various fields of the data structures to determine the destination group of a study order;

applying a workflow routing rule to the data associated with the at least one study image contained in the study order to route the workflow to the destination group, wherein the workflow routing rule depends on at least one of a criticality of the study order, image modality, and a body part in the at least one study image, the routing rules are implemented in modifiable, enterprise-specific, locally-defined tables that are utilized to automatically route patient studies based on an imaging modality of the study order, the routing rules comprise conditional rules that depend upon on loads and responsiveness of destinations to facilitate balancing routing workloads;

adding the study order to a first filtered worklist which is specific to the destination group;

acquiring study order related data from the nodes of the healthcare enterprise network including any available historical studies, patient records, and reports related to the study order, wherein sets of the study order related data have differing formats;

manipulating file characteristics of the data including compiling the data from a variety of differing formats on a number of workstations into a common format, to render the data accessible by a workstation of the destination group to provide interoperability between the nodes of the healthcare enterprise network;

storing a primary study, the historical studies, the patient records, and the reports related to study order in a designated memory associated with the destination group;

displaying the first filtered worklist on the second workstation in use by a logged-in diagnostician who is a member of the destination group;

making accessible to the second workstation an image of the primary study of the patient associated with the study order, and the historical studies, the patient records, and the reports;

accepting a claim of the study order from the logged in diagnostician;

preventing the claimed study order from being claimed by any other diagnostician;

receiving a report created by the logged-in diagnostician;

routing the report, in accordance with the modifiable, enterprise-specific, locally-defined tables, to a designated repository while the study order is claimed by the logged-in diagnostician;

removing the study order from the first filtered worklist from any other filtered worklist on which the study order appears;

sending an indication to the first workstation that the study order has been completed;

marking the study order in the master worklist as complete;

updating historical diagnostic throughput information based on a measured diagnostic throughput of the study, wherein the measured diagnostic throughput comprises an elapsed amount of time or expense between receiving the study order and marking the study order as complete; and

adjusting the workflow routing rule base on the updated historical diagnostic throughput information.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first workstation and the second workstation are the same.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: accepting a cancellation of the claim of the study order from the logged in diagnostician; and indicating that the study order may be claimed by another member of the destination group when the logged-in diagnostician cancels the claim on the study order.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: synchronizing study orders on workstations connected to the healthcare enterprise network, study orders included in the master worklist, and study orders included in the first filtered worklist.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein preventing the claimed study order from being claimed by any other diagnostician is accomplished by removing the claimed study order from every filtered worklist in which the claimed study order appears.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising maintaining a status of the study order in the master worklist such that the study order can be claimed by only one diagnostician at a time.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the destination group is a group of one or more physicians.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the study order is in a DICOM modality worklist.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: detecting a new study order received somewhere on the healthcare enterprise network; and adding the new study order to the master worklist.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising sorting a sequence of the study orders of the filtered worklist displayed on the second workstation.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising storing an elapsed time between when the study order is claimed and when the report is received.

12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising pre-fetching diagnostic images from DICOM archives.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the workflow routing rule further depends on at least one of a name of a referring physician of a diagnostic image, a name of a diagnostic physician, a patient location, a patient insurance carrier, a time range, a date range, and specific days of the week.

14. The method of claim 2 , further comprising automatically translating patient images and demographic data from a first diagnostic image format to a second diagnostic image format.

15. The method of claim 3 , wherein indicating that the study order may be claimed is achieved by including the study order in the first filtered worklist.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein marking the study order in the master worklist as complete is achieved by removing the study order from the master worklist.

17. An apparatus comprising:

an interoperable network providing communication among an imaging system a first workstation, and a second workstation; and

a computer readable memory having stored thereon workflow manager software which causes a processor on the network to perform;

receiving a study order for a patient from the first workstation of the imaging system on the healthcare enterprise network, wherein the study order contains data associated with at least one study image;

storing the study order in a master worklist on a network server as an uncompleted study order;

collecting and organizing network locations of data related to a patient in an enterprise-wide database using interrelated data structures in a computer memory to store the data related to the patient so that programmed rules provided to a workflow manager can test the contents of the various fields of the data structures to determine the destination of a study order in the worklist;

testing the contents of the various fields of the data structures to determine the destination group of a study order;

applying a workflow routing rule to the data associated with the at least one study image contained in the study order to route the workflow to the destination group, wherein the workflow routing rule depends on at least one of a criticality of the study order, image modality, and a body part in the at least one study image, the routing rules are implemented in modifiable, enterprise-specific, locally-defined tables that are utilized to automatically route patient studies based on an imaging modality of the study order, the routing rules comprise conditional rules that depend upon on loads and responsiveness of destinations to facilitate balancing routing workloads;

adding the study order to a first filtered worklist which is specific to the destination group;

acquiring study order related data from nodes of the healthcare enterprise network including any available historical studies, patient records, and reports related to the study order, wherein sets of the study order related data have differing formats;

manipulating file characteristics of the data including compiling the data from a variety of differing formats on a number of workstations into a common format, to render the data accessible by a workstation of the destination group to provide interoperability between the nodes of the healthcare enterprise network;

storing a primary study, the historical studies, the patient records, and the reports related to study order in a designated memory associated with the destination group;

displaying the first filtered worklist on the second workstation in use by a logged-in diagnostician who is a member of the destination group;

making accessible to the second workstation an image of the primary study of the patient associated with the study order, and the historical studies, the patient records, and the reports;

accepting a claim of the study order from the logged in diagnostician;

preventing the claimed study order from being claimed by any other diagnostician;

receiving a report created by the logged-in diagnostician;

routing the report, in accordance with the modifiable, enterprise-specific, locally-defined tables, to a designated repository while the study order is claimed by the logged-in diagnostician;

removing the study order from the first filtered worklist from any other filtered worklist on which the study order appears;

sending an indication to the first workstation that the study order has been completed;

marking the study order in the master worklist as complete;

updating historical diagnostic throughput information based on a measured diagnostic throughput of the study, wherein the measured diagnostic throughput comprises an elapsed amount of time or expense between receiving the study order and marking the study order as complete; and

adjusting the workflow routing rule base on the updated historical diagnostic throughput information.

18. The system of claim 17 , wherein the workflow manager software further causes a processor on the network to accept a cancellation of the claim of the study order from the logged in diagnostician and indicate that the study order may be claimed by another member of the destination group when the logged-in diagnostician cancels the claim on the study order.

19. The system of claim 17 , wherein the workflow manager software causes a processor on the network to synchronize study orders in the master worklist, study orders in the filtered worklist, and study orders in the imaging system.

20. The system of claim 17 , wherein the workflow manager software causes a processor on the network to maintain status of the study order in the master worklist so that the study order can be claimed by only one diagnostician at a time.

21. The system of claim 17 , wherein the workflow manager software causes a processor on the network to make accessible to the workstation the image of the primary study before the logged-in diagnostician claims the study order.

22. The system of claim 17 , wherein the workflow manager software causes a processor on the network to display the filtered worklist and route the report while the diagnostician is logged-in.

23. The system of claim 17 , wherein the workflow manager software causes a processor on the network to respond to a new patient image generated by the imaging system on the network and update the master worklist with a new study order to which the new patient image is related.

24. The system of claim 17 , wherein the workflow manager software causes a processor on the network to detect an origination of a new study order on the network and update the master worklist with the new study order.

25. The system of claim 17 , wherein the workflow manager software causes a processor on the network to modify the routing rule.

26. The system of claim 17 , wherein the workflow manager software causes the workstation to sort a plurality of study orders in the filtered worklist.

27. The system of claim 17 , wherein the workflow manager software causes a processor on the network to balance the distribution of study orders among a plurality of destination groups.

28. The system of claim 17 , wherein the workflow manager software further causes a processor on the network to load the workstation with diagnostic images stored in DICOM archives.

29. A tangible, non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions for automating and managing workflow for medical image retrieval, display, and analysis on a healthcare enterprise network and providing interoperability between nodes of the healthcare enterprise network, the computer executable instructions configured to cause a plurality of components of the network to perform operations comprising:

receiving a study order for a patient from a first workstation of an imaging system, on the healthcare enterprise network, wherein the study order contains data associated with at least one study image;

storing the study order in a master worklist on a network server as an uncompleted study order;

collecting and organizing network locations of data related to a patient in an enterprise-wide database using interrelated data structures in a computer memory to store the data related to the patient so that programmed rules provided to a workflow manager can test the contents of the various fields of the data structures to determine the destination of a study order in the worklist;

testing the contents of the various fields of the data structures to determine the destination group of a study order;

applying a workflow routing rule to the data associated with the at least one study image contained in the study order to route the workflow to the destination group, wherein the workflow routing rule depends on at least one of a criticality of the study order, image modality, and a body part in the at least one study image, the routing rules are implemented in modifiable, enterprise-specific, locally-defined tables that are utilized to automatically route patient studies based on an imaging modality of the study order, the routing rules comprise conditional rules that depend upon on loads and responsiveness of destinations to facilitate balancing routing workloads;

adding the study order to a first filtered worklist which is specific to the destination group;

acquiring study order related data from the nodes of the healthcare enterprise network including any available historical studies, patient records, and reports related to the study order, wherein sets of the study order related data have differing formats;

manipulating file characteristics of the data including compiling the data from a variety of differing formats on a number of workstations into a common format, to render the data accessible by a workstation of the destination group to provide interoperability between the nodes of the healthcare enterprise network;

storing a primary study, the historical studies, the patient records, and the reports related to study order in a designated memory associated with the destination group;

displaying the first filtered worklist on a second workstation in use by a logged-in diagnostician who is a member of the destination group;

making accessible to the second workstation an image of the primary study of the patient associated with the study order, and the historical studies, the patient records, and the reports;

accepting a claim of the study order from the logged in diagnostician;

preventing the claimed study order from being claimed by any other diagnostician;

receiving a report created by the logged-in diagnostician;

routing the report, in accordance with the modifiable, enterprise-specific, locally-defined tables, to a designated repository while the study order is claimed by the logged-in diagnostician;

removing the study order from the first filtered worklist from any other filtered worklist on which the study order appears;

sending an indication to the first workstation that the study order has been completed;

marking the study order in the master worklist as complete updating historical diagnostic throughput information based on a measured diagnostic throughput of the study, wherein the measured diagnostic throughput comprises an elapsed amount of time or expense between receiving the study order and marking the study order as complete; and

adjusting the workflow routing rule base on the updated historical diagnostic throughput information.

30. The tangible, non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 29 , wherein the stored computer executable instructions are configured to cause a processor to perform operations further comprising:

accepting a cancellation of the claim of the study order from the logged in diagnostician; and

indicating that the study order may be claimed by another member of the destination group when the logged-in diagnostician cancels the claim on the study order.

31. The tangible, non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 29 , wherein the stored computer executable instructions are configured to cause a processor to perform operations further comprising:

synchronizing study orders on workstations connected to the network, study orders included in the master worklist, and study orders included in the filtered worklist.

32. The tangible, non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 29 , wherein the stored computer executable instructions are configured to cause a processor to perform operations further comprising:

removing the claimed study order from all filtered worklist in which the claimed study order appears.

33. The tangible, non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 29 , wherein the stored computer executable instructions are configured to cause a processor to perform operations further comprising:

maintaining a status of the study order in the master worklist such that the study order can be claimed by only one diagnostician at a time.

34. The tangible, non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 29 , wherein the stored computer executable instructions are configured to cause a processor to perform operations further comprising:

detecting a new study order received somewhere on the healthcare enterprise network; and add the new study order to the master worklist.

35. The tangible, non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 29 , wherein the computer executable instructions are configured to cause a processor to perform operations further comprising:

sorting a sequence of the study orders of the filtered worklist displayed on the second workstation.

36. The tangible, non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 29 , wherein the computer executable instructions are configured to cause a processor to perform operations further comprising

storing an elapsed time between when the study order is claimed and when the report is received.

37. The tangible, non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 29 , wherein the computer executable instructions are configured to cause a processor to perform operations further comprising

pre-fetching diagnostic images from DICOM archives.

38. The tangible, non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 29 , wherein the computer executable instructions are configured to cause a processor to perform operations further comprising:

automatically translating patient images and demographic data from a first diagnostic image format to a second diagnostic image format.