Medical Image Capture System and Method

Abstract

As patient video images are captured in a lab, they are converted into an uncompressed data set and stored locally on a hospital site server, where they are immediately viewable by diagnosticians in the hospital. The hospital site server generates a plurality of compressed data sets for use by the Internet Data Center. Additionally, the uncompressed data set and a plurality of compressed data sets are stored permanently on a centralized Internet Data Center, from which they can be searched out and displayed by any client device running web-browser software. A client is provided with immediate access to the uncompressed images when pausing and requesting the images of interest from the server. The patient video images are automatically delivered to any authorized Clinical Research Organizations, they are delivered back to the treating hospital when the patient returns for subsequent visits, and are viewable through in-hospital viewing stations over a private high-speed network.

1 . A system for processing and distributing patient data, comprising: 
 clinical research organizations performing different clinical trials;    a medical services site that includes a server for receiving the patient images of patients that are generated at the medical services site and storing the patient images, a review station for retrieving patient images from the server and displaying the patient images to a diagnostician, and a local network for transmitting the patient images between the review station and server, the patient images being tagged based on participation by the patients in the clinical trials of the clinical research organizations; and    an internet data center in communication with the server and receiving the patient images and any tag information for the patient images that are transmitted by the site over an internet communication network, the internet data center including a database server storing the patient images, the internet data center analyzing the tag information of the patient images and having the patient images with the tag information routed to the clinical research organizations identified by the tag information.    
     
     
         2 . A system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein a user of the hospital server tags the patient data with the tag information based on participation of the patients in the clinical trials being performed by the clinical research organizations.  
     
     
         3 . A system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the patient images include lossless data sent to the clinical research organizations.  
     
     
         4 . A system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the server sends the patient images to the clinical research organizations.  
     
     
         5 . A system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the internet data center sends the patient images to the clinical research organization.  
     
     
         6 . A system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the server and/or the database server store both lossless patient images and images that have been compressed using a lossy compression.  
     
     
         7 . A system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the patient images are video images generated in a cardiac catheterization lab by a catheterization camera.  
     
     
         8 . A system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the patient images are video images generated in a catheterization lab by an x-ray angioplasty machine.  
     
     
         9 . A system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the internet data center compares the tag information with a table identifying ownership of the tags with respect to the clinical research organizations and causes the routing of the patient images among the clinical research organizations based on the table.  
     
     
         10 . A method for displaying a compressed multi-media file and retrieving lossless frames of interest, comprising: 
 displaying a compressed multi-media file in a viewer that has been compressed using a lossy compression process;    detecting when a selected frame of video in the viewer has been selected by a diagnostician;    retrieving a plurality of lossless video frames immediately before and immediately after the selected frame, the lossless video frames having been stored without loss of resolution;    storing the retrieved plurality of lossless video frames in a new video file; and    displaying the plurality of lossless video frames stored in the new file.    
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 10 , wherein the compressed multi-media file is an MPEG encoded file.  
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 10 , wherein the lossless video frames are retrieved from a Digital Imaging and Communications in medicine (DICOM) file.  
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 10 , wherein the plurality of lossless video frames is 5 to 10 video frames.  
     
     
         14 . A method for displaying a multi-media file to a client computer comprising: 
 calculating a client's effective bandwidth;    determining how many frames of a multi-media file must be skipped in order to render the entire file without waiting for a subsequent frame to download based on the calculated bandwidth;    reordering frames of said multi-media file such that the file is downloaded sequentially; and    delivering the frames and repeatedly displaying said file while inserting skipped frames as received by the client computer until all frames of the file are downloaded and displayed.    
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the multi-media file is a video file.  
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the frames are reordered so that 5 to 10 frames of video are skipped until the end of the multi-media file is reached.  
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the frames are reordered so that they are out of sequence in comparison to the originally captured video sequence.  
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 14 , further including the following steps: 
 displaying a compressed multi-media file in a viewer;    detecting when a selected frame of video has been selected;    retrieving a plurality of uncompressed video frames immediately before and immediately after the selected frame; and    displaying the plurality of uncompressed video frames.    
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 18 , including, after the retrieving step, storing the retrieved plurality of uncompressed video frames in a new video file; and displaying the plurality of uncompressed video frames stored in the new file.  
     
     
         20 . A method for processing patient diagnostic images, comprising: 
 collecting the patient diagnostic images at a medical services site;    transporting the patient diagnostic images over a local network for the medical services site to a server system for the medical services site;    storing the patient diagnostic images on the server system;    transporting the patient diagnostic images to a review station at the medical services site over the local network;    displaying the patient diagnostic images on the review station for a diagnostician;    transporting the patient diagnostic images to a data center in communication with the server system over an internet communication network;    storing the patient diagnostic images at the data center that comprises a backup data system and at least one digital computer configured as a multi-media server; and    sending the patient diagnostic images over the internet communication network when requested at other medical services sites in response to a corresponding patient returning to the medical services site.    
     
     
         21 . A method as claimed in  claim 19 , wherein the step of collecting the patient diagnostic images comprises receiving the patient images from an x-ray angioplasty machine.  
     
     
         22 . A method as claimed in  claim 20 , wherein the step of collecting the patient diagnostic images comprises receiving the patient images from a magnetic resonance imaging machine.  
     
     
         23 . A method as claimed in  claim 20 , wherein the step of collecting the patient diagnostic images comprises receiving the patient images from a computed tomography machine.  
     
     
         24 . A method for presenting patient video image data to a diagnostician, the method comprising: 
 displaying the patient video image data, which have been compressed using a lossy compression process, to the diagnostician in a viewer;    enabling the diagnostician to select frames of the patient video image data;    retrieving losslessly stored video frames of the patient video data immediately before and/or immediately after the selected frames and transmitting the video frames to the viewer;    displaying the losslessly stored video frames for the diagnostician.    
     
     
         25 . The method of  claim 24 , wherein the step of enabling the diagnostician to select the frames comprises enabling the diagnostician to stop the patient video data at a frame.  
     
     
         26 . The method of  claim 24 , wherein the step of retrieving and transmitting video frames comprises transmitting 5 to 10 frames of the patient video data immediately before and immediately after the selected frames.  
     
     
         27 . A method for processing and distributing patient video data, comprising: 
 clinical research organizations performing different clinical trials;    receiving the patient images of patients that are generated at a medical services site and storing the patient images,    retrieving patient images and displaying the patient images to a diagnostician,    tagging the patient video images based on participation by the patients in clinical trials of clinical research organizations; and    transporting the patient images and any tag information to an internet data center; and    the internet data center analyzing the tag information of the patient images and having the patient images with the tag information routed to the clinical research organizations identified by the tag information.    
     
     
         28 . A method as claimed in  claim 27 , further comprising a user tagging the patient data with the tag information based on participation of the patients in the clinical trials being performed by the clinical research organizations.  
     
     
         29 . A method as claimed in  claim 27 , wherein a server at the medical services site sends the patient images to the clinical research organizations.  
     
     
         30 . A method as claimed in  claim 27 , wherein the internet data center sends the patient images to the clinical research organization.  
     
     
         31 . A method as claimed in  claim 27 , wherein the patient images are generated in a cardiac catheterization lab by a catheterization camera.  
     
     
         32 . A method as claimed in  claim 27 , wherein the patient images are generated in a catheterization lab by an x-ray angioplasty machine.  
     
     
         33 . A method as claimed in  claim 27 , further comprising the internet data center comparing the tag information with a table identifying ownership of the tags with respect to the clinical research organizations and causing the routing of the patient images among the clinical research organizations based on the table.