Bridging the Text-Image Gap: a Decision Support Tool for Real-Time PACS Browsing

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce an ontology-based technology that bridges the gap between MR images on the one hand and knowledge sources on the other hand. The proposed technology allows the user to express interest in a body region by selecting this region on the MR image he or she is viewing with a mouse device. The proposed technology infers the intended body structure from the manual selection and searches the external knowledge source for pertinent information. This technology can be used to bridge the gap between image data in the clinical workflow and (external) knowledge sources that help to assess the case with increased certainty, accuracy, and efficiency. We evaluate an instance of the proposed technology in the neurodomain by means of a user study in which three neuroradiologists participated. The user study shows that the technology has high recall (>95%) when it comes to inferring the intended brain region from the participant's manual selection. We are confident that this helps to increase the experience of browsing external knowledge sources.

Automated identification of pneumonia in chest radiograph reports in critically ill patients

“…Among critically ill patients, hospital-acquired or ventilator-associated pneumonia further contribute to significant increases in length of stay, hospital costs, and mortality [2,3]. Prior studies have found that electronic tools can accurately identify abnormal radiograph reports and, thus, have the potential to improve clinical decision making and bedside care, quality and performance improvement, and adverse event or outcomes reporting [6-13,21-25]. Furthermore, when deployed on a large scale, these tools can be applied at a relatively low cost when compared with manual chart review.…”

“…Our tool could be used to automatically evaluate all CXR reports in hospitalized patients and flag those whose cases require further detailed review. This tool could also be used in conjunction with electronic decision support tools that aid clinicians in correctly triaging pneumonia patients and choosing appropriate antibiotics [11,25,31,32]. Finally, as applied in the study by Dublin et al, these tools can aid in lowering the burden of chart review for research studies [26].…”

Automatically Correlating Clinical Findings and Body Locations in Radiology Reports Using MedLEE

“…3 The reasoning engine can be used in a variety of applications. To support the diagnostic workflow, for instance, we can connect it to a retrieval system of previous cases to select all cases with, say, a neoplasm in the cerebellopontine angle [14]. If we have access to sufficient numbers of reports, we can use it for research purposes, e.g., to test the hypothesis that neoplasms in the lower inner breast quadrant are more likely to be malignant than neoplasms in the upper outer quadrant [10].…”