Method for managing clustered medical data and medical data filing system in clustered form

• US 5,572,422 A
• Filed: 06/07/1995
• Issued: 11/05/1996
• Est. Priority Date: 10/16/1991
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Nematbakhsh, Mohammad A., Tsubura, Shinichi
• Primary Examiner(s): McElheny, Jr., Donald E.
• Application Number:
  US08/474,143
• Time in Patent Office: 517 Days
• Field of Search: 364/401, 364/400
• US Class Current: 705/3
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 30/20 for handling medical images, e.g. DICOM, HL7 or PACS
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 70/60 relating to pathologies

Abstract

In a medical data managing system, a plurality of medical data are first classified based on a classification item such as sorts of medical examinations. Thereafter, the classified medical data are stored in the same optical disk, or the same clustered data recording region of the optical disk in order to effectively search/retrieve desirable medical data from a plurality of optical disks based upon the classification item covering this desirable medical data. A medical data managing system comprises: a unit for sequentially acquiring a plurality of medical data about a biological body under medical examination; a unit for classifying the plurality of medical data based upon at least one of medical classification items to obtain a plurality of classified medical data; and a unit for sequentially storing the plurality of classified medical data into a plurality of data storage mediums in such a manner that the plurality of classified medical data belonging to the same classification item are stored in the same data storage medium.

Claims

1. A method for managing medical data comprising the steps of:

sequentially acquiring a plurality of medical data about a biological body under medical examination;

classifying said plurality of medical data using a temporal term;

classifying said plurality of medical data which has been classified using the temporal term based upon at least one of medical classification items to obtain a plurality of classified medical data; and

sequentially storing said plurality of medical data which has been classified using the temporal term and said at least one of medical classification items into optical disks of an automatic disk changer in such a manner that said plurality of classified medical data belonging to a same medical classification item are stored in a same one of said optical disks.

2. A medical data managing method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising the step of:

searching for medical data in said optical disks of said automatic disk changer using said at least one of said medical classification items.

3. A medical data managing method as claimed in claim 2, further comprising the step of:

retrieving the medical data which has been searched using said at least one of said medical classification items.

4. A medical data managing method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said temporal term is determined in accordance with a term for medically judging whether a disease of said biological body under medical examination belongs to an acute disease, or a chronic disease.

5. A medical data managing method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said medical classification items are selected from a sort of medical examinations, names of patients, sorts of medical departments belonging to patients, and sorts of modalities.

6. A medical data managing method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising the step of:

subdividing said medical data which has been classified using the temporal term and using said at least one of medical classification items into a plurality of medical data subdivision groups, said medical data subdivision groups constituting a hierarchical structure.

7. A medical data managing system comprising:

means for sequentially acquiring a plurality of medical data about a biological body under medical examination;

means for clustering said plurality of medical data acquired from said acquiring means to obtain a plurality of clustered medical data to be time-sequentially stored in one of a plurality of optical disks;

means for classifying said plurality of medical data which was clustered by the means for clustering using at least one of medical classification items to obtain a plurality of classified medical data; and

means for sequentially storing said plurality of classified medical data, which was classified, into said one of said plurality of optical disks of an automatic disk changer in such a manner that said plurality of classified medical data belonging to a same classification item are stored in a same one of said optical disks.

8. A medical data managing system as claimed in claim 7, further comprising:

means for searching for desirable medical data from said optical disks of said automatic disk changer using said at least one of said medical classification items.

9. A medical data managing system as claimed in claim 8, wherein said classifying means further retrieves said searched medical data based upon the classification item covering said searched medical data.

10. A medical managing system as claimed in claim 7, wherein said clustering means includes a cluster management table to execute a medical data clustering operation.

11. A medical managing system as claimed in claim 7, wherein said optical disks are opto-magnet disks.

12. A medical data filing system comprising:

medical data input means for inputting a plurality of medical data about a biological body under medical examination;

a plurality of optical disks of an automatic disk changer capable of storing said medical data;

data information recognizing means for recognizing medical data information attached to said medical data to derive data recognition information;

cluster managing means for first clustering said medical data to obtain a plurality of clustered medical data to be time-sequentially stored in one of the optical disks;

storage medium managing means for classifying each of said clustered medical data using at least one of classification items covering said data recognition information;

file system managing means for filing said classified medical data in said optical disks of said disk changer in such a manner that said classified medical data belonging to the same classification item are filed into a same one of said optical disks, and for searching and retrieving desirable medical data from the optical disks based using said at least one of said classification items covering the data recognition information of said desirable medical data.

13. A medical data filing system as claimed in claim 12, wherein said cluster managing means includes a cluster management table memory containing cluster numbers, storage medium numbers and data acquisition temporal terms.

14. A medical data filing system as claimed in claim 12, wherein said optical disks of said disk changer are opto-magnet disks.