Medical image processing apparatus

A medical image processing apparatus, comprising:

• a memory to store DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine) image data including study information generated from a study for a patient on a particular date and having a DICOM tag, the DICOM image data being obtained from a medical image diagnosis apparatus;
• and
• processing circuitry configured to
• collect general-purpose information relating to general-purpose image data incompatible with DICOM, the general-purpose image data not having the DICOM tag and being generated by an apparatus different from the medical image processing apparatus,
• determine whether a date associated with the general-purpose image data is compatible with the particular date of the study which generated the DICOM image data, based on the general-purpose information and the study information,
• output a warning of misidentification of the patient indicating that the patient might be misidentified in response to a result of the determination,
• collect storage information relating to the general-purpose image data,
• generate event information related to the study in which the DICOM image data is generated, and
• collect appendant data pertaining to the general-purpose image data, and/or add, to the general-purpose image data, metadata representing what is indicated by the general-purpose image data,
• generate comparison information based on the storage information, the event information, and at least one of the appendant data and the metadata, and
• determine whether the general-purpose image data is related to the study, based on the generated comparison information.