Method, system, and a computer readable medium for adjustment of alterable sequences within a diagnostic workflow management

A system for workflow management of a medical diagnostic imaging scanner, said system comprising:

• one or more computers programmed to:
• access a template comprising a medical diagnostic imaging sequence of handlings including alterable and non-alterable subsequences of a control sequence which controls a medical diagnostic imaging scanner to perform a medical diagnostic imaging sequence on a patient, each template having a corresponding duration;
• access an available time span for executing said medical diagnostic imaging sequence;
• calculate a difference between said available time span and a sum of corresponding handling durations;
• assign an allowable duration for said medical diagnostic imaging sequence based on said difference;
• optimize a duration of the subsequences of handlings such that the medical diagnostic imaging sequence temporally fits into the allowable duration including automatically adjusting advocation of at least one of the alterable subsequences;
• control medical diagnostic imaging scanner with the optimized medical diagnostic imaging sequence to generate image data;
• reconstruct the image data into medical diagnostic image, wherein adjusting the duration of one or more of the alterable subsequences alters one or more of spatial resolution, temporal resolution, contrast. a signal to noise ratio, and artifact sensitivity of at least one of the image data acquired by the scanner and the medical diagnostic image reconstructed from the acquired image data.

A non-transitory computer readable medium carrying software which controls one or more computers to:

• access a template including a medical diagnostic imaging scan sequence which controls a medical diagnostic imaging scanner to perform a medical diagnostic imaging scan on a patient. the templated scan sequence including alterable and unalterable subsequences with their corresponding durations;
• access an available time span for executing said medical diagnostic imaging scan sequence template;
• calculate a difference between said available time span and a sum of the scan subsequence durations in said medical imaging scan template;
• determine an allowable duration for said medical diagnostic imaging scan sequence based on said difference;
• optimizing the medical diagnostic imaging scan sequence of said template to fit into the allowable duration by:
• identifying the unalterable sub-sequences within said medical diagnostic imaging scan sequence;
• subtracting the unalterable sub-sequence durations from the allowable duration yielding a remaining duration;
• automatically adjusting the duration of at least one of the alterable sub-sequence within said medical diagnostic imaging scan sequence template yielding one or more adjusted alterable sub-sequences which temporally fits into said remaining duration;
• combining unalterable sub-sequences with the adjusted alterable sub-sequences yielding an adjusted medical diagnostic imaging scan sequence:
• controlling a medical diagnostic imaging scanner with the adjusted medical diagnostic imaging scan sequence to acquire image data and reconstruct a medical diagnostic image of a patient utilizing the optimized medical diagnostics imaging scan sequence:
• wherein adjusting the duration of one or more of the subsequences alters one or more of spatial resolution temporal resolution, contrast, a signal to noise ratio, and artifact sensitivity of at least one of the image data acquired by the scanner and the medical diagnostic image reconstructed from acquired image data.

A system for medical diagnostic imaging workflow management for controlling medical diagnostic imaging, the system comprising:

• one or more computers programmed to:
• receive a template including an original medical imaging scan sequence which controls a medical diagnostic scanner to perform an imaging procedure on a subject, the original medical imaging scan sequence template including a plurality of subsequences, at least one of the subsequences being denoted as being an unalterable subsequence and at least one of the subsequences being an alterable subsequence,
• receive an available time span in which to perform the original medical imaging scan sequence,
• compare the available time span with an original sequence duration of the medical imaging original scan sequence template,
• in response to the original medical imaging sequence template duration being longer than the available time span, shortening at least one of the alterable subsequence to generate an optimize scan sequence that controls the medical imaging scanner to acquire medical image data in the available time span for reconstruction into a medical image of the subject,
• wherein adjusting the duration of one or more of the alterable subsequences alters one or more of spatial resolution, temporal resolution, contrast, a signal to noise ratio. and artifact sensitivity of at least one of the image data acquired by the scanner and the medical diagnostic image reconstructed from the acquired image data,
• wherein adjusting the duration of one or more of the alterable subsequences alters one or more of spatial resolution, temporal resolution, contrast, a signal to noise ratio, and artifact sensitivity of at least one of the image data acquired by the scanner and the medical diagnostic image reconstructed from the acquired image data.