An infrastructure for efficient reporting workflow in grid based teleradiology architectures using relation based semantic matching and Integer Linear Programming

Abstract

This paper proposes an infrastructure with a global workflow management algorithm in order to interconnect facilities and reporting units on a single access interface, decrease the access time of medical images and increase the efficiency of the reporting process. The inspection and radiologist attributes extracted by Grid Agent are modelled using a hierarchical ontology structure based on Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) Conformance and DICOM Content Mapping Resource and World Health Organization (WHO) definitions. Attribute preferences rated by radiologists and technical experts or inferred by references are formed into reciprocal matrixes. Weights for entities are calculated utilizing Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The assignment alternatives are processed by relation-based semantic matching (RBSM) and Integer Linear Programming (ILP). The results are evaluated based on turnaround time, workload and report quality and compared with the outcomes obtained by applying Round Robin, Shortest Queue and Random distribution policies.