SYSTEM AND METHOD TO DETERMINE RELEVANT PRIOR RADIOLOGY STUDIES USING PACS LOG FILES

A radiology workstation (10) includes a computer (12) connected to access radiology studies stored in an radiology studies archive (20) with at least one processor (22) programmed to operate the computer to: provide a user interface (24) for performing readings of radiology studies including: displaying images on a display (14) of a current radiology study being read; receiving user inputs via one or more user input devices (16) and operating on the user inputs to manipulate the display of images and to open and view past radiology studies during the reading and to receive a radiology report summarizing the reading and store the radiology report in the radiology studies archive; and recording a activity log of user inputs received via the one or more user input devices during readings of radiology studies. While providing the user interface for performing a reading by a radiologist of a current radiology study of a patient, tire at least one processor is Anther programmed to perform a relevant past radiology study recommendation process including: identifying at least one previously-read radiology study of the patient stored in the radiology studies archive as being relevant to the current radiology study of the patient using a radiologist-specific relevance identification criterion derived from content of the activity log recording the radiologist opening and viewing past radiology studies during readings performed by the radiologist; and displaying an indication of the at least one relevant previously-examined radiology study on the display.