SBIR Phase I: Integrating Patient Photographs with Medical Imaging Examinations to Reduce Medical Errors

这一小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是广泛采用一种在医疗保健中直接节省成本的技术。据估计，每年有近5，000名患者因医疗成像中的错误患者错误而受到伤害。此外，即使放射科医生的工作效率提高10%，也将为整个医疗保健预算节省约9亿美元。最后，一个间接但有影响力的结果是提高医学影像报告的相关性和准确性的潜力。可以预期，将医学成像研究与患者面部和上身的患者照片（其中管和线通常位于患者面部和上身）配对可以以快速且有效的方式提供重要的临床信息。从广义上讲，这项新技术可以转化为为数百种新医疗设备生成的数字数据的患者身份验证和识别。建议的项目涉及医院的病人识别系统的无缝集成，以提高病人的安全和放射吞吐量。这项工作的智力价值是一种变革性的方法，克服了现有患者识别方法的失败，同时利用嵌入式相机系统的力量来改善患者护理。为了实现这一目标，这项工作将开发一种成像同步技术，该技术可以自动获取患者面部和上身的照片，并将其嵌入到成像检查期间拍摄的X射线上。为了测试和确定可行性，该技术的最初目标是将便携式X光机以高容量设置带到患者床边。具体而言，所提出的工作将1）结合面部跟踪技术，以确保患者的面部和躯干始终被摄像机捕获，2）通过在大型学术医院的约6台便携式X射线摄影机上部署该技术，在现实世界中进行可行的研究，该技术将与医院的图像采集和通信系统（PACS）集成，以及3）进行初步的工作流程研究。长期目标是：1）通过在医学成像研究中嵌入内在的、外部可见的生物识别符，提高错误诊断患者错误的检出率; 2）通过减少解释时间，减少周转时间。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is widespread adoption of a technology with a direct cost-­savings in healthcare. It is estimated that nearly 5,000 patients are harmed each year due to wrong-patient errors in medical imaging. Additionally, even a 10% improvement in efficiency in radiologists' performance would translate to ~$900 million savings to the overall health care budget. Finally, an indirect, but impactful outcome is the potential to improve the relevance and accuracy of medical imaging reports. It is anticipated that pairing the medical imaging studies to the patient photographs of the patient's face and upper body, where tubes and wires are often located, can provide important clinical information in a rapid and efficient manner. In the broadest terms, this novel technology can be translated to provide patient authentication and identification for the digital data that is being generated by hundreds of new medical devices. The proposed project concerns the seamless integration of a patient Identification system in hospitals to improve patient safety and radiology throughput. The intellectual merit of this work is a transformative approach overcoming the failure of existing patient identification methods while harnessing the power of an embedded camera system to improve patient care. Toward this goal this work will develop an imaging synchronization technology that automatically obtains and embeds a photograph of the patient's face and upper body onto the x-ray taken during an imaging examination. To test and establish feasibility, the initial target of this technology will be portable x-ray machines brought to the patient's bedside in high volume settings. Specifically, the proposed work will 1) incorporate face-­tracking technology to ensure the patient's face and torso are always captured by the camera, 2) conduct a feasibly study in a real-world setting by deploying the technology on ~6 portable radiography machines at a large academic hospital where it will be integrated with the hospital's Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS), and 3) perform preliminary workflow studies. The long term objectives are to 1) increase the detection rate of wrong-­patient errors by embedding an intrinsic, externally visible biometric identifier with medical imaging studies; and 2) decrease turn-­around time by decreasing interpretation time.