Patent ID: 8401872

Claim:
A computerized method for operating a medical diagnostic apparatus to answer medical questions, comprising the steps of: establishing multiple medical questions about a patient to be answered contemporaneously with each other by implementing an examination workflow on a patient, and entering said multiple medical questions in computer-readable form into a computer; in said computer, for each of said multiple medical questions, automatically electronically determining at least one examination step, from among a plurality of alternative examination steps, that is necessary to answer the respective medical question, and automatically electronically associating prioritization information with each of said alternative examination steps that defines at least one condition that, when present, gives the examination step associated therewith a priority over others of said alternative examination steps; in said computer, automatically determining whether said at least one condition is present and using the prioritization information to automatically electronically compile said examination workflow so as to encompass all examination steps that are necessary to contemporaneously answer all of said medical questions while automatically eliminating, based on said prioritization information, subjecting said patient to any redundant examination steps in said examination workflow; and emitting a signal representing said examination workflow without any redundant steps therein at an output of the computer.