Patent ID: 7406150

Claim:
A mammographic imaging system, comprising: mammographic image acquisition equipment including a patient support for supporting a patient's breast in an imaging position, an imaging source for transmitting an imaging signal relative to said patient's breast, and a digital detector for detecting said transmitted signal from said patient's breast and providing a digital signal based on said detected signal, wherein said digital signal defines a first digital image of at least a portion of said patient's breast; an image acquisition station user interface for receiving user inputs from a first user of said mammographic image acquisition equipment to control a process for acquiring said first digital image of said patient's breast; and an image acquisition station controller, said controller being operative for: receiving said user inputs from said image acquisition station user interface; transmitting a controller output based on said user inputs to a remote processing platform, wherein said remote processing platform executes logic for use in operating said mammographic image acquisition equipment; receiving a controller input from said remote processing platform; and operating said mammographic image acquisition equipment based on said controller input from said remote processing platform, and wherein said digital image is stored in an image repository and said digital image is indexed to patient information and said patient information is organized in tables of cross-indexed data fields.