Computer automated detection of head orientation for prevention of wrong-side treatment errors.

A medical error can occur when a patient is positioned in a medical imaging device such as an MRI scanner if information regarding their orientation is improperly entered into the device control software. If such an error is not detected and corrected, the erroneous orientation data will be stored in the image header information and will propagate with the images throughout the medical enterprise. Presented here is a fully automated algorithm for computing patient head orientation from the image data and detecting errors in image orientation labeling. This will enable errors in orientation labeling to be corrected at their source when they occur, thus preventing later medical treatment errors related to laterality.