Computerized medical diagnostic system utilizing list-based processing
First Claim
1. A computerized medical diagnostic system, comprising:
- a list of diseases, each disease associated with a list of symptoms, and each symptom associated with a list of questions; and
a script engine operating on a computer and configured to;
repetitively ask questions to elicit responses, the responses establishing symptoms, each established symptom contributing a weight to an accumulated total weight for a disease, and determine whether the accumulated total weight for a disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method for providing computerized, knowledge-based medical diagnostic advice. The medical advice is provided to the general public over a network, such as a telephone network with the use of a telephone or the Internet with the use of an Internet access device. Alternatively, the medical advice can be provided to a patient in a stand-alone mode by use of a computer. The invention utilizes a list-based processing method of generating and executing diagnostic scripts. For the purpose of diagnosing a health problem of a patient, medical knowledge is organized into a list of the diseases to be considered. Each disease on the disease list includes a list of symptoms that is checked in a patient. Each symptom on the symptom list is then further described as a response to a list of one or more questions asked of the patient about the symptom. This triply-nested list structure is converted by suitable data structure transformations into a script that is stored. When a patient requires diagnosis, the script is played back as a sequence of questions. The responses of the patient are analyzed and converted into symptoms. The symptoms are accumulated into diseases. Finally the diseases are selected and reported as a diagnosis.
122 Citations
33 Claims
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1. A computerized medical diagnostic system, comprising:
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a list of diseases, each disease associated with a list of symptoms, and each symptom associated with a list of questions; and
a script engine operating on a computer and configured to;
repetitively ask questions to elicit responses, the responses establishing symptoms, each established symptom contributing a weight to an accumulated total weight for a disease, and determine whether the accumulated total weight for a disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A computerized medical diagnostic method, comprising:
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providing a list of diseases, each disease associated with a list of symptoms, and each symptom associated with a list of questions; and
executing a script engine on a computer comprising;
repetitively asking questions to elicit responses;
establishing symptoms based on the responses;
contributing a weight to an accumulated total weight for a disease based on each established symptom; and
determining whether the accumulated total weight for a disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30)
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31. A computer usable medium having computer readable program code embodied therein for performing a computerized process used in medical diagnosis, the computer readable code comprising instructions for:
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providing a list of diseases, each disease associated with a list of symptoms, and each symptom associated with a list of questions; and
executing a script engine comprising;
repetitively asking questions to elicit responses from a patient;
establishing symptoms based on the responses;
contributing a weight to an accumulated total weight for a disease based on each established symptom; and
determining whether the accumulated total weight for a disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis. - View Dependent Claims (32)
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33. A computerized medical diagnostic system, comprising:
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a list of diseases, each disease associated with a list of symptoms, and each symptom associated with a list of questions; and
a script engine operating on a computer and configured to;
repetitively ask questions to elicit responses from a patient, the responses establishing symptoms, each established symptom contributing a weight to an accumulated total weight for a disease, and determine whether the accumulated total weight for a disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis.
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Specification