Automated order entry system and method

• US 20040078366A1
• Filed: 10/06/2003
• Published: 04/22/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 10/18/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cerner Innovation, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Cerner Innovation, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: McCallie, David P. Jr., Finn, Christopher S., Crooks, Steven S.
• Granted Patent: US 7,970,621 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/284 Relational databases
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/20 for the management or administration of healthcare resources or facilities, e.g. managing hospital staff or surgery rooms

Abstract

A computer-implemented method for facilitating placement of health care order entry is provided. The method includes receiving input indicative of a desired healthcare order. The order has certain terms therein that are normalized. The method also finds possible order matches for the normalized terms, and calculates a rough score for the possible order matches. The method refines the rough score with a rough score adjustment, and then ranks the found possible order matches from the most-likely to match the desired order to the least-likely based upon the refined rough score. These possible order matches can then be displayed to the user for selection.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for facilitating placement of health care order entry, comprising:

receiving input indicative of a desired order having terms therein;

normalizing the terms of the received input;

finding possible drug matches for the normalized terms, and calculating a rough score for possible order matches;

refining the rough score with a rough score adjustment; and

ranking the found possible order matches from the most-likely to match the desired order to the least-likely based upon the refined rough score.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the normalizing comprises:

replacing any abbreviations with known terms corresponding to the respective abbreviations; and

eliminating any terms that are numbers.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein refining includes adding known synonyms to the terms in the possible drug matches and matching full sentence orders to the possible order matches.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein refining further includes normalizing the full sentence orders, adjusting for exact matches and adjusting for unit matches.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising displaying the found possible order matches in the ranked order.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the rough score calculation includes determining a match distance and ranking the match based on the distance.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the distance is defined as the number of changes needed in the possible drug matches to obtain an exact match to the terms of the received input.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein normalizing includes setting an anti-flag for any found, pre-determined anti-terms, and wherein the rough score calculation includes removing any terms for which the anti-flag is set.

9. A computer system having a processor, a memory and an operating environment, the computer system operable to execute the method as recited in claim 1.

10. A computer-readable medium containing instructions for executing the method of claim 1.

11. A computer-implemented method for normalizing an input string indicative of a health care order, the normalizing to facilitate searching for possible intended health care order sentences, comprising:

receiving the input string having terms therein; and

replacing any abbreviations with known terms corresponding to the respective abbreviations.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising determining if any of the terms end in a number string, and if so, determining if only one letter is present before the number, and if so, maintaining the letter-number string, and if not, separating the letter string from the number string.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, further comprising separating any number string at the beginning of any term.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 13, further comprising removing any periods present in terms that are not located before a number.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, further comprising removing any hyphens present in any term if the term is less than four characters long.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, further comprising setting an anti-flag for any found, pre-determined anti-terms.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, further comprising removing any terms containing only numbers.

18. A computer system having a processor, a memory and an operating environment, the computer system operable to execute the method as recited in claim 11.

19. A computer-readable medium containing instructions for executing the method of claim 11.