COMPUTERIZED MEDICAL DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM UTILIZING LIST-BASED PROCESSING
First Claim
1. A computerized medical diagnostic method, comprising:
- a) storing a list of diseases on a computer, wherein each disease is associated with a list of symptoms, and wherein each symptom is associated with a list of questions;
b) obtaining medical information from a user;
c) selecting a disease from the list of diseases based on the obtained medical information;
d) selecting a symptom from the list of symptoms associated with the selected disease;
e) asking at least one question from the list of questions associated with the selected symptom to obtain additional medical information from the user;
f) determining whether or not a patient is to be diagnosed with the selected disease based upon the obtained medical information; and
g) providing the results of the determining to the user.
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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.
146 Citations
25 Claims
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1. A computerized medical diagnostic method, comprising:
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a) storing a list of diseases on a computer, wherein each disease is associated with a list of symptoms, and wherein each symptom is associated with a list of questions;
b) obtaining medical information from a user;
c) selecting a disease from the list of diseases based on the obtained medical information;
d) selecting a symptom from the list of symptoms associated with the selected disease;
e) asking at least one question from the list of questions associated with the selected symptom to obtain additional medical information from the user;
f) determining whether or not a patient is to be diagnosed with the selected disease based upon the obtained medical information; and
g) providing the results of the determining to the user. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A computerized diagnostic method, comprising:
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storing a list of diseases on a computer, wherein each disease is associated with a list of symptoms, and wherein each symptom is associated with a list of questions;
repetitively asking questions to elicit responses, wherein the responses establish symptoms;
determining the probability that a patient has a given disease based on the established symptoms; and
declaring a diagnosis based upon the determined probability. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A computerized diagnostic system, comprising:
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means for storing a list of diseases on a computer, wherein each disease is associated with a list of symptoms, and wherein each symptom is associated with a list of questions;
means for repetitively asking questions to elicit responses, wherein the responses establish symptoms;
means for determining the probability that a patient has a given disease based on the established symptoms; and
means for declaring a diagnosis based upon the determined probability.
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20. A computerized medical diagnostic system, comprising:
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a storage configured to store a list of diseases, wherein each disease is associated with a list of symptoms, and wherein each symptom is associated with a list of questions;
a storage configured to store a script engine, which when executed repetitively asks questions to elicit responses, wherein the responses establish symptoms, determines the probability that a patient has a given disease based on the established symptoms, and declares a diagnosis based upon the determined probability; and
a processor configured to execute the script engine. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
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Specification