MEDICAL LABORATORY REPORT MESSAGE GATEWAY

• US 20080270438A1
• Filed: 02/14/2008
• Published: 10/30/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/14/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The General Hospital Corporation (Mass General Brigham, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: The General Hospital Corporation (Mass General Brigham, Inc.)
• Inventors: Ullman-Cullere, Mollie, Aronson, Samuel J., Babb, Lawrence J., Clark, Eugene H.
• Granted Patent: US 7,908,293 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/101
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/40 for data related to laboratory analysis, e.g. patient specimen analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records

Abstract

A gateway enables medical (including genetic and genomic) laboratories and health care providers (collectively “clients”) to communicate electronic messages with each other without developing and maintaining an interface for each peer. The gateway translates messages sent between the parties. The gateway receives messages from each sender in a form, and containing diagnostic codes, preferred by the sender. For each received message, the gateway ascertains an intended receiving client. Each client may specify one or more receivers (such as applications) that are to receive messages sent to the client, as well as a separate form, and optionally a set of codes, for each receiver. For each receiver, the gateway generates translated messages, according to the receiver'"'"'s preferred form and/or codes. The gateway sends the translated messages to each of the designated receivers. The gateway may include a validation component to check incoming messages to ensure the messages include required information and that information values are valid or acceptable. The gateway may include an exception handler that notifies a sending client if a message from the client fails to be translated or sent correctly. The gateway may maintain a repository in which the gateway stores copies of messages the gateway sent or would have sent to clients. The gateway provides an interface, such as a secure web interface, to this repository. Clients may access messages or lists of messages, especially messages the clients are not otherwise capable of receiving, through this interface. The gateway may store copies of some of the data that flows through the gateway in a bioinformatics database, which may be automatically analyzed by the gateway or queried for research or patient care purposes.

Claims

1. A method for processing a medical laboratory test message, comprising:

receiving the medical laboratory test message in a first form, the message comprising a source identifier and having a message type;

selecting a first transformation to be performed, based on the source identifier;

generating a representation of the received message in a second form, according to the first transformation;

selecting a second transformation to be performed, based on the destination identifier;

generating a second medical laboratory test message in a third form, according to the second transformation; and

sending the second message to a recipient, according to the destination identifier.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein:

receiving the medical laboratory test message comprises receiving the message from one of a plurality of laboratories; and

sending the second medical laboratory test message comprises sending the second medical laboratory test message to a specific one of a plurality of medical service providers.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein generating the representation of the received message in the second form comprises:

performing a first syntactic translation of the received message, according to the first transformation;

performing a first schematic translation of the received message, according to the first transformation; and

performing a first semantic translation of the received message, according to the first transformation.

4. A method according to claim 3, wherein generating the second medical laboratory report message in the third form comprises:

performing a second syntactic translation of the representation of the received message, according to the second transformation;

performing a second schematic translation of the representation of the received message, according to the second transformation; and

performing a second semantic translation of the representation of the received message, according to the second transformation.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein:

the message further includes a message type; and

selecting the second transformation to be performed comprises selecting the second transformation based on the message type.

6. A method according to claim 1, wherein:

the message further includes a message type; and

sending the second message comprises sending the second message to a recipient according to the message type.

7. A method according to claim 1, further comprising validating the contents of at least a portion of the received message.

8. A method according to claim 5, wherein validating the contents of at least a portion of the received message comprises validating a genetic code in the at least a portion of the received message.

9. A method according to claim 1, further comprising validating the contents of at least a portion of the representation of the received message.

10. A method according to claim 9, wherein validating the contents of at least a portion of the representation comprises validating a genetic code in the at least a portion of the representation.

11. A method according to claim 1, further comprising:

selecting a plurality of recipients, based on the contents of the destination identifier;

wherein;

selecting the second transformation comprises, for each selected recipient, selecting a transformation associated with the selected recipient, based on the contents of the destination identifier;

generating the second medical laboratory report message comprises, for each selected recipient, generating a medical laboratory report message, according to the transformation associated with the selected recipient; and

sending the second message comprises, for each selected recipient, sending the generated message to the selected recipient.

12. A method according to claim 1, wherein:

the source identifier comprises a sending application identification; and

the destination identifier comprises a receiving facility identification.

13. A method according to claim 1, wherein the second form conforms to a clinical and administrative data message protocol.

14. A method according to claim 13, wherein the clinical and administrative data message protocol comprises Health Level Seven (HL7), version three.

15. A method according to claim 1, wherein receiving the medical laboratory report message comprises receiving a medical laboratory report message that contains genetic data.

16. A method according to claim 1, further comprising:

storing copies of at least some of the representations of the received messages in the second form; and

providing interactive access to the stored copies of the at least some of the representations of the received messages via a portal.

17. A medical laboratory message gateway, comprising:

a database storing translation information for each of a plurality of clients;

a plurality of first message translators, each first message translator configured to translate a medical laboratory message that is in a first form, associated with the first translator, into a second form;

an incoming message dispatcher configured to select one of the first message translators, based on source information in received a medical laboratory message and the translation information in the database, so the medical laboratory message is translated by the selected first message translator into the second form;

a plurality of second message translators, each second message translator configured to generate a medical laboratory message in a third form, associated with the second translator, from the second form; and

an outgoing message router configured to select at least one of the second message translators, based on destination information in a received medical laboratory message and the translation information in the database, so each of the selected at least one second message translators generates a message from the second form.

18. A medical laboratory message gateway according to claim 17, wherein:

each of the first message translators performs a first syntactic translation, a first schematic translation and a first semantic translation, associated with the first translator; and

each of the second message translators performs a second syntactic translation, a second schematic translation and a second semantic translation, associated with the second translator.

19. A medical laboratory message gateway according to claim 17, wherein the second form conforms to a clinical and administrative data message protocol.

20. A medical laboratory message gateway according to claim 19, wherein the clinical and administrative data message protocol is Health Level Seven (HL7), version three.

21. A medical laboratory message gateway according to claim 17, further comprising an exception handler that is invoked if a first message translator or a second message translator detects an error in a message.

22. A medical laboratory message gateway according to claim 17, wherein each first message translators is configured to detect a deviation in a medical laboratory message from a predefined clinical and administrative data message protocol.

23. A medical laboratory message gateway according to claim 17, wherein each first message translators is configured to detect a deviation in a medical laboratory message from a predefined set of diagnostic codes.

24. A medical laboratory message gateway according to claim 17, further comprising:

a message store for storing copies of at least portions of at least some of the translated medical laboratory messages; and

a portal providing access to the message store.

25. A method for collecting genetic data about a plurality of patients for subsequent bioinformatic analysis, the method comprising:

receiving medical laboratory report messages generated in response to requests from medical service providers, each such report containing genetic data and non-genetic data about a corresponding patient; and

storing at least some of the non-genetic data and at least some of the genetic data from the received medical laboratory reports in a database.

26. A method according to 25, further comprising anonymizing patient identifying information in the non-genetic data prior to storing the data in the database.

27. A method according to 25, further comprising providing access to data stored in the database, including anonymizing patient identifying information in accessed data.

28. A method according to 25, wherein storing the data comprises selecting ones of the received medical laboratory report messages, based on at least one selection criterion, and storing data from only the selected medical laboratory report messages in the database.

29. A method according to 25, further comprising providing access to only data in the database that represents at least a predetermined number of patients.

30. A method according to 25, further comprising automatically detecting statistical correlations between or among data items stored in the database.

31. A method according to 25, further comprising querying the database to produce a list of tests that may be ordered from a plurality of laboratories, the list including information about regions examined for DNA variants.