Uniform hierarchical information classification and mapping system

• US 6,684,221 B1
• Filed: 05/08/2000
• Issued: 01/27/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 05/06/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Rejndrup, Kim
• Primary Examiner(s): Robinson, Greta
• Assistant Examiner(s): DODDS, HAROLD E
• Application Number:
  US09/567,162
• Time in Patent Office: 1,359 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1-7, 707/9, 707/10, 707/100, 707/102, 707/104.1, 707/200, 707/203, 707/500, 707/513, 707/530-532, 704/1, 704/7, 704/9, 704/10, 435/4-6, 715/500, 715/513, 715/530-532
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/355 Class or cluster creation or modification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/374 Thesaurus
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

A system and method to access and update a thesaurus of clinical terms employed in conjunction with a clinical study can be used to classify and map the clinical terms to related terms. A study term extracted from raw clinical data is presented to determine a corresponding match in the thesaurus of clinical terms. A table of relations is maintained to associate each clinical term with one or more related clinical terms in the thesaurus. A clinical term is mapped to one or more derived terms as indicated by the relations. The derived terms are processed to select a preferred term from the derived terms. An omission manager is operable to find a near matching candidate term if the clinical term is not found in the thesaurus. A plurality of different clinical terms can therefore be classified as corresponding to a common clinical term as indicated by the relations.

Claims

1. A method of storing a thesaurus of clinical terms comprising:

defining a plurality of clinical terms for use in conjunction with a clinical study;

storing the plurality clinical terms in a memory according to a hierarchy of relations; and

defining a plurality of relations corresponding to the clinical terms, the relations indicative of an association from a clinical term to at least one other of the plurality of clinical terms.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing the relations in the memory;

providing a match term;

querying the memory to find an occurrence of the match term;

traversing the relations corresponding to the match term; and

accumulating at least one derived term from the relations corresponding to the match term.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein accumulating further comprising selecting at least one preferred term from the derived terms.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein querying further comprises:

detecting an omission of the match term in the memory; and

resolving the omission via searching for a variant term of the match term, wherein the variant term is substantially similar to the match term.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein resolving further comprises:

aggregating a candidate term group; and

selecting the variant term from the candidate term group.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein aggregating further comprises:

invoking a search module; and

traversing the memory to identify a near fit of the match term.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the relations define a hierarchy of inter-level associations.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the clinical terms further comprises a timestamp, wherein the timestamp is indicative of a period of validity of the clinical term.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising adding a clinical term to the memory, wherein the added term has a timestamp indicative of a period of validity following a period of validity of another clinical term having a common relation.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the relations further comprises a timestamp, wherein the timestamp is indicative of a period of validity of the relation.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising:

adding a relation to the memory, wherein the added relation has a first timestamp indicative of a first period of validity; and

modifying a second timestamp of a relation indicative of a second period of validity, wherein the first period of validity and the second period of validity are distinct.

12. The method of claim 2 wherein providing a match term further comprises:

scanning verbatim clinical data; and

parsing verbatim study terms from the clinical data, wherein the verbatim study terms include the match terms.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein parsing further comprises:

parsing common global study terms; and

parsing domain study terms, wherein the domain study terms correspond to a predetermined study.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein defining the plurality of clinical terms further comprises:

identifying external terms and generated terms, wherein the external terms are loaded into the memory at a predetermined time from a predetermined list and the generated terms are added at periodic intervals.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the generated terms further comprise:

enterprise terms corresponding to a company and domain terms corresponding to a predetermined study.

16. The method of claim 14 wherein the external terms are transmitted from an external media source.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the external media source is a dictionary of clinical terms.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein the clinical terms comprise pharmaceutical names.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein the clinical terms comprise adverse events.

20. The method of claim 1 wherein the memory comprises an electronic thesaurus.

64. The method of claim 7 wherein the hierarchy is indicative of a progression from general to specific terms.

21. A method of maintaining and accessing a thesaurus of terms used in conjunction with a clinical study, comprising:

identifying a plurality of clinical terms for the clinical study;

storing the clinical terms in the thesaurus of terms according to a hierarchy of relations;

defining a plurality of relations corresponding to the plurality of clinical terms, the relations indicative of an association from a term to at least one other of the plurality of clinical terms;

storing the relations in the thesaurus of terms;

receiving a match term;

querying the thesaurus of terms to find an occurrence of the match term;

traversing the relations corresponding to the match term; and

accumulating at least one derived term from the relations corresponding to the match term.

22. A system for accessing a thesaurus of clinical terms used in conjunction with a clinical study comprising:

a memory, the memory operable to store the clinical terms according to a hierarchy of relations for the clinical study;

a content table included in the memory and having stored therein the clinical terms;

a relation table included in the memory and having stored therein relations indicative of an association from a clinical term to at least one other of the clinical terms;

a classification server operable to traverse the relations and determine the clinical terms corresponding to each of the relations.

23. The system of claim 22 wherein the classification server further includes a classification and mapping processor operable to receive a match term and further operable to determine the existence of the match term in the memory.

24. The system of claim 23 wherein the classification and mapping processor is further operable to accumulate at least one derived term from the relations corresponding to the match term.

25. The system of claim 24 wherein the classification and mapping processor is further operable to select at least one preferred term from the derived terms.

26. The system of claim 25 wherein the classification server further comprises a report and analysis engine operable to receive the preferred term and employ the preferred term in a report.

27. The system of claim 23 wherein the classification and mapping processor further comprises an omission manager operable to determine the omission of the match term in the memory and further operable to identify at least one candidate term from among the clinical terms in the memory similar to the match term.

28. The system of claim 22 wherein the content table further includes a timestamp corresponding to each of the clinical terms, wherein the timestamp is indicative of a period of validity of the clinical term.

29. The system of claim 28 wherein a first record in the content table corresponds to a first clinical term for a first period of validity and a second record in the content table corresponds to a second clinical term for a second period of validity, wherein the first and second records correspond to a common relation.

30. The system of claim 22 wherein the relation table further includes a timestamp corresponding to each of the relations, wherein the timestamp is indicative of a period of validity of the relation.

31. The system of claim 30 wherein a relation corresponds to a first clinical term for a first period of validity and the relation corresponds to a second clinical term for a second period of validity.

32. The system of claim 22 wherein the relation table defines a hierarchy having a plurality of levels.

33. The system of claim 32 wherein the relations in the relation table are inter-level.

34. The system of claim 22 wherein the classification server further comprises an input device operable to receive the verbatim study terms.

35. The system of claim 34 wherein the input device is further operable to parse the verbatim study terms and yield match terms as a result of the parsing.

36. The system of claim 35 wherein the input device is further operable to receive the verbatim study terms from a plurality of data entry mediums.

37. The system of claim 36 wherein the data entry mediums are selected from the group consisting of a remote computer, a public access network, a scanner, a text entry device, and a software application.

38. The system of claim 35 wherein the match terms include common global terms and domain terms corresponding to a particular study.

39. The system of claim 22 wherein the content table is further adapted to store external terms and generated terms, wherein the external terms are loaded from a predetermined list and the generated terms are added to the memory at periodic intervals.

40. The system of claim 39 wherein the generated terms further comprise enterprise terms corresponding to a company and domain terms corresponding to a predetermined study.

41. The system of claim 39 further comprising a loader operable to write the content table and the relation table to the memory from the predetermined list.

42. The system of claim 41 wherein the predetermined list is an external media source.

43. The system of claim 42 wherein the external media source is a medical dictionary.

65. The system of claim 32 wherein the hierarchy is indicative of a progression from general to specific terms.

44. A method of storing a thesaurus of terms in a database comprising:

defining a plurality of terms for a clinical study;

storing the plurality of terms according to a hierarchy of relations;

defining a plurality of relations corresponding to the plurality of terms, the relations indicative of an association from a clinical term to at least one other of the plurality of terms, each of the plurality of relations satisfying one or more rules defined by a user of the database.

45. The system of claim 44 wherein the plurality terms and the plurality of relations define a hierarchy.

46. The method of claim 44 wherein the plurality terms plurality of relations define a cyclic graph.

47. The method of claim 44 wherein one of said rules allow for a one to many association.

48. The method of claim 44 wherein the plurality of relations are many to many.

49. The method of claim 45 wherein the hierarchy defines a plurality of levels.

50. The method of claim 49 wherein the relations correspond from one of the plurality of levels to another distinct level.

51. A method of storing a thesaurus of terms in a database comprising:

defining a plurality of terms for a clinical study;

storing the plurality of terms in a memory according to a hierarchy of relations;

defining a plurality of relations corresponding to the plurality of terms, the relations indicative of an association from a clinical term to at least one other of the plurality of terms;

determining, for each of the relations, whether each of the relations satisfies one or more user defined rules; and

activating the plurality of user defined rules based on the determining.

52. The method of claim 51 wherein the activating further comprises comparing each of the plurality of relations to each of the rules in the set of rules.

53. A method of storing a thesaurus of terms comprising:

defining a plurality of terms for a clinical study;

storing the plurality of terms in a memory according to a hierarchy of relations;

defining a plurality of relations corresponding to the plurality of terms, the relations indicative of an association from a clinical term to at least one other of the plurality of terms; and

defining a database state of the plurality of relations and the plurality of terms, wherein the database state is indicative of a discrete value of each of the relations and the terms.

54. The method of claim 53 further comprising the steps of

providing a plurality of database updates, wherein the database updates and the plurality of terms and the plurality of relations define a successive database state.

55. The method of claim 54 wherein the successive database state is indicative of a discrete value of each of the relations and the terms.

56. The method of claim 55 further comprising a plurality of successive database states defining a sequence of database states.

57. The method of claim 56 further comprising the steps of reverting the database state to a previous database state as defined by the sequence of database states.

58. A computer program product including a computer readable medium having computer program code for storing and accessing a thesaurus of clinical terms comprising:

computer program code for providing a plurality of clinical terms for use in connection with a clinical study;

computer program code for storing the plurality of terms in a memory according to a hierarchy of relations;

computer program code for defining a plurality of relations corresponding to the plurality of clinical terms, the relations indicative of an association from a clinical term to at least one other of the plurality of clinical terms.

59. The computer program product of claim 58, further comprising:

computer program code for storing the relations in the memory;

computer program code for providing a match term;

computer program code for querying the memory to find an occurrence of the match term;

computer program code for traversing the relations corresponding to the match term; and

computer program code for accumulating at least one derived term from the relations corresponding to the match term.

60. A system for storing and accessing a thesaurus of clinical terms comprising:

means for providing a plurality of clinical terms for a clinical study;

means for storing the clinical terms in a memory according to a hierarchy of relations; and

means for defining a plurality of relations corresponding to the plurality of clinical terms, the relations indicative of an association from a clinical term to at least one other of the plurality of clinical terms.

61. The system of claim 60, further comprising:

means for storing the relations in the memory;

means for providing a match term;

means for querying the memory to find an occurrence of the match term;

means for traversing the relations corresponding to the match term; and

means for accumulating at least one derived term from the relations corresponding to the match term.

62. A computer data signal including program code for storing and accessing a thesaurus of clinical terms comprising:

program code for providing a plurality of clinical terms for a clinical study;

program code for storing the plurality of clinical terms in a memory, according to a hierarchy of relations; and

program code for defining a plurality of relations corresponding to the plurality of clinical terms, the relations indicative of an association from a clinical term to at least one other of the plurality of clinical terms.

63. The computer data signal of claim 62, further comprising:

program code for storing the relations in the memory;

program code for providing a match term;

program code for querying the memory to find an occurrence of the match term;

program code for traversing the relations corresponding to the match term; and

program code for accumulating at least one derived term from the relations.