Systems and methods for diagnosing medical conditions
First Claim
1. A process for diagnosing a medical condition of a patient, comprising the acts ofidentifying a plurality of candidate medical conditions, identifying a plurality of findings to provide a list of findings, each of which is representative of clinical information that can be gathered about the patient'"'"'s condition, determining for each finding, a likelihood that a particular finding can disambiguate between said candidate medical conditions, and ranking said findings as a function of the likelihood that a finding can disambiguate between said plurality of medical conditions, whereby a clinician can employ said ranked findings to identify a finding that is likely to lead to a correct diagnosis of the patient'"'"'s medical condition.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The systems and methods described herein aid a clinician in the diagnostic process by providing the clinician with information about the available clinical procedures that most improve the clinician'"'"'s ability to reach a correct diagnosis. Specifically, the systems described herein include software tools that can process information about the patient, including age, sex, symptoms, and prior medical history, and information about the known findings associated with different possible medical conditions, and based on this information, rank the other findings that can be ascertained by the clinician to point out to those findings that are most likely to disambiguate between the multiple candidate disease and lead to the correct diagnosis.
97 Citations
31 Claims
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1. A process for diagnosing a medical condition of a patient, comprising the acts of
identifying a plurality of candidate medical conditions, identifying a plurality of findings to provide a list of findings, each of which is representative of clinical information that can be gathered about the patient'"'"'s condition, determining for each finding, a likelihood that a particular finding can disambiguate between said candidate medical conditions, and ranking said findings as a function of the likelihood that a finding can disambiguate between said plurality of medical conditions, whereby a clinician can employ said ranked findings to identify a finding that is likely to lead to a correct diagnosis of the patient'"'"'s medical condition.
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15. A process for displaying clinical diagnostic information, comprising the acts of
employing a list of candidate medical conditions, each of which being associated with a ranking representative of the likelihood that the candidate medical disease is a correct diagnosis for a patient, and providing a graphical control element for allowing a clinician to flip between displays associated with said candidate medical conditions and presenting screens of finding information.
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18. A process for displaying clinical diagnostic information, comprising the acts of
employing a list of findings, each being associated with a ranking representative of the likelihood that the finding can disambiguate between a plurality of candidate medical diseases, and providing a graphical control element for allowing a clinician to flip between displays associated with said findings and presenting screens of disease information.
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21. A method of displaying clinical diagnostic information, comprising the acts of
providing a plurality of findings and a set of probability values, each associated with a respective one of said plurality of findings and each being representative of the likelihood that the presence or absence of the finding can disambiguate between a plurality of medical conditions, and displaying on a computer display said plurality of findings, wherein said plurality of findings are arranged on the computer display to indicate the likelihood that one of the findings can disambiguate between a plurality of candidate medical conditions.
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22. A computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions for directing a computer to
provide a plurality of candidate medical conditions, provide a plurality of findings, each of which is representative of clinical information that can be gathered about the patient'"'"'s condition, determine for each finding, a likelihood that a particular finding can disambiguate between said candidate medical conditions, and rank said findings as a function of the likelihood that a finding can disambiguate between said plurality of medical conditions, whereby a treating clinician can be provided with useful information regarding the likelihood that a finding can lead to the identification of the target medical condition.
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23. A system for providing a clinician with a database of ranked findings for diagnosing a disease, comprising:
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a computer network having a server that will receive information on findings and store for each finding a record having information representative of the likelihood that the finding with an onset age is present in a patient having a particular disease, a computer program operating on said server to generate a data file representative of a plurality of such records, and a transfer program capable of transferring said data file to a client station, whereby a clinician at the client station is provided with a database of information ranked in an order representative of the likelihood that a finding is useful in diagnosing the disease.
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24. A method for selecting a clinical procedure for diagnosing a disease, comprising the acts of
identifying a plurality of candidate diseases, each having an associated likelihood that the candidate disease is a correct diagnosis for a patient'"'"'s medical condition, identifying a plurality of candidate findings, each being representative of information that can be gathered about a patient'"'"'s medical condition, selecting one of said candidate findings, and determining for each of said candidate diseases a change in likelihood that the candidate disease is the correct diagnosis as a function of whether the selected candidate finding is present or absent.
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29. A process for diagnosing a medical condition of a patient, comprising the acts of
providing a list of candidate medical conditions each being associated with a probability estimate representative of the likelihood that the candidate medical condition is a correct diagnosis, providing finding information for the patient, including information representative of findings identified in the patient and including onset information representative of a time of onset associated with the finding, and generating as a function of the onset information and the probability estimates, a compound graphical component for each of the candidate medical conditions capable of displaying probability data representative of a selected finding being present in the candidate disease during a specified onset period, whereby finding information can be entered to generate a set of graphical components that include a component that predicts new probability estimates that can result in response to specifying a selected finding.
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30. A system for creating medical records for a patient, comprising
means for identifying a set of findings for diagnosing a medical condition and for displaying the set findings in an order representative of the likelihood that a finding can disambiguate between a plurality of medical conditions, means for allowing a clinician to enter information representative of those findings identified in the patient, and means for generating a data record representative of information gathered during a diagnostic process, said information including standard code signals for diseases and findings.
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31. A method for justifying a clinical procedure, comprising
(a) providing a list of candidate findings, each being representative of information that can be gathered about a patient'"'"'s medical condition during a clinical procedure, (b) providing a list of candidate diseases, each having an associated likelihood that the candidate disease is a correct diagnosis for a patient'"'"'s medical condition, (c) selecting one of said candidate findings, (d) determining for each of said candidate diseases a change in likelihood that the candidate disease is the correct diagnosis as a function of whether the selected candidate finding is present or absent, and summing the determined changes in likelihood to generate a measure of the usefulness of the selected candidate finding, (e) repeating steps (c) and (d) to determine a measure of usefulness for at least a portion of the candidate findings in the list of candidate findings, and (f) for at least a portion of the candidate findings, comparing the measure of usefulness for a candidate finding to a measure of burden, to determine if a clinical procedure for collecting information regarding the candidate medical condition is justified.
Specification