Computerized medical diagnostic system utilizing list-based processing
First Claim
1. A computerized medical diagnostic system, comprising:
- a storage having a list of diseases, each disease associated with a list of symptoms, and each symptom associated with a list of questions; and
a storage having a script engine operating on a computer and configured to;
repetitively ask questions selected from the lists of questions to elicit responses, the responses establishing symptoms selected from the lists of symptoms, each established symptom contributing a weight to an accumulated total weight for a disease selected from the lists of diseases, anddetermine whether the accumulated total weight for the selected disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis.
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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.
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Citations
44 Claims
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1. A computerized medical diagnostic system, comprising:
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a storage having a list of diseases, each disease associated with a list of symptoms, and each symptom associated with a list of questions; and a storage having a script engine operating on a computer and configured to; repetitively ask questions selected from the lists of questions to elicit responses, the responses establishing symptoms selected from the lists of symptoms, each established symptom contributing a weight to an accumulated total weight for a disease selected from the lists of diseases, and determine whether the accumulated total weight for the selected disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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23. A computerized medical diagnostic method, comprising:
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providing a list of diseases, each disease associated with a list of symptoms, and each symptom associated with a list of questions; and executing a script engine on a computer comprising; repetitively asking questions selected from the lists of questions to elicit responses; establishing symptoms selected from the lists of symptoms based on the responses; contributing a weight to an accumulated total weight for a disease selected from the lists of disease based on each established symptom; and determining whether the accumulated total weight for the selected disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38)
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39. A computer usable medium having computer readable program code embodied therein for performing a computerized process used in medical diagnosis, the computer readable code comprising instructions for:
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providing a list of diseases, each disease associated with a list of symptoms, and each symptom associated with a list of questions; and executing a script engine comprising; repetitively asking questions selected from the lists of questions to elicit responses from a patient; establishing symptoms selected from the lists of symptoms based on the responses; contributing a weight to an accumulated total weight for a disease selected from the lists of disease based on each established symptom; and determining whether the accumulated total weight for a the selected disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis. - View Dependent Claims (40, 41)
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42. A computerized medical diagnostic system, comprising:
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a storage having a list of diseases, each disease associated with a list of symptoms, and each symptom associated with a list of questions; and a storage having a script engine operating on a computer and configured to; repetitively ask questions selected from the lists of questions to elicit responses from a patient, the responses establishing symptoms selected from the lists of symptoms, each established symptom contributing a weight to an accumulated total weight for a disease selected from the lists of disease, and determine whether the accumulated total weight for a the selected disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis. - View Dependent Claims (43, 44)
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Specification