Medical equipment having audit log managing function

• US 7,827,148 B2
• Filed: 01/17/2006
• Issued: 11/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/17/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation (Canon Inc.), Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Tashiro, Junichi, Mori, Kei, Nakano, Takaaki, Fukuda, Megumu
• Primary Examiner(s): LE, DEBBIE M
• Application Number:
  US11/332,217
• Publication Number:
  US 20060161593A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,750 Days
• Field of Search: 707/66, 707/822, 607/1, 607/29
• US Class Current: 707/661
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/20 for the management or administration of healthcare resources or facilities, e.g. managing hospital staff or surgery rooms
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/40 for the management of medical equipment or devices, e.g. scheduling maintenance or upgrades

Abstract

A log file generating section generates an audit log file of patient information in response to various kinds of events generated in a medical equipment, and a file compressing section compresses the generated file in a local storage medium at a predetermined timing. Further, a log management section automatically transfers the compressed audit log file to an external storage device and deletes data in the local storage medium at a predetermined timing, e.g., when a remaining capacity in the local storage medium exceeds a limit value.

Claims

1. A medical equipment comprising:

a log generating unit which generates a log concerning an operation dealing with patient information and an operation of the medical equipment, the log including an information of an operator that operates the medical equipment, a time of the operation of the medical equipment, and content of the operation of the medical equipment; and

a log management unit which determines an execution timing of log target processing as processing which uses the log and substantially gives a high load to the medical equipment based on an operation state of the medical equipment, and executes the log target processing at the determined timing, wherein the log target processing includes compression processing of compressing the log concerning the operation dealing with patient information and the operation of the medical equipment to generate a compressed log;

a storage unit which stores the compressed log generated by the log generating unit, and

wherein the log management unit determines the execution timing of the log target processing based on one of;

interruption of a diagnostic operation,

termination of a diagnostic operation,

CPU operating status,

CPU use ratio,

memory use status,

memory use ratio,

a number of activation processes in the system,

a local disk remaining capacity,

a status of access to the local disk,

a number of audit log files,

a number of compressed audit log files,

presence/absence of an audit log file in a compression process,

a date has been changed,

a week has been changed,

a month has been changed,

the apparatus has entered a standby state,

the apparatus has entered a pause state,

the apparatus has been shut down.

2. The medical equipment according to claim 1, wherein the patient information includes diagnostic information concerning a patient and collateral information including at least a patient name and a type of a test conducted to the patient.

3. The medical equipment according to claim 1, wherein the log management unit determines the execution timing of the log target processing in such a manner that the log target processing is started when the medical equipment interrupts or terminates a diagnostic operation.

4. The medical equipment according to claim 1, wherein the log management unit determines the execution timing of the log target processing in such a manner that the log target processing is interrupted or terminated when the medical equipment starts a diagnostic operation.

5. The medical equipment according to 1, wherein the log target processing includes transfer processing of transferring the compressed log to an external storage device.

6. The medical equipment according to claim 1,

wherein the log management unit determines an execution timing of the compression processing based on an operation state of the medical equipment, and

the log management unit executes the compression processing and deletes a log as a target of the compression processing from the storage unit with the determined execution timing of the compression processing being used as a reference.

7. The medical equipment according to claim 1,

wherein the log management unit determines an execution timing of the compression processing based on a capacity reducing state of the storage unit, and

the log management unit executes the compression processing and deletes a log as a target of the compression processing from the storage unit with the determined execution timing of the compression processing being used as a reference.

8. The medical equipment according to claim 1, further comprising an instruction unit which instructs the log management unit to execute the compression processing,

wherein the log management unit executes the compression processing and deletes a log as a target of the compression processing from the storage unit in response to an instruction from the instruction unit.

9. The medical equipment according to claim 5,

wherein the log management unit determines an execution timing of the transfer processing based on a capacity reducing state of the storage unit, and

the log management unit executes the transfer processing and deletes a log as a target of the compression processing from the storage unit with the determined execution timing of the transfer processing being used as a reference.

10. The medical equipment according to claim 1, wherein the log target processing includes encryption processing of encrypting the compressed log.

11. The medical equipment according to claim 1, wherein the log target processing includes processing of generating information which adds information for confirmation of integrity of the audit log.

12. The medical equipment according to claim 1, wherein the log target processing includes processing for confirmation of integrity of the audit log.

13. The medical equipment according to claim 1, wherein the log generation unit generates integrity verifying information for verification of integrity of the log and outputs to an external storage device the log and the integrity verifying information in association with each other.

14. The medical equipment according to claim 13, wherein the log generation unit generates as the integrity verifying information a confirming application which is read into a user terminal to be activated.

15. The medical equipment according to claim 13, wherein the log generation unit generates as the integrity verifying information a confirming application which allows a user terminal to function as a log integrity confirming section which verifies integrity of the log stored in the external storage device.

16. The medical equipment according to claim 13, wherein the log generation unit generates as the integrity verifying information a confirming application which allows a user terminal to function as a log configuration confirming section which judges whether a configuration of the log stored in the external storage device is complete and as a log integrity confirming section which verifies integrity of the log stored in the external storage device.

17. The medical equipment according to claim 13, wherein the log generation unit executes encryption processing of encrypting the log and verifying information generation processing of generating as the integrity verifying information a confirming application configured to decrypt the log when it is read into a user terminal to be activated.

18. The medical equipment according to claim 13, wherein the log generation unit generates the integrity verifying information common to the logs.

19. The medical equipment according to claim 13, wherein the log generation unit generates log integrity verifying information used to verify integrity of the log, and

the log management unit confirms the log integrity verifying information with respect to the log, thereby verifying integrity of the log.

20. The medical equipment according to claim 13, wherein the log generation unit creates a first message digest to generate the log integrity verifying information by using a character string based on a calculation utilizing a hash function, and

the log management unit creates a second message digest to generate the integrity verifying information by executing a calculation utilizing a hash function which employs a character string which is equal to or different from the character string used by the log generation unit.

21. The medical equipment according to claim 13, wherein the log management unit adds information indicating that integrity has not been confirmed to the log whose integrity has not been confirmed.

22. The medical equipment according to claim 13, wherein the log management unit supplies to a display device information indicating that integrity has not been confirmed with respect to the log whose integrity has not been confirmed, thereby displaying the supplied information.