Extensible and localizable health-related dictionary

• US 8,417,537 B2
• Filed: 09/25/2007
• Issued: 04/09/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/01/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Apacible, Johnson T., Nolan, Sean Patrick, Kalmady, Gaurav Dinesh, Varadan, Vijay
• Primary Examiner(s): Le, Michelle
• Application Number:
  US11/860,627
• Publication Number:
  US 20080103830A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,023 Days
• Field of Search: 705 2- 4, 707/999
• US Class Current: 705/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 70/60 relating to pathologies

Abstract

A system that uses a health-related dictionary component to establish responses to requests from devices and applications is provided. The innovation discloses uses of a health-related dictionary to enable retrieval of standardized lists and taxonomies in the healthcare space as well as localization of health-related data. Examples of these taxonomies include codes from medical coding vocabularies such as CPT (Current Procedural Terminology), layouts, templates, as well as references to units of measurements such as feet, inches, meters, liters, etc.

Claims

1. A system, comprising at least one processor coupled to at least one machine-readable storage medium storing instructions executable by the at least one processor to implement:

a dictionary component that includes reference data;

a dictionary access layer configured to process a health-related data request and render a subset of the reference data based upon the health-related data request; and

a configuration component configured to transform the subset of the reference data based on a locale associated with the health-related data request, at least in part by selecting and combining localized representations, corresponding to the subset of reference data, to create contents of a transform to be applied to the subset of the reference data to render the subset of the reference data in a localized form, wherein the localized representations include

information that defines medical acronyms,

information that defines medical procedures,

information that defines medical coding vocabulary,

information that transforms units of measurement, and

information that formats display characteristics of data,

based on the locale associated with the health-related data request.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the dictionary component includes a plurality of health-related taxonomies.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein, to transform the subset of the reference data, the configuration component is configured to translate the subset of the reference data to a local dialect.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a request analysis component configured to identify at least one of a name, family or version of taxonomy from the health-related data request, wherein the subset of reference data is associated with the taxonomy.

6. The system of claim 5, further comprising an evaluation component configured to determine a scope of the health-related data request, wherein the scope is to be employed to identify the subset of reference data.

7. The system of claim 6, further comprising a profile determination component configured to establish profile parameters, wherein a subset of the profile parameters are to be employed to identify the locale for which to transform the subset of reference data.

8. The system of claim 5, further comprising a dictionary interface component configured to fetch the subset of reference data from the dictionary component.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the configuration component is configured to use identifiers of display text associated with a source concept of the dictionary component, in conjunction with the locale, to select a localized form of display text.

10. The system of claim 9, further comprising a rendering component configured to deliver the subset of reference data to an application associated with the health-related data request.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the rendering component is configured to at least partly employ free form XML (extensible markup language) in rendering the subset of health-related data.

3. A system, comprising at least one processor coupled to at least one machine-readable storage medium storing instructions executable by the at least one processor to implement:

a dictionary component that includes reference data;

a dictionary access layer configured to process a health-related data request and render a subset of the reference data based upon the health-related data request;

a localization component configured to transform the subset of the reference data based on a locale associated with the health-related data request; and

a transform component configured to select a transform for a data item to be rendered in the subset of the reference data, from a transforms store associated with the dictionary component;

wherein the localization component is configured to transform the subset of the reference data based on the locale at least in part by fetching a localized representation corresponding to the transform selected by the transform component from a localized transforms store associated with the dictionary component, wherein the localized representations include

information that defines medical acronyms,

information that defines medical procedures,

information that defines medical coding vocabulary,

information that transforms units of measurement, and

information that formats display characteristics of data,

based on the locale associated with the health-related data request.

12. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

analyzing, by a computing device, a health-related data request received from an application;

employing, by the computing device, the analysis to identify at least one of a name, family or version of a taxonomy maintained in a dictionary;

retrieving, by the computing device, information from the taxonomy;

creating, by the computing device, contents of a transform to be applied to the information at least in part by selecting and combining localized representations from a transforms store, the localized representations include

information that defines medical acronyms,

information that defines medical procedures,

information that defines medical coding vocabulary,

information that transforms units of measurement, and

information that formats display characteristics of data;

configuring, by the computing device, the information to correspond to a locale at least in part by applying the created transform contents to the information; and

rendering, by the computing device, the configured information to the application.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

partitioning, by the computing device, information of the taxonomy; and

defining, by the computing device, a level of access to a partition of the information.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising returning, by the computing device, to the application contents of the taxonomy at least partly as a translated form of display text associated with a source concept in the taxonomy.

15. The method of claim of claim 12, further comprising retrieving, by the computing device, profile data, wherein the profile data is employed in the configuring.

16. A computer-readable storage medium storing instructions, the instructions if executed by a computing device causing the computing device to perform operations comprising:

establishing a scope of a health-related data request;

accessing a dictionary for information as a function of the scope;

generating a response to the health-related data request based upon the information;

applying a transform to at least one data item of the information, the transform including a selected combination of localized representations corresponding to the at least one data item;

including the at least one data item to which the transform is applied in the response; and

rendering the response, wherein the localized representations include

information that defines medical acronyms,

information that defines medical procedures,

information that defines medical coding vocabulary,

information that transforms units of measurement, and

information that formats display characteristics of data,

based on a local of the health-related data request.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, the rendering the response comprising

associating structure with taxonomy elements of the dictionary,

transforming text associated with the taxonomy by the applying of the transform, and

communicating, via an application programming interface, a content of the taxonomy associated with a source concept in the taxonomy, the content including the transformed text for display.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, the operations further comprising accessing a profile in generating the response.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, the operations further comprising:

mapping the response to a definition, wherein the response includes the definition;

or

transforming the request, wherein the response includes the transformation.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, the operations further comprising issuing the response as a default response in the event that a specific response is unavailable.