Methods and systems for preventing unauthorized access to patient information

• US 8,959,455 B2
• Filed: 12/07/2012
• Issued: 02/17/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/25/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Advanced Bionics AG (Sonova Holding AG)
• Original Assignee: Advanced Bionics AG (Sonova Holding AG)
• Inventors: Johnston, Jacob, Chapa, Fernando, Calle, Guillermo A.
• Primary Examiner(s): LEE, TING ZHOU
• Application Number:
  US13/707,938
• Publication Number:
  US 20130104049A1
• Time in Patent Office: 802 Days
• Field of Search: 715/764, 715/816, 707/722, 707/736, 707/754, 726/26
• US Class Current: 715/816
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/20 of structured data, e.g. relational data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/438 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/604 Tools and structures for managing or administering access control systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6227 where protection concerns the structure of data, e.g. records, types, queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/84 output devices, e.g. displays or monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records

Abstract

An exemplary method includes a privacy management system 1) presenting, within a GUI, a patient list that initially includes a plurality of entries each comprising a plurality of obscured characters representative of patient information associated with a distinct patient included within a plurality of patients, 2) receiving user input representative of a search term comprising a sequence of one or more characters selected to identify a particular patient included within the plurality of patients, and 3) dynamically updating the patient list presented within the GUI in response to the user input by unobscuring a sequence of one or more obscured characters included in each entry of the patient list and that matches the sequence of one or more characters included in the search term and removing each entry included in the plurality of entries that does not include the search term from the patient list presented within the GUI.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

presenting, by a privacy management system within a graphical user interface, a patient list that initially includes a plurality of entries each comprising a plurality of obscured characters representative of patient information associated with a distinct patient included within a plurality of patients, wherein the obscured characters included in the plurality of entries are obscured by presenting an obscuring character in place of each actual character included in the plurality of entries;

receiving, by the privacy management system, user input representative of a search term comprising a sequence of one or more characters selected to identify a particular patient included within the plurality of patients; and

dynamically updating, by the privacy management system, the patient list presented within the graphical user interface in response to the user input by unobscuring a sequence of one or more obscured characters included in each entry of the patient list and that matches the sequence of one or more characters included in the search term, wherein the unobscuring of the sequence of one or more obscured characters comprises graphically replacing the one or more obscured characters with the sequence of one or more characters included in the search term, and

removing each entry included in the plurality of entries that does not include the search term from the patient list presented within the graphical user interface.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, by the privacy management system, additional user input representative of an additional search term comprising a sequence of one or more characters;

determining, by the privacy management system, that only a single entry included in the plurality of entries contains the search term sequentially followed by the additional search term; and

dynamically updating, by the privacy management system, the updated patient list presented within the graphical user interface in response to the additional user input by

unobscuring all of the obscured characters included in the single entry, and

removing all of the entries included in the plurality of entries other than the single entry from the updated patient list presented within the graphical user interface.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising presenting, by the privacy management system within the graphical user interface, additional patient information associated with the particular patient in response to a user selection of the single entry.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

presenting, by the privacy management system, a patient information grid within the graphical user interface, the patient information grid comprising a plurality of columns and rows;

wherein the presenting of the patient list comprises presenting each entry included in the plurality of entries within a distinct row of the patient information grid.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein one of the rows within the patient information grid comprises a filter row with one or more input fields, and wherein the receiving of the user input comprises receiving data input into at least one of the one or more input fields.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the patient information comprises at least a first and a last name of each of the plurality of patients.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the obscuring character comprises at least one of an asterisk character and a whitespace character.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the obscured characters included in the plurality of entries are obscured by presenting, within the graphical user interface, a graphical depiction of one or more boxes that hide the obscured characters.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein, for a particular entry, the unobscuring comprises reducing a size of the graphical depiction of the one or more boxes to expose the sequence of one or more characters included in the particular entry.

10. The method of claim 1, embodied as computer-executable instructions stored on at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium.

11. A method comprising:

presenting a patient list within a graphical user interface;

receiving user input representative of a search term comprising one or more characters selected to identify a particular patient included within a plurality of patients;

dynamically updating the patient list in response to the received user input to only include a plurality of entries that contain the search term, each of the entries comprising patient information associated with a distinct one of the patients;

preventing one or more non-search term characters contained within each of the plurality of entries included in the updated patient list from being displayed within the graphical user interface by displaying one or more obscuring characters in place of the one or more non-search term characters contained within each of the entries included in the updated patient list; and

displaying the entries included in the updated patient list within the graphical user interface.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the obscuring character comprises at least one of an asterisk character and a whitespace character.

13. The method of claim 11, embodied as computer-executable instructions stored on at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium.

14. A system comprising:

at least one computing device that comprises;

a processor;

a presentation facility configured to present, within a graphical user interface, a patient list that initially includes a plurality of entries each comprising a plurality of obscured characters representative of patient information associated with a distinct patient included within a plurality of patients, wherein the obscured characters included in the plurality of entries are obscured by presenting an obscuring character in place of each actual character included in the plurality of entries;

a communication facility selectively and communicatively coupled to the presentation facility and configured to receive user input representative of a search term comprising a sequence of one or more characters selected to identify a particular patient included within the plurality of patients; and

a privacy facility selectively and communicatively coupled to the display facility and to the communication facility and configured to unobscure a sequence of one or more obscured characters included in each entry of the patient list and that matches the sequence of one or more characters included in the search term, wherein the privacy facility is configured to unobscured the sequence of one or more obscured characters by graphically replacing the one or more obscured characters with the sequence of one or more characters included in the search term, and

remove each entry included in the plurality of entries that does not include the search term from the patient list presented within the graphical user interface.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the obscured characters included in the plurality of entries are obscured by the privacy facility presenting, within the graphical user interface, a graphical depiction of one or more boxes that hide the obscured characters.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein, for a particular entry, the privacy facility is configured to unobscure the sequence of the one or more obscured characters by reducing a size of the graphical depiction of the one or more boxes to expose the sequence of one or more characters included in the particular entry.