Computerized medical diagnostic system utilizing list-based processing
First Claim
1. A system for performing an automated diagnostic session with a patient, comprising:
- a plurality of disease scripts, each script being associated with a disease;
a patient medical history configured to store medical information specific to a patient;
a script router configured to select a set of disease scripts to be considered for diagnosis based on the patient medical history; and
a script engine operating on a computer and configured to execute a disease script associated with a selected one of the set of disease scripts and collect additional medical information from the execution of the disease script, wherein the script router automatically changes the set of disease scripts to be further considered for diagnosis based on the patient medical history and the collected medical information.
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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.
65 Citations
26 Claims
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1. A system for performing an automated diagnostic session with a patient, comprising:
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a plurality of disease scripts, each script being associated with a disease;
a patient medical history configured to store medical information specific to a patient;
a script router configured to select a set of disease scripts to be considered for diagnosis based on the patient medical history; and
a script engine operating on a computer and configured to execute a disease script associated with a selected one of the set of disease scripts and collect additional medical information from the execution of the disease script, wherein the script router automatically changes the set of disease scripts to be further considered for diagnosis based on the patient medical history and the collected medical information. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. A computerized diagnostic system, comprising:
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a list of diseases, each disease associated with a list of symptoms, and each symptom associated with a list of questions; and
a script engine operating on a computer and configured to;
repetitively ask questions to elicit responses, the responses establishing symptoms, each established symptom contributing a weight to an accumulated total weight for a disease, and determine whether the accumulated total weight for a disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26)
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Specification