CRITERIA MODIFICATION TO IMPROVE ANALYSIS

• US 20170109333A1
• Filed: 10/15/2015
• Published: 04/20/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 10/15/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: LORENZO, Mario J., NOWICKI, Jeffrey B., PIERCE, Daniel Z., VON BERGE, Jerry L., FREED, Andrew R.
• Granted Patent: US 10,083,161 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3344 using natural language analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/20 for electronic clinical trials or questionnaires
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• 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 50/20 for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/30 for calculating health indices; for individual health risk assessment

Abstract

Systems, methods, and computer program products to perform an operation comprising receiving a policy document specifying a plurality of criteria, identifying, in a segment of unstructured text in the policy document, a criteria delimiter, creating a first portion and a second portion of the segment of unstructured text, wherein the first and second portions are created based on the criteria delimiter, wherein the first and second portions comprise a first criterion and a second criterion, respectively, and responsive to identifying an anaphora in the second portion of the segment of unstructured text that is related to a term in the first portion of the segment of unstructured text, combining the first criterion and the second criterion into a composite criterion.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving an electronic policy document specifying a plurality of criteria;

identifying, in a segment of unstructured text in the policy document, a criteria delimiter;

identifying a first portion and a second portion of the segment of unstructured text, wherein the first and second portions are identified based on the criteria delimiter, wherein the first and second portions comprise a first criterion and a second criterion, respectively; and

responsive to identifying an anaphora in the second portion of the segment of unstructured text that is related to a term in the first portion of the segment of unstructured text, combining the first criterion and the second criterion into a composite criterion.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a first concept in the first portion of the segment of unstructured text and a second concept in the second portion of the segment of unstructured text; and

computing a score for the first concept and the second concept, wherein the similarity score is based on a distance between the first concept and the second concept in an ontology and reflects a level of similarity between the first and second concepts,

wherein the first criterion and the second criterion are combined into the composite criterion upon determining the similarity score exceeds a similarity threshold.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the segment of unstructured text comprises a single criterion prior to identifying the first and second portions of the unstructured text, the method further comprising:

upon determining that (i) the score does not exceed the similarity threshold, and (ii) the anaphora is not related to the term in the first portion of unstructured text;

refraining from combining the first and second criteria into a composite criteria; and

storing an indication that the first and second criteria are distinct criteria for the policy document.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein combining the first criterion and the second criterion comprises concatenating the first and second portions of the segment of unstructured text, the method further comprising:

storing an indication of the composite criterion as being one of the plurality of criteria for the policy document.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of criteria are identified by an annotator configured to identify criteria in the text of the policy document.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying, by an annotator, a plurality of concepts in the policy document, wherein the term in the first portion of the segment of unstructured text comprises a first concept of the plurality of concepts, wherein the anaphora comprises an anaphora for the first concept.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the criteria delimiter comprises one of:

(i) a period, (ii) a semicolon, (iii) a comma, (iv) a line break, (v) a character, and (vi) a list prefix delimiter.

8. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory containing a program which when executed by the processor performs an operation comprising;

receiving an electronic policy document specifying a plurality of criteria;

identifying, in a segment of unstructured text in the policy document, a criteria delimiter;

identifying a first portion and a second portion of the segment of unstructured text, wherein the first and second portions are identified based on the criteria delimiter, wherein the first and second portions comprise a first criterion and a second criterion, respectively; and

responsive to identifying an anaphora in the second portion of the segment of unstructured text that is related to a term in the first portion of the segment of unstructured text, combining the first criterion and the second criterion into a composite criterion.

9. The system of claim 8, the operation further comprising:

identifying a first concept in the first portion of the segment of unstructured text and a second concept in the second portion of the segment of unstructured text; and

computing a score for the first concept and the second concept, wherein the similarity score is based on a distance between the first concept and the second concept in an ontology and reflects a level of similarity between the first and second concepts,

wherein the first criterion and the second criterion are combined into the composite criterion upon determining the similarity score exceeds a similarity threshold.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the segment of unstructured text comprises a single criterion prior to identifying the first and second portions of the unstructured text, the operation further comprising:

upon determining that (i) the score does not exceed the similarity threshold, and (ii) the anaphora is not related to the term in the first portion of unstructured text;

refraining from combining the first and second criteria into a composite criteria; and

storing an indication that the first and second criteria are distinct criteria for the policy document.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein combining the first criterion and the second criterion comprises concatenating the first and second portions of the segment of unstructured text, the operation further comprising:

storing an indication of the composite criterion as being one of the plurality of criteria for the policy document.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the plurality of criteria are identified by an annotator configured to identify criteria in the text of the policy document.

13. The system of claim 8, the operation further comprising:

identifying, by an annotator, a plurality of concepts in the policy document, wherein the term in the first portion of the segment of unstructured text comprises a first concept of the plurality of concepts, wherein the anaphora comprises an anaphora for the first concept.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein the criteria delimiter comprises one of:

(i) a period, (ii) a semicolon, (iii) a comma, (iv) a line break, (v) a character, and (vi) a list prefix delimiter.

15. A computer program product, comprising:

a computer-readable storage medium having computer-readable program code embodied therewith, the computer-readable program code executable by one or more computer processors to perform an operation comprising;

receiving an electronic policy document specifying a plurality of criteria;

identifying, in a segment of unstructured text in the policy document, a criteria delimiter;

identifying a first portion and a second portion of the segment of unstructured text, wherein the first and second portions are identified based on the criteria delimiter, wherein the first and second portions comprise a first criterion and a second criterion, respectively; and

responsive to identifying an anaphora in the second portion of the segment of unstructured text that is related to a term in the first portion of the segment of unstructured text, combining the first criterion and the second criterion into a composite criterion.

16. The computer program product of claim 15, the operation further comprising:

identifying a first concept in the first portion of the segment of unstructured text and a second concept in the second portion of the segment of unstructured text; and

computing a score for the first concept and the second concept, wherein the similarity score is based on a distance between the first concept and the second concept in an ontology and reflects a level of similarity between the first and second concepts,

wherein the first criterion and the second criterion are combined into the composite criterion upon determining the similarity score exceeds a similarity threshold.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the segment of unstructured text comprises a single criterion prior to identifying the first and second portions of the unstructured text, the operation further comprising:

upon determining that (i) the score does not exceed the similarity threshold, and (ii) the anaphora is not related to the term in the first portion of unstructured text;

refraining from combining the first and second criteria into a composite criteria; and

storing an indication that the first and second criteria are distinct criteria for the policy document.

18. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein combining the first criterion and the second criterion comprises concatenating the first and second portions of the segment of unstructured text, the operation further comprising:

storing an indication of the composite criterion as being one of the plurality of criteria for the policy document.

19. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the plurality of criteria are identified by an annotator configured to identify criteria in the text of the policy document, wherein the criteria delimiter comprises one of:

(i) a period, (ii) a semicolon, (iii) a comma, (iv) a line break, (v) a character, and (vi) a list prefix delimiter.

20. The computer program product of claim 15, the operation further comprising:

identifying, by an annotator, a plurality of concepts in the policy document, wherein the term in the first portion of the segment of unstructured text comprises a first concept of the plurality of concepts, wherein the anaphora comprises an anaphora for the first concept.