Automatic Expansion of Medically Relevant Summarization Templates Using Semantic Expansion

A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having a computer readable program stored therein, wherein the computer readable program, when executed on a computing device, causes the computing device to implement a medical information summarization engine (MISE) which operates to:

• receive input specifying a summarization template, wherein the summarization template specifies terms or concepts of interest to a medical professional when making a medical decision regarding a patient;
• expand the summarization template based on related concepts or related terms that are related to the terms or concepts of interest specified in the summarization template, to thereby generate an expanded summarization template, wherein the expansion operation expands the summarization template based on a traversal of a medical knowledge base of the related terms or relate concepts;
• receive electronic medical records (EMR) for a patient;
• process the EMR of the patient based on the expanded summarization template to extract patient information corresponding to the terms or concepts of interest and the related concepts or related terms;
• and
• generate and output a holistic summary of the EMR of the patient that summarizes the most salient portions of the patient EMR for use by the medical professional in making the medical decision regarding the patient, based on extracted patient information obtained from processing the patient EMR based on the expanded summarization template.

An apparatus comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory coupled to the processor, wherein the memory comprises instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to implement a medical information summarization engine (MISE) that operates to:
• receive input specifying a summarization template, wherein the summarization template specifies terms or concepts of interest to a medical professional when making a medical decision regarding a patient;
• expand the summarization template based on related concepts or related terms that are related to the terms or concepts of interest specified in the summarization template, to thereby generate an expanded summarization template, wherein the expansion operation expands the summarization template based on a traversal of a medical knowledge base of the related terms or relate concepts;
• receive electronic medical records (EMR) for a patient;
• process the EMR of the patient based on the expanded summarization template to extract patient information corresponding to the terms or concepts of interest and the related concepts or related terms;
• and
• generate and output a holistic summary of the EMR of the patient that summarizes the most salient portions of the patient EMR for use by the medical professional in making the medical decision regarding the patient, based on extracted patient information obtained from processing the patient EMR based on the expanded summarization template.