Systems and methods for quantifying qualitative medical expressions
AssigneeSimulConsult, Inc.
InventorMichael M. Segal
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The systems and methods of the invention can process a qualitative expression, typically a phrase, to generate a numerical value that represents the likelihood of an event as expressed by the given qualitative expression. The qualitative expressions typically are made up of a probability term and possibly a term of degree and one or more terms of negation. Thus, the systems described herein allow numerical information to be captured from qualitative expressions. This, allows further numeric processing and data refining, and facilitates the development of databases of information, such as databases of information about the significance of the existence of a symptom for the diagnosis of a particular disease.
Claims16
A process for generating a numerical value of likelihood of a symptom being present for a particular disease, comprising
- identifying a qualitative expression of likelihood having at least one term,
- parsing said qualitative expression as a function of said at least one term to identify a semantic form related to said qualitative expression,
- identifying for said at least one term a numerical value of probability associated with said at least one term,
- identifying, as a function of said semantic form, a formula for processing said numerical value of probability, and
- processing said numerical value of probability as a function of said formula to determine a numerical value of likelihood associated with said qualitative expression and providing a numerical statement of the likelihood that a particular symptom is present in a patient having a particular disease.
A process for generating a numerical value of the likelihood of a symptom being present for a particular disease, comprising
- identifying a qualitative expression of a likelihood that a particular symptom is present in a patient having a particular medical condition, wherein said qualitative expression includes a term for expressing likelihood,
- parsing said qualitative expression as a function of said term to identify a semantic form related to said qualitative expression, identifying for said term a numerical value of probability associated with said term,
- identifying, as a function of said semantic form, a formula for processing said numerical value of probability, and
- processing said numerical value of probability as a function of said formula to determine a numerical value of likelihood associated with said qualitative expression and providing a numerical statement of the likelihood that a particular symptom is present in a patient having a particular disease.
A system for generating a database of statistical data of medical information, comprising
- an input device for receiving a text string representative of a qualitative expression of the likelihood of the occurrence of an event, a parser for parsing said qualitative expression into one or more terms, including at least one term representative of a statement of likelihood, and for selecting a semantic form, as a function of said parsed qualitative expression, associated with said qualitative expression,
- a selection processor for selecting for each term in said qualitative expression a numerical value, and
- a numerical processor for processing said selected numerical values as a function of said formula, to provide a numerical value of likelihood associated with said qualitative expression and providing a numerical statement of the likelihood that a particular symptom is present in a patient having a particular disease.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.