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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 medica

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.

대표청구항 ▼

What is claimed is: 1. A computerized medical diagnostic system, comprising: a storage having a list of diseases, each disease associated with a list of symptoms, and each symptom associated with a list of questions; and a storage having a script engine operating on a computer and configured to: re

What is claimed is: 1. A computerized medical diagnostic system, comprising: a storage having a list of diseases, each disease associated with a list of symptoms, and each symptom associated with a list of questions; and a storage having a script engine operating on a computer and configured to: repetitively ask questions selected from the lists of questions to elicit responses, the responses establishing symptoms selected from the lists of symptoms, each established symptom contributing a weight to an accumulated total weight for a disease selected from the lists of diseases, and determine whether the accumulated total weight for the selected disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis. 2. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the symptom is established based on a presence or absence of one or more other symptoms. 3. The system defined in claim 1, wherein a presence of a selected set of symptoms adds additional weight to the accumulated total weight of at least one of the diseases. 4. The system defined in claim 1, wherein a symptom at a first selected time during operation of the diagnostic system is weighted differently than the symptom at a second selected time. 5. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the weight of a symptom established at a first severity is different than the weight of the symptom established at a second severity. 6. The system defined in claim 1, wherein a selected set of symptoms that occur in a specified sequence over time lends a different accumulated weight to the total weight than an accumulation of the individual weights of the selected set of symptoms that do not occur in the specified sequence. 7. The system defined in claim 1, wherein a sequence of an onset or ending of a selected set of symptoms lends a different accumulated weight to the total weight than an accumulation of individual weights of the selected symptoms alone. 8. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the disease is ruled-in for further diagnostic inquiry based on the accumulated total weight. 9. The system defined in claim 8, wherein a degree of certainty of ruling-in the disease is provided. 10. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the disease is ruled-out for further diagnostic inquiry based on the accumulated total weight. 11. The system defined in claim 10, wherein a degree of certainty of ruling-out the disease is provided. 12. The system defined in claim 1, wherein questions for diseases deemed urgent are asked before questions for non-urgent diseases. 13. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the script engine is further configured to determine whether the accumulated total weight for a disease reaches or passes a rule-out threshold so as to eliminate a possible diagnosis. 14. The system defined in claim 1, wherein a plurality of diagnoses, each diagnosis having a degree of certainty, are accumulated into a patient specific differential diagnosis list. 15. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the script engine is configured to repetitively ask questions selected from two or more lists of questions to elicit responses from a patient. 16. The system defined in claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the symptoms in the lists of symptoms are associated with a plurality of questions to be asked, and wherein weights are assigned to possible responses of the plurality of questions. 17. The system defined in claim 16, wherein after the plurality of questions are answered, a symptom score is totaled of the weights corresponding to the responses. 18. The system defined in claim 17, wherein the symptom score is compared to a threshold for the symptom, and the symptom is established if the symptom score reaches or passes the symptom threshold. 19. The system defined in claim 18, wherein the weight of the established symptom is associated with the symptom score. 20. The system defined in claim 16, wherein at least some of the weights assigned to the possible responses of the plurality of questions have different values. 21. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the weight contributed by an established symptom is a negative integer. 22. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the storage having the list of diseases and the storage having the script engine are the same device. 23. A computerized medical diagnostic method, comprising: providing a list of diseases, each disease associated with a list of symptoms, and each symptom associated with a list of questions; and executing a script engine on a computer comprising: repetitively asking questions selected from the lists of questions to elicit responses; establishing symptoms selected from the lists of symptoms based on the responses; contributing a weight to an accumulated total weight for a disease selected from the lists of disease based on each established symptom; and determining whether the accumulated total weight for the selected disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis. 24. The method defined in claim 23, wherein establishing symptoms is based on a presence or absence of one or more other symptoms. 25. The method defined in claim 23, additionally comprising adding additional weight to the accumulated total weight of at least one of the diseases based on a presence of a selected set of symptoms. 26. The method defined in claim 23, wherein contributing a weight comprises weighting a symptom at a first selected time during execution of the script engine differently than the symptom at a second selected time. 27. The method defined in claim 23, wherein contributing a weight comprises weighting a symptom established at a first severity differently than the weight of the symptom established at a second severity. 28. The method defined in claim 23, additionally comprising contributing an accumulated weight to the total weight for a selected set of symptoms that occur in a specified sequence over time that is different than an accumulation of the individual weights of the selected set of symptoms that do not occur in the specified sequence. 29. The method defined in claim 23, additionally comprising contributing an accumulated weight to the total weight for a sequence of an onset or ending of a selected set of symptoms that is different than an accumulation of individual weights of the selected symptoms alone. 30. The method defined in claim 23, additionally comprising ruling-in the disease for further diagnostic inquiry based on the accumulated total weight. 31. The method defined in claim 23, additionally comprising providing a degree of certainty of ruling-in the disease. 32. The method defined in claim 23, additionally comprising ruling-out the disease for further diagnostic inquiry based on the accumulated total weight. 33. The method defined in claim 32, additionally comprising providing a degree of certainty of ruling-out the disease. 34. The method defined in claim 23, wherein repetitively asking questions comprises asking questions for diseases deemed urgent before questions for non-urgent diseases. 35. The method defined in claim 23, additionally comprising determining whether the accumulated total weight for a disease reaches or passes a rule-out threshold so as to eliminate a possible diagnosis. 36. The method defined in claim 23, additionally comprising accumulating a plurality of diagnoses, each diagnosis having a degree of certainty, into a patient specific differential diagnosis list. 37. The method defined in claim 23, wherein repetitively asking questions to elicit responses comprises repetitively asking questions to elicit responses from a patient. 38. The method defined in claim 23, wherein the weight contributed by an established symptom is a negative integer. 39. A computer usable medium having computer readable program code embodied therein for performing a computerized process used in medical diagnosis, the computer readable code comprising instructions for: providing a list of diseases, each disease associated with a list of symptoms, and each symptom associated with a list of questions; and executing a script engine comprising: repetitively asking questions selected from the lists of questions to elicit responses from a patient; establishing symptoms selected from the lists of symptoms based on the responses; contributing a weight to an accumulated total weight for a disease selected from the lists of disease based on each established symptom; and determining whether the accumulated total weight for a the selected disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis. 40. The computer usable medium of claim 39, additionally comprising instructions for accumulating a plurality of diagnoses, each diagnosis having a degree of certainty, into a patient specific differential diagnosis list. 41. The computer usable medium defined in claim 39, wherein the weight contributed by an established symptom is a negative integer. 42. A computerized medical diagnostic system, comprising: a storage having a list of diseases, each disease associated with a list of symptoms, and each symptom associated with a list of questions; and a storage having a script engine operating on a computer and configured to: repetitively ask questions selected from the lists of questions to elicit responses from a patient, the responses establishing symptoms selected from the lists of symptoms, each established symptom contributing a weight to an accumulated total weight for a disease selected from the lists of disease, and determine whether the accumulated total weight for a the selected disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis. 43. The system defined in claim 42, wherein the weight contributed by an established symptom is a negative integer. 44. The system defined in claim 42, wherein the storage having the list of diseases and the storage having the script engine are the same device.