IP Library Granted Patent US 11,188,527
Granted Patent B2
US 11,188,527 · App. 16/019,501 · Granted Nov 30, 2021

Index-based deidentification

Inventors: David W. Padgett (Sunnyvale, CA); John P. Clark (Redwood City, CA); Brian A. Carlsen (Oakland, CA); Jeffrey D. LaMarche (Mountain View, CA); Jason B. Morley (Santa Clara, CA); Christian Schroeder (Palo Alto, CA); Mark E. Pennell (Redwood City, CA); Zhe Li (Fremont, CA); Jorge F. Pozas Trevino (San Mateo, CA); Kevin M. Lynch (Woodside, CA)
Assignee: Apple Inc.
G06F16/245G06F16/338G06F16/9535G16H10/60G16H80/00H04L51/08
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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 11,188,527
App. No.
16/019,501
Granted
Nov 30, 2021
Kind
B2
Abstract

A term base can be used to index a raw term (e.g., a text string from an electronic health record) to generate a computational expression of the raw term. As part of doing so, portions of the raw term including personally identifying information can be removed and/or replaced with de-identified information. The computational expression of the raw term can be used to generate a version of the raw term that is devoid of the personally identifying information.

Claims (69)

1. A user device, comprising:

a memory comprising computer-executable instructions; and

a processor configured to access the memory and execute the computer-executable instructions to at least:

store medical data obtained from an electronic health record (EHR) system, the medical data associated with an electronic health record of a user of the user device:

access first medical term data from the stored medical data, the first medical term data including user personally identifying information data that uniquely identifies the user of the user device and represents a plurality of entries in the electronic health record;

for each entry of the plurality of entries, index the first medical term data by at least:

parsing the first medical term data to identify a plurality of data sections present in the first medical term data of each of the plurality of entries, the plurality of data sections including:

a medical data section describing a medical aspect of the first medical term data; and

an identifying data section including a portion of the user personally identifying information;

converting, by using a primary term base, the medical data section into a medical term primitive corresponding to the medical data section, the medical term primitive comprising a first numerical code; and

converting, by using an auxiliary term base, the identifying data section into an identifying primitive corresponding to the identifying data section, the identifying primitive comprising a second numerical code;

assemble a plurality of term expressions each including the medical term primitive and the identifying primitive of the respective entry by concatenating the first numerical code and the second numerical code, each term expression of the plurality of term expressions representing an entry of the plurality of entries in a computational form;

generate, based at least in part on the plurality of term expressions, second medical term data that is distinct from the first medical term data, the second medical term data including, for each entry of the plurality of entries:

de-identified information in place of the identifying data section; and

medical information in place of the medical data section; and

responsive to receiving a request to view a particular entry of the plurality of entries, populate a user interface of the user device with the second medical term data for the particular entry in place of the first medical term data for the particular entry.

2. The user device of claim 1 , wherein assembling the plurality of term expressions comprises:

assigning the medical data sections and the identifying data section to one or more categories; and

accessing the medical term primitive and the identifying primitive based at least in part on the one or more categories.

3. The user device of claim 1 , wherein accessing the first medical term data from the user device comprises accessing the first medical term data that has been stored in connection with other medical term data found in the electronic health record stored on the user device.

4. The user device of claim 1 , wherein:

each first numerical code is a first term base identifier corresponding to the primary term base;

each second numerical code is a second term base identifier corresponding to the auxiliary term base; and

each term expression is a term index including the first term base identifier and the second term base identifier.

5. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

storing medical data obtained from an electronic health record (EHR) system, the medical data associated with an electronic health record of a user of a user device;

accessing first medical term data from the stored medical data, the first medical term data including user personally identifying information and a medical data section, the user personally identifying information uniquely identifying the user of the of the user device and representing a plurality of entries in the electronic health record;

for each entry of the plurality of entries, index the first medical term data by at least:

parsing the first medical term data to identify an identifying data section present in the first medical term data of each of the plurality of entries, the identifying data section including a portion of the user personally identifying information;

converting, by using a primary term base, the medical data section into a first numerical code corresponding to the medical data section;

converting, by using an auxiliary term base, the identifying data section into a second numerical code corresponding to the identifying data section;

assembling a plurality of term expressions each including the medical data section and the identifying data section of the respective entry by concatenating the first numerical code and the second numerical codes, each term expression of the plurality of term expressions representing an entry of the plurality of entries in a computational form; and

generating, based at least in part on the plurality of term expressions, second medical term data that includes de-identified information in place of the identifying data section, the second medical term data being distinct from the first medical term data;

responsive to a receiving a request to view a particular entry of the plurality of entries, populating a user interface of the user device with the second medical term data for the particular entry in place of the first medical term data for the particular entry.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , wherein the medical data section describes a medical aspect of the first medical term data.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6 , wherein assembling the plurality of term expressions comprises, for each term expression:

assigning the medical data section and the identifying data section to one or more categories based at least in part on the respective first and second numerical codes; and

accessing the medical term primitive and the identifying primitive based at least in part on the one or more categories.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 6 , wherein:

the identifying data section is in an alphabetic format;

the identifying primitive is in a numeric format; and

converting the identifying data section into the identifying primitive comprises converting from the alphabetic format into the numeric format.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , further comprising providing the second medical term data for use by an entity other than the user of the user device.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , wherein accessing the first medical term data from the user device comprises accessing the first medical term data that has been stored in connection with other medical term data found in the electronic health record stored on the user device.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , further comprising receiving the first medical data from the EHR system in accordance with a set of predefined method calls.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11 , further comprising authenticating the user device prior to receiving the first medical data from the EHR system.

13. One or more computer-readable storage media comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more computer systems, cause the one or more computer systems to perform operations comprising:

storing medical data obtained from an electronic health record (EHR) system, the medical data associated with an electronic health record of a user of a user device

accessing first medical term data from the stored medical data, the first medical term data including user personally identifying information that uniquely identifies the user of the user device and represents a plurality of entries in the electronic health record;

for each entry of the plurality of entries, indexing the first medical term data by at least:

parsing the first medical term data to identify a plurality of data sections present in the first medical term data of each of the plurality of entries, the plurality of data sections being in a first format and including:

a medical data section describing a medical aspect of the first medical term data; and

an identifying data section including a portion of the user's personally identifying information; and

converting, by using at least one term base, the plurality of data sections from the first format to a second format that includes a plurality of term primitives including:

a medical term primitive corresponding to the medical data section, the medical term primitive comprising a first numerical code; and

an identifying primitive corresponding to the identifying data section, the identifying primitive comprising a second numerical code;

assembling a plurality of term expressions each including the medical term primitive and the identifying primitive of the respective entry by concatenating the first numerical code and the second numerical code, each term expression of the plurality of term expressions representing an entry of the plurality of entries in a computational form;

generating, based at least in part on the plurality of term expressions, second medical term data that is distinct from the first medical term data and includes, for each of the plurality of entries, de-identified information in place of the identifying data section; and

responsive to a request to view a particular entry of the plurality of entries, populating a user interface of the user device with the second medical term data for the particular entry in place of the first medical term data for the particular entry.

14. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 13 , wherein each term expression comprises a computer-quantifiable expression associated with the first medical term data.

15. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 13 , further comprising storing the medical data based on user input.

16. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 13 , wherein:

the medical term primitive is a first term base identifier corresponding to a first portion of the at least one term base;

the identifying primitive is a second term base identifier corresponding to a second portion of the at least one term base; and

the term expression is a term index including the first term base identifier and the second term base identifier.

17. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 13 , wherein assembling the plurality of term expressions comprises:

assigning the medical data sections and the identifying data section to one or more categories; and

accessing the medical term primitive and the identifying primitive based at least in part on the one or more categories.

18. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 13 , wherein generating, based at least in part on the plurality of term expressions, the second medical term data that includes de-identified information in place of the identifying data section comprises replacing the identifying data section with a predefined data section including the de-identified information.

Assignments (3)
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Jun 12, 2020
From: LYNCH, KEVIN M.
To: APPLE INC.
Reel/Frame 052922/0811 →
CORRECTIVE ASSIGNMENT TO CORRECT THE MIDDLE INITIAL OF THE LAST ASSIGNOR NAME PREVIOUSLY RECORDED AT REEL: 046209 FRAME: 0188. ASSIGNOR(S) HEREBY CONFIRMS THE ASSIGNMENT. Recorded Jul 2, 2018
From: PADGETT, DAVID W.; CLARK, JOHN P.; CARLSEN, BRIAN A.; LAMARCHE, JEFFREY D.; MORLEY, JASON B.; SCHROEDER, CHRISTIAN; PENNELL, MARK E.; LI, ZHE; POZAS TREVINO, JORGE F.
To: APPLE INC.
Reel/Frame 046946/0412 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Jun 26, 2018
From: PADGETT, DAVID W.; CLARK, JOHN P.; CARLSEN, BRIAN A.; LAMARCHE, JEFFREY D.; MORLEY, JASON B.; SCHROEDER, CHRISTIAN; PENNELL, MARK E.; LI, ZHE; POZAS TREVINO, JORGE E.
To: APPLE INC.
Reel/Frame 046209/0188 →
Continuity (2)
Provisional Application 62565847 · Sep 29, 2017
Related Publication 20190102451A1 · Apr 4, 2019
Cited By (1)
US 12,259,933