Context-Based Medical Concept Interpreter for Patient Communication

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Solution Overview

Problem

Patients often struggle to understand medical concepts explained by healthcare providers due to professional terminology, leading to anxiety, unnecessary testing, and mistrust, as providers lack time for thorough explanations and patients may hesitate to ask for clarification.

Innovation Solution

A dynamic context-based collaborative medical concept interpreter that automatically identifies medical concepts in patient-provider communication, summarizes explanations using natural language processing, and presents them in a way relevant to the patient's context, considering factors like prior beliefs, education level, and social context.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Productivity

If healthcare providers use professional terminology to explain medical concepts, then communication efficiency is improved, but patient understanding deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecommunication efficiencyVSAvoidpatient understanding

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces an intermediary system (medical concept interpreter) that translates professional medical terminology into patient-friendly language. The system processes medical concepts mentioned in communication between providers and patients, automatically generating simplified explanations without requiring direct intervention from either party, thus maintaining communication efficiency while improving patient understanding.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent replaces the mechanical process of manual explanation and clarification with an automated natural language processing system. Instead of providers manually simplifying terms or patients repeatedly asking for clarification, the system automatically intercepts and translates medical concepts in real-time, substituting the manual communication adjustment mechanism with an automated linguistic transformation system.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

2Loss of information

If healthcare providers provide thorough explanations of medical concepts, then patient understanding is improved, but time consumption increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvepatient understandingVSAvoidtime consumption

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of informationVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary translation of medical concepts into patient-friendly language automatically as they are mentioned in communication. By preparing and providing simplified explanations in advance or in real-time without requiring the provider to pause and explain, the system eliminates the time-consuming back-and-forth clarification process while ensuring patients receive comprehensive explanations.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system enables patients to self-serve by providing them with simplified explanations of medical concepts automatically generated and presented in the communication interface. Patients can access these explanations without needing to interrupt the provider or spend additional time asking for clarifications, allowing them to independently understand medical concepts at their own pace.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

3Loss of information

If patients are asked to ask for clarification when they don't understand, then understanding can be improved, but patient confidence deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvepatient understandingVSAvoidpatient confidence

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of informationVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The intermediary system removes the social barrier that prevents patients from asking questions by automatically providing explanations. Instead of patients needing to confidently initiate a clarification request, the system proactively provides simplified explanations of medical concepts, allowing patients to understand without having to overcome hesitation or loss of confidence.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Data Source

PatentUS11568997B2Dynamic context-based collaborative medical concept interpreter

Publication Date: 2023.01.31 INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINE CORPORATION

AI summary

A mechanism is provided for implementing a dynamic context-based collaborative medical concept interpreter for automatically generating and presenting summarized explanations of medical concepts. The dynamic context-based collaborative medical concept interpreter performs natural language processing on a real-time patient-provider communication to identify one or more medical concepts referred to in the communication. The dynamic context-based collaborative medical concept interpreter adjusts one or more previous explanations for the one or more medical concepts referred to in the communication using a set of contextual factors. The dynamic context-based collaborative medical concept interpreter generates an abstractive summary that summarizes ranked explanations of the one or more medical concepts based on an original language used in the one or more previous explanations. The dynamic context-based collaborative medical concept interpreter presents, in real time, the abstractive summaries of the one or more medical concepts to the patient and the provider in real-time patient-provider communication.