Medical Term Expression Indexing for Unified EHR Search

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing electronic health record (EHR) systems maintain inconsistent data across different institutions, requiring multiple logins and lacking a unified view due to varied formats and coding schemas, leading to inefficiencies in accessing and integrating patient records.

Innovation Solution

A system that normalizes and indexes medical terms across disparate EHR systems, enabling uniform data storage and retrieval on user devices using medical term expressions, allowing for efficient search and presentation of comprehensive health records.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Loss of information

If multiple EHR systems are used to maintain patient records across different health institutions, then the coverage and completeness of patient health records are improved, but data inconsistency and integration complexity increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvecompleteness of patient health recordsVSAvoidintegration complexity across EHR systems
Core Design Contradiction:
Loss of informationVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces an intermediary normalization layer that translates and standardizes data from multiple disparate EHR systems into a unified format. This mediator component handles the complexity of integration by providing a common data model that all EHR systems can connect to, thereby maintaining record completeness while managing integration complexity through standardized interfaces and translation protocols.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The system implements a universal data model and common interface that can accommodate multiple different EHR systems simultaneously. This multi-functional approach allows the same normalization framework to work with various EHR vendors and formats, enabling broad compatibility without requiring separate integration solutions for each system.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

2Loss of information

If data from multiple EHR systems is integrated, then a comprehensive view of patient history is achieved, but data inconsistency and format variations increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvecomprehensiveness of patient historyVSAvoiddata consistency across sources
Core Design Contradiction:
Loss of informationVSStability of the object's composition

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies homogeneity by transforming heterogeneous data from different EHR systems into a uniform standardized format. The normalization process ensures that all patient records, regardless of source, conform to the same data model, terminology, and structure, thereby achieving data consistency while maintaining comprehensive patient history.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #33Homogeneity

Solution Approach 2:

The system changes the parameters of incoming data by applying transformation rules that standardize terminology, coding schemas, and data structures. This parameter transformation converts varied source data into consistent normalized data, resolving format variations while preserving the comprehensive patient information.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

3Reliability

If conventional data rectification techniques are used, then some data inconsistencies are resolved, but they are insufficient to resolve inconsistencies from multiple EHR systems

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvedata accuracyVSAvoidability to handle multiple EHR formats
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSAdaptability or versatility

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements a dynamic normalization framework that can adapt to multiple different EHR formats and schemas. Rather than using static rectification rules, the system dynamically adjusts transformation parameters based on the source system being accessed, enabling it to handle diverse EHR formats while maintaining data accuracy through flexible, context-aware normalization.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #15Dynamics

Data Source

PatentEP4726728A2On-device searching using medical term expressions
Publication Date: 2026.04.15 APPLE INC
  • EP4726728A2 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP4726728A2 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP4726728A2 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

A user's health record can be stored on a user device. Medical terms from the health record can be represented as medical term expressions using an indexing process. The medical term expressions can be used to search the health record, add additional contextual information (e.g., in the form of metadata) to the health record, and/or to filter record entries in the health record. This creates a personalized relational graph for the user. The medical term expressions provide for uniform display of the information from the health record.