System and process for concept tagging and content retrieval

Inventors

Charlot, Regis J P • Naeymi-Rad, Frank • OGANESOVA, Alina E. • YOUNG, JR., Andre L. • NAEYMI-RAD, Andrei • BODAL, Aziz M. • HAINES, David O. • Maldonado, Jose A. • Kobashi, Masayo • SCHAEFER, Stephanie J.

Assignees

Intelligent Medical Objects Inc

Abstract

A system and process for tagging electronic documents or other electronic content with concepts mentioned, contained, or otherwise described in that content. Once tagged, the content may be searchable, indexable, and retrievable in order to provide that content to an end user or another recipient. The system may be configured to handle a considerable number of asset files and a large number of users, workflows, and access applications simultaneously. The system may auto-tag the content and also may include a user interface for confirming and updating those tags and for manually creating new or additional tags. Content may include documents such as medical documents relating to procedures, diagnoses, medications or other domains. Alternatively, the content may include information about various care providers, in order to allow a user to locate a physician meeting one or more desired criteria.

Core Innovation

The invention provides a computer-implemented process for content and workflow management that populates a database concept table with a plurality of concepts and a unique concept identifier, where each concept resides hierarchically under a domain and is unique within a given domain. The process also populates a database description table with a plurality of descriptions, where each description has one or more description terms and a unique description identifier. Each description is an alternative way to express an associated concept, and the descriptions have a many-to-one relationship with each concept such that each description matches to only one respective concept.

The process generates a plurality of description-concept pairings by relating each description to a respective concept. Using the description terms, the process identifies portions of digital content that satisfactorily match one or more stored descriptions in the database description table. For each identified portion, the process creates a tag that directly maps the portion of the content to a respective matching description, where the tag includes the unique description identifier relating to the satisfactory description match, an identifier of the content being tagged, and a reference to a location of the identified portion within the content.

For retrieval and display, the process receives a search query and finds one or more satisfactory description search matches by comparing the search query against each tag. The comparing step uses the description-concept pairings to identify satisfactory description matches including other descriptions sharing the same concept as the search query, and thereby extends to one or more satisfactory content matches. The process further supports identifying a closest description match to the query, matching content linked with the same concept as the closest description match, and displaying selected content with visual indicators indicating where the related descriptions or related concept descriptions are tagged.

Claims Coverage

The provided independent claims are clm-00001, clm-00010, and clm-00018. They cover four inventive features centered on storing concepts and alternative descriptions with unique identifiers, using description-to-concept relationships to match digital content via description terms, applying description-linked tags with content location references, and performing query-time matching that extends from a directly matched description or closest description to other descriptions sharing the same concept, with user interface display using visual indicators.

Across clm-00001, clm-00010, and clm-00018, the claims cover a workflow for concept-based content tagging and query-time retrieval that stores hierarchical concepts and alternative descriptions with unique identifiers, establishes description-concept pairings, applies location-referenced tags that embed the unique description identifier, and uses the description-concept relationships to retrieve and display content by extending from a matched or closest description to other descriptions sharing the same concept, with visual indicators on a user interface.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications