De-identification of electronic medical records for continuous data development

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11113418-B2
Application number	US-201816205423-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 30, 2018
Priority date	Nov 30, 2018
Publication date	Sep 7, 2021
Grant date	Sep 7, 2021

Abstract

A method for de-identifying protected health information (PHI) associated with electronic medical records (EMRs) based on a common analysis structure (CAS) is provided. The method may include detecting a system event associated with a system comprising the EMRs. The method may further include in response to detecting the system event, detecting a first CAS associated with the EMRs. The method may further include extracting first CAS data associated with the first CAS, wherein the first CAS data comprises unstructured data associated with the EMRs and normalized annotations based on CAS objects that are associated with the unstructured data. The method may further include obfuscating the unstructured data associated with the first CAS. The method may also include generating a second CAS comprising the obfuscated unstructured data and a copied version of the normalized annotations, wherein the copied version of normalized annotations are correlated with the obfuscated unstructured data.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for providing de-identified protected health information (PHI) associated with electronic medical records (EMRs) based on a common analysis structure (CAS), the method comprising:
generating a first common analysis structure (CAS) for representing the PHI associated with the EMRs, wherein generating the first CAS comprises logically representing unstructured data associated with the EMRs and including the PHI as objects to create an object-based data structure associated with the electronic medical records (EMRs), wherein the objects comprise normalized annotations;
in response to detecting a system event, extracting first CAS data associated with the first CAS from one or more log files, wherein the first CAS data comprises the unstructured data and the normalized annotations based on the objects that are associated with the unstructured data;
obfuscating the unstructured data associated with the first CAS based on the extracted first CAS data; and
generating and providing a second CAS comprising the obfuscated unstructured data and a copied version of the normalized annotations, wherein the copied version of the normalized annotations are correlated with the obfuscated unstructured data.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the system event is selected from a group comprising a request to access the EMRs and a system failure.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the extracted first CAS data comprises extracted XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) files.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein obfuscating the identified unstructured data further comprises:
replacing each alphanumeric character associated with the unstructured data with a designated character.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the copied version of normalized annotations are copied based on a log correlation process that detects whether the copied version of the normalized annotations include the protected health information (PHI) as the normalized annotations are copied.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the copied version of the normalized annotations are correlated with the obfuscated unstructured data using associated universally unique identifiers (UUIDs).

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
enabling usage of the generated second CAS in response to the detected system event.

8. A computer system for providing de-identified protected health information (PHI) associated with electronic medical records (EMRs) based on a common analysis structure (CAS), comprising:
one or more processors, one or more computer-readable memories, one or more computer-readable tangible storage devices, and program instructions stored on at least one of the one or more storage devices for execution by at least one of the one or more processors via at least one of the one or more memories, wherein the computer system is capable of performing a method comprising:
generating a first common analysis structure (CAS) for representing the PHI associated with the EMRs, wherein generating the first CAS comprises logically representing unstructured data associated with the EMRs and including the PHI as objects to create an object-based data structure associated with the electronic medical records (EMRs), wherein the objects comprise normalized annotations;
in response to detecting a system event, extracting first CAS data associated with the first CAS from one or more log files, wherein the first CAS data comprises the unstructured data and the normalized annotations based on the objects that are associated with the unstructured data;
obfuscating the unstructured data associated with the first CAS based on the extracted first CAS data; and
generating and providing a second CAS comprising the obfuscated unstructured data and a copied version of the normalized annotations, wherein the copied version of the normalized annotations are correlated with the obfuscated unstructured data.

9. The computer system of claim 8 , wherein the system event is selected from a group comprising a request to access the EMRs and a system failure.

10. The computer system of claim 8 , wherein the extracted first CAS data comprises extracted XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) files.

11. The computer system of claim 8 , wherein obfuscating the identified unstructured data further comprises:
replacing each alphanumeric character associated with the unstructured data with a designated character.

12. The computer system of claim 8 , wherein the copied version of normalized annotations are copied based on a log correlation process that detects whether the copied version of the normalized annotations include the protected health information (PHI) as the normalized annotations are copied.

13. The computer system of claim 8 , wherein the copied version of the normalized annotations are correlated with the obfuscated unstructured data using associated universally unique identifiers (UUIDs).

14. The computer system of claim 8 , further comprising:
enabling usage of the generated second CAS in response to the detected system event.

15. A computer program product for providing de-identified protected health information (PHI) associated with electronic medical records (EMRs) based on a common analysis structure (CAS), comprising:
one or more computer-readable storage devices and program instructions stored on at least one of the one or more tangible storage devices, the program instructions executable by a processor, the program instructions comprising:
program instructions to generate a first common analysis structure (CAS) for representing the PHI associated with the EMRs, wherein generating the first CAS comprises logically representing unstructured data associated with the EMRs and including the PHI as objects to create an object-based data structure associated with the electronic medical records (EMRs), wherein the objects comprise normalized annotations;
in response to detecting a system event, program instructions to extract first CAS data associated with the first CAS from one or more log files, wherein the first CAS data comprises the unstructured data and the normalized annotations based on the objects that are associated with the unstructured data;
program instructions to obfuscate the unstructured data associated with the first CAS based on the extracted first CAS data; and
program instructions to generate and provide a second CAS comprising the obfuscated unstructured data and a copied version of the normalized annotations, wherein the copied version of the normalized annotations are correlated with the obfuscated unstructured data.

16. The computer program product of claim 15 , wherein the system event is selected from a group comprising a request to access the EMRs and a system failure.

17. The computer program product of claim 15 , wherein the extracted first CAS data comprises extracted XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) files.

18. The computer program product of claim 15 , wherein the program instructions to obfuscate the identified unstructured data further comprises:
program instructions to replace each alphanumeric character associated with the unstructured data with a designated character.

19. The computer program product of claim 15 , wherein the copied version of normalized annotations are copied based on a log correlation process that detects whether the copied version of the normalized annotations include the protected health information (PHI) as the normalized annotations are copied.

20. The computer program product of claim 15 , wherein the copied ver

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Allen Corville O
• Ezen Can Aysu
• Delima Roberto
• Sizemore Robert C

Classifications

• G06F21/6254 Primary

  by anonymising data, e.g. decorrelating personal data from the owner's identification · CPC title

• G06F16/81

  Indexing, e.g. XML tags; Data structures therefor; Storage structures · CPC title

• G06F2221/2101

  Auditing as a secondary aspect · CPC title

• G16H10/60 Primary

  for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records · CPC title