Method and apparatus for anonymized display and data export

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2017032084-A1
Application number	US-201615218993-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jul 25, 2016
Priority date	Jul 31, 2015
Publication date	Feb 2, 2017
Grant date	—

Abstract

In an embodiment of the present invention, users with the appropriate permission can launch a function inside a system in order to anonymize and export the currently loaded study or studies, or one or more studies identified by a search criteria. The data from the studies that were identified is then anonymized on the system. In an embodiment of the present invention, the data from selected studies is anonymized on a server, and only then transmitted to another network device. In an alternative embodiment of the present invention, the data from selected studies is anonymized on a server, and only then stored to a hard disk or other media.

First claim

What is claimed:

1 . A method comprising:
a) providing a host computer with a first memory on which is stored a plurality of medical diagnostic reports; b) the host computer receiving a patient ID from a remote computer, where the patient ID identifies a patient at one or more institutions, where the remote computer includes a graphics processing unit and a second memory; c) the host computer locating in the first memory a medical diagnostic report based on the patient ID, where the medical diagnostic report includes an image and one or more phi of metadata containing protected health information; d) the host computer adding an institution aware ID to the one or more phi of metadata to generate one or more combined values; e) the host computer concatenating the one or more combined values with a separator character to generate one or more concatenated values; f) the host computer computing one or more secure values from the one or more concatenated values, where the one or more secure values are substituted for the one or more phi of metadata thereby producing an anonymized medical diagnostic report; and g) sending the anonymized medical diagnostic report to the remote computer, where the remote computer stores the anonymized medical diagnostic report in the second memory, where display of the image stored in the second memory displays the anonymized medical diagnostic report.

2 . The method of claim 1 , where the one or more secure values are computed from the one or more concatenated values using a secure hash function.

3 . The method of claim 2 , where the secure hash function is selected from the group consisting of MD4, MD5, SHA-1, SHA-2, Skein, and BLAKE.

4 . The method of claim 1 , where a first secure value displayed corresponding to a first phi of metadata in a first diagnostic medical report is the same as a second secure value corresponding to a second phi of metadata displayed in a second diagnostic medical report when the first phi of metadata is the same as the second phi of metadata.

5 . The method of claim 1 , where one or both the one or more phi of metadata and the one or more secure values are sent to a volatile memory location on the remote computer.

6 . The method of claim 1 , where the separator character is a backslash.

7 . The method of claim 1 , where the institution aware ID is a DICOM tag (00zz,00xx) where zz and xx are integers between 1 and 99.

8 . The method of claim 7 , where the institution aware ID is selected to unambiguously identify an institution from the one or more institutions.

9 . A method comprising:
providing a host computer with a first memory which contains a plurality of medical diagnostic reports, where the host computer: a) receives a patient ID from a remote computer which includes a graphics processing unit and a second memory; b) retrieves a medical report based on the patient ID, where the medical report includes an image and one or more phi of metadata containing protected health information; c) adds an institution aware ID to the one or more phi of metadata to generate one or more combined values; d) concatenates the one or more combined values with a separator character to generate one or more concatenated values; e) computes one or more secure values from the one or more concatenated values; f) generates a first amended medical report, where one or more of the one or more phi of metadata are replaced with the one or more secure values; and g) sends the first amended medical report to the remote computer, where displaying of the image by the graphics processing unit on the remote computer displays the first amended medical report.

10 . The method of claim 9 , where the one or more secure values are computed from the one or more concatenated values using a secure hash function.

11 . The method of claim 10 , where the secure hash function is selected from the group consisting of MD4, MD5, SHA-1, SHA-2, Skein, and BLAKE.

12 . The method of claim 9 , where a first secure value displayed corresponding to a first phi of metadata in a first medical report is the same as a second secure value corresponding to a second phi of metadata displayed in a second medical report when the first phi of metadata is the same as the second phi of metadata.

13 . The method of claim 9 , where the separator character is a backslash.

14 . The method of claim 9 , where the institution aware ID is a DICOM tag (00zz,00xx) where zz and xx are integers between 1 and 99.

15 . The method of claim 9 , where the one or more secure values cannot be used to generate the one or more phi of metadata.

16 . The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
generating a second amended medical report, where in the second amended medical report all of the one or more phi of metadata are overwritten with the one or more secure values to generate the second amended medical report; and where displaying of the image by the graphics processing unit on the remote computer displays the second amended medical report.

17 . A non-transitory computer readable physical storage medium comprising a set of computer-readable instructions stored thereon which, when executed by a processing system, cause the processing system to retrieve one or more phi of metadata containing protected health information in one or more medical diagnostic reports, in which the set of computer-readable instructions, when executed by the processing system, further cause the processing system to perform the steps of:
a) add an institution aware ID to the one or more phi of metadata to generate one or more combined values; b) concatenate the one or more combined values with a separator character to generate one or more concatenated values; c) compute one or more secure values from the one or more concatenated values; d) generate one or more amended medical diagnostic reports, where the one or more phi of metadata in the one or more medical diagnostic reports are overwritten with one or more secure values; and e) display the one or more amended medical diagnostic reports.

18 . The non transitory computer readable physical storage medium of claim 17 , where the one or more secure values are computed from the one or more concatenated values using a secure hash function.

19 . The non transitory computer readable physical storage medium of claim 18 , where the secure hash function is selected from the group consisting of MD4, MD5, SHA-1, SHA-2, Skein, and BLAKE.

20 . The non transitory computer readable physical storage medium of claim 17 , where a first secure value displayed in the one or more amended medical diagnostic reports corresponding to a first phi of metadata in a first medical report is the same as a second secure value corresponding to a second phi of metadata displayed in a second medical report when the first phi of metadata is the same as the second phi of metadata.

Assignees

• PME IP Pty Ltd

Inventors

• Stalling Detlev
• Westerhoff Malte

Classifications

• G16H30/40

  for processing medical images, e.g. editing · CPC title

• G06F21/6254 Primary

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

• G16H10/60

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

• G06F19/321

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F19/322 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic