Patent ID: 8086468

Claim:
A method, comprising: displaying, using a processing device, standard patient-language symptoms on an interface of a display device as one of a selection item and a check item of a chief complaint field of a medical record; and using an input device to select or check one of the standard patient-language symptoms to enter the selected patient-language symptom in the chief complaint field so as to generate a new medical record that identifies the selected patient-language symptom as a chief complaint, wherein the standard patient-language symptoms are selected extracted patient-language terms used in existing medical records of patients regarding symptoms of the patients, and wherein the standard patient-language symptoms are accessed from a database which stores the standard patient-language symptoms so as to be free from association with any particular medical record, wherein the standard patient-language symptoms are normalized, the normalizing comprising, separating the standard patient-language symptoms according to each meaning, aligning the standard patient-language symptoms on a term spelling basis, restoring misspellings and abbreviations of standard patient-language symptoms to full spellings, and excluding ambiguous standard patient-language symptoms, wherein the standard patient-language symptoms are mapped to standard codes, and wherein the mapping comprises, imparting a concept identifier of a standard code to each of the standard patient-language symptoms, and classifying each of the standard patient-language symptoms according to whether a concept of the patient-language symptom exactly matches or does not exactly match the imparted concept identifier of the standard code, and when the standard patient-language symptom exactly matches the imparted concept identifier of the standard code, mapping the standard patient-language symptom to the imparted concept identifier, when the standard patient-language symptom does not exactly match the imparted concept identifier of the standard code, retrieving and mapping a concept that is similar or broader than the patient-language symptom, such that: when a same spelling belongs to a variety of concepts, a most suitable concept for the character of the standard patient-language symptom among the concepts is retrieved and mapped, when two concepts are have the same parent in a parent-child relationship and a difference between the two concepts is ambiguous clinically, one concept is selected and mapped consistently, when the meaning of the standard patient-language symptom is subdivided into multiple concepts, a top concept capable of representing the comprehensive meaning of the standard patient-language symptom is mapped, when standard patient-language symptoms of the same concept and the same spelling have a duplicate concept status, a concept with a current status is mapped, and when a standard patient-language symptom is to be mapped to an overlapping or unclear concept, the mapping is performed only if no alternative concept for mapping is available.