Patent ID: 7877272

Claim:
In a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored therein data representing instructions executable by a programmed processor for determining at least one question of interest, the storage medium comprising instructions for: providing patient observations including patient medical data; providing clinical observations based on recorded clinical data; identifying mutual information between the question of interest and the recorded clinical data by comparing the patient observations with the clinical observations to determine dependence between the question of interest and the recorded clinical data as it relates to the patient observations, wherein the dependence between the question of interest and the recorded clinical data indicates the mutual information; selecting relevant observation data by maximizing the dependence between the recorded clinical data about the question of interest given the patient medical data, wherein the relevant observation data is unknown with respect to the patient but is relevant for analyzing the at least one question of interest based on the identification of the mutual information determining a solution for the at least one question of interest that comprises a result derived from the relevant observation data, wherein the solution comprises a determination of the unknown from the relevant observation data such that the unknown with respect to the patient is known based on the result; obtaining additional observations based on the determined solution, wherein the additional observations comprise results of an implementation of the determined solution; and iteratively repeating the comparing, selecting, and determining after updating the patient medical data with the additional observations, wherein each iteration utilizes updated patient medical data that includes the additional observations from a previous iteration.