Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Health care management
Reexamination Certificate
1997-03-13
2004-04-20
Pwu, Jeffrey (Department: 3628)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Health care management
C705S002000, C705S017000, C705S018000, C235S380000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06725200
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a personal data archive system defined generically as having portable storage devices containing at least one first memory device and a separate second memory device and authorization checking devices associated with the portable storage devices through which access to at least some of the data stored in the portable storage devices can be enabled as a function of positive authorization and/or authentication.
In many areas of daily life, personal data is needed, which however are often not available in collected form, so that it must be looked for and assembled tediously each time it is needed. Often information is lost in the process or fails to be taken into account.
Merely as an example of this, patient data can be cited on the basis of which some problems of existing archiving systems will be discussed below as examples. The medical data of a patient is acquired and documented by many parts of the health care system. In the form of documentation practiced so far, using written entries in doctor's certificates, file cards, badges and ID cards (such as a diabetic ID card) and the exchange of information as practiced until now by transmittal of physician's and hospital discharge reports, important medical data is often lost.
For instance, if a patient changes doctors, the data acquired until then typically remains in the card file of the last doctor to treat him, and the next doctor begins to collect data all over again. A further factor in modern medicine is an increasing split in medical care among the various professional specialties; there is often inadequate communication, if any, among professional colleagues involved in an individual case.
In the information system employed thus far, diagnostic tests are therefore often repeated, because the physician treating the patient later has only written assessments of his predecessor about previous examinations, but does not, for instance, have the original X-rays or ultrasound images or laboratory reports or other test records. Because of the possibilities for different interpretations in an individual case, a physician would understandably prefer not to dispense with his own assessment of original documents in deciding what measures to take later.
Another serious disadvantage of the existing information exchange with regard to patient data resides in the fact that important medical data is often unavailable in an emergency. It is true that in the past a number of ID cards and badges have been developed, examples being the European emergency ID card, immunization record, Marcumar card, allergy card, and so forth; but disadvantageously, if the patient is even issued such documents, important data is still spread among various papers, and their contents, if it is lost, usually can not be reconstructed.
Progress in information technology in the field of health care could be provided by patient cards in the form of magnetic strip or processor chip cards that are capable of storing medical information on a portable electronic data carrier. Thus several card projects have arisen recently that have as a goal the use of processor chip cards to store data in the medical field.
However, the developments of patient cards known thus far have not led to any substantial improvement in data bases for immediate patient case, since because of the limited storage capacity of the processor chip card, only a small proportion of a patient's medical data can be taken into account. The “Diabcard”, for instance (GSF Forschungszentrum fur Umwelt und Gesundheit Medis-Institut, P.
0
. Box 1129, D-85758 Oberschlei&bgr;heim, Germany) contains only the medical data relevant for care of the diabetic. In another model project, which was started by the Kassenärztliche Vereinigung Koblenz, [,HMO, Koblenz], the Zentralinstitut fur die kassenärztliche Versorgung [Central Institute for HMO Care] and the Bundesvereinigung Deutscher Apothekerverbände [Federal Association of German Pharmacists' Organizations] in the cities of Neuwied and Andernach (“PraxisComputer” [Office Computer], No. 4, Jun 15, 1994, pp. 3-6 and No. 2, Mar. 10, 1995, pp. 8/9), all that the data set stored on a patient card includes, besides the patient history data, is the immunization record and X-ray status, and medications issued to the patient by the pharmacist.
Another significant disadvantage of existing memory cards is that the stored data are not effectively protected against misuse. Purely encrypting the stored information is inadequate;, since if enough effort is exerted, any code can in the final analysis be deciphered. In the case of patient data, this means that patient data kept by the patient himself can easily fall into the hands of unauthorized persons who can use the information, after decoding the data, to the detriment of the patient.
From German Utility Model DE 90 18 059 U1, a system is known for storing, furnishing and updating fixed and/or variable patient and treatment data. Its point of departure is a stationary central computer unit with a storage unit in which the patient data, present in a patient card file, is stored in the form of patient-specific data sets, and a data interface for input/output of patient data combined with a portable unit, such as a portable computer, that is intended to hold selected patient data sets, or all the stored patient data sets. Thus a physician, even in house calls, can use the information in his electronic patient card file and keep it updated directly, even away from his office. An individual patient data set can be called up via a health insurance card and activated, so that the administrative data on the patient visit can be acquired directly. Once the physician is back in his office, he can then update the data on his stationary central computer unit by means of the portable unit.
Thus the physician takes his own data set along to the patient, instead of having to get the patient's collected data from various physicians and clinical entities from the patient himself. Emergency medical services, for instance, are therefore unable to use this system for patients unknown to them. In other words, users, rather than the persons to whom the data pertain, store only limited data portably, and only temporarily.
German Patent DE 38 15 633 C2 discloses a data processing system for central processing of medical data. In it, portable personal storage devices are used, which are designed f,or temporary storage of continuously acquired biodata. At least at predetermined time intervals, the stored data is therefore transmitted by telephone to the data processing system of a hospital. In these storage devices, security aspects therefore play no role.
These above two references accordingly provide no solutions with respect to noncentralized archiving of personal data that go beyond typical portable storage devices.
In other areas of life as well, the assembly, manipulation and availability of personal data is a tedious process and often does not lead to the fully comprehensive results sought. Besides the often inadequate storage capacity of the data memories available on processor chip cards for the desired quantity of data, there is a risk, in storage on portable mass stores, of misuse because of the lack of access security.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is thus the object of the present invention to create a personal data archive system that includes portable personal storage devices in which the owner can store and preserve personal data and that enables a higher security standard than systems known from the prior art.
This object is attained with a personal data archive system of the generic type described above where the portable storage devices contain personal data of a single owner and the personal data stored in the second memory device is accessible only in combination with the first memory device assigned to the owner of the portable storage devices and only as a function of positive authorization and/or authentication
Pwu Jeffrey
Venable LLP
Voorhees Catherine M.
LandOfFree
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