METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING MEDICAL INFORMATION

摘要

A method and system for providing information relating to a chronic medical condition to a patient comprises receiving a measurement of the patient's current medical condition, accessing a stored database of past cases for that patient using the current measurement as an index, and retrieving similar cases. Each of the cases consist of a record of the initial measurement of the patient's condition, the treatment following in that instance and the result of the treatment. Rather than one measurement a series of measurements may be used to access cases with a similar series of measurements. Cases in the database can be classified by the measurement or series, and weighting can be used to direct attention towards significant values or recent measurements. Pattern matching or a distance metric can be used to find similar cases in the database. For example in the case of insulin-dependent diabetes the initial measurement is a measurement of blood glucose level, the record of treatment followed is a record of the insulin dose taken, and the outcome is a record of the subsequent blood glucose level. The method and system display to the patient the treatments followed in each of the similar cases retrieved together with the outcome of those treatments, thus allowing the patient to select a treatment based on past experience. In the case of diabetes the display is of the subsequent blood glucose level against insulin dose taken.