Medical Laboratory Report Message Gateway

Abstract

A gateway enables medical (including genetic and genomic) laboratories and health care providers (collectively “clients”) to communicate electronic messages with each other without developing and maintaining an interface for each peer. The gateway translates messages sent between the parties. The gateway receives messages from each sender in a form, and containing diagnostic codes, preferred by the sender. For each received message, the gateway ascertains an intended receiving client. Each client may specify one or more receivers (such as applications) that are to receive messages sent to the client, as well as a separate form, and optionally a set of codes, for each receiver. For each receiver, the gateway generates translated messages, according to the receiver's preferred form and/or codes. The gateway sends the translated messages to each of the designated receivers. The gateway may include a validation component to cheek incoming messages to ensure the messages include required information and that information values are valid or acceptable. The gateway may include an exception handler that notifies a sending client if a message from the client fails to be translated or sent correctly. The gateway may maintain a repository in which the gateway stores copies of messages the gateway sent or would have sent to clients. The gateway provides an interface, such as a secure web interface, to this repository. Clients may access messages or lists of messages, especially messages the clients are not otherwise capable of receiving, through this interface. The gateway may store copies of some of the data that flows through the gateway in a bioinformatics database, which may be automatically analyzed by the gateway or queried for research or patient care purposes.

1 - 31 . (canceled) 
     
     
         32 . A method of communicating medical laboratory reports between a plurality of clients connected to a communications gateway, comprising:
 defining report form data for each of the plurality of clients connected to the communications gateway, the report form data identifying at least one of syntax, schematic, and semantic information describing a report form used by each of the plurality of clients;   receiving a medical laboratory report from a first client;   determining a report form of the received medical laboratory report using the report form data;   selecting an inbound translation to perform on the received medical laboratory report based upon the report form of the received medical laboratory report;   using the inbound translation to translate the received medical laboratory report into a canonical form;   identifying a destination client for the received medical laboratory report;   determining an outbound message form for the destination client using the report form data;   selecting an outbound translation to perform on the medical laboratory report in the canonical form based on the outbound message form;   using the outbound translation to translate the medical laboratory report in the canonical form into a form useable by the destination client; and   transmitting the medical laboratory report in a form usable by the destination client to the destination client.   
     
     
         33 . The method of  claim 32 , wherein the medical laboratory report includes data related to at least one of medical test requests, medical test results, and molecular diagnostic laboratory tests including information acquired from at least one of genetic, genomic, RNA expression, and proteomic analysis. 
     
     
         34 . The method of  claim 32 , wherein the plurality of clients connected to the communications gateway include at least one of a health care provider, a medical laboratory, and laboratory equipment. 
     
     
         35 . The method of  claim 32 , including:
 storing translated medical laboratory reports; and   providing at least on of the plurality of clients with controlled access to the stored medical reports.   
     
     
         36 . The method of  claim 35 , wherein the medical laboratory reports are stored in a bioinformatics database configured to collect and store copies of medical laboratory reports passing through the communications gateway, and including:
 analyzing medical laboratory reports stored in the bioinformatics database to identify underlying groups and clusters of information in data contained in the analyzed reports   
     
     
         37 . The method of  claim 36 , including:
 anonymizing patient-identifying information contained in a medical laboratory report stored in the bioinformatics database.   
     
     
         38 . The method of  claim 32 , wherein using at least one of the inbound translation and outbound translation includes using a syntax parser configured to perform syntactical translation, a schema analyzer configured to perform schematic translation, and a content translator configured to perform semantic translation. 
     
     
         39 . The method of  claim 38 , wherein syntactical translation includes formatting a medical laboratory report to a selected syntax, schematic translation includes changing an underlying organizational structure of the medical laboratory report, and semantic translation includes changing a semantic meaning of data items in the medical laboratory report. 
     
     
         40 . A method of communicating medical laboratory reports between a plurality of clients, comprising:
 receiving a medical laboratory report from a first client;   performing an inbound translation on the received medical laboratory report based upon a report form of the received medical laboratory report to translate the medical laboratory report into a canonical form;   identifying a destination client for the received medical laboratory report;   determining an outbound message format based upon the destination client;   performing an outbound translation on the medical laboratory report in the canonical form based upon the outbound message format to translate the medical laboratory report in the canonical form into a form useable by the destination client; and   transmitting the medical laboratory report in a form useable by the destination client to the destination client.   
     
     
         41 . The method of  claim 40 , including defining report form data for each of the plurality of clients, the report form data identifying at least one of syntax, schematic, and semantic information describing a report form used by each of the plurality of clients; 
     
     
         42 . The method of  claim 40 , wherein the medical laboratory report includes data related to at least one of medical test requests, medical test results, and molecular diagnostic laboratory tests including information acquired from at least one of genetic, genomic, RNA expression, and proteomic analysis. 
     
     
         43 . The method of  claim 40 , wherein the plurality of clients include at least one of a health care provider, a medical laboratory, and applications and laboratory equipment located within at least one of a healthcare provider and a medical laboratory. 
     
     
         44 . The method of  claim 40 , including:
 storing translated medical laboratory reports; and   providing at least one of the plurality of clients with controlled access to the stored medical reports.   
     
     
         45 . The method of  claim 44 , wherein the medical laboratory reports are stored in a bioinformatics database configured to collect and store copies of medical laboratory reports, and including:
 analyzing medical laboratory reports stored in the bioinformatics database to identify underlying groups and clusters of information in data contained in the analyzed reports   
     
     
         46 . The method of  claim 45 , including:
 anonymizing patient-identifying information contained in a medical laboratory report stored in the bioinformatics database.   
     
     
         47 . A method of communicating medical laboratory reports between a plurality of clients, comprising:
 receiving a medical laboratory report from a first client;   identifying a destination client for the medical laboratory report;   determining an outbound message format based upon the destination client;   performing an outbound translation on the medical laboratory report in the canonical form based upon the outbound message format to translate the medical laboratory report in the canonical form into a form useable by the destination client; and   transmitting the medical laboratory report in a form useable by the destination client to the destination client.   
     
     
         48 . The method of  claim 47 , including performing an inbound translation on the received medical laboratory report based upon a report form of the received medical laboratory report to translate the received medical laboratory report into a canonical form. 
     
     
         49 . The method of  claim 47 , including defining report form data for each of the plurality of clients, the report form data identifying at least one of syntax, schematic, and semantic information describing a report form used by each of the plurality of clients. 
     
     
         50 . The method of  claim 47 , wherein the received medical laboratory report includes data related to at least one of medical test requests, medical test results, and molecular diagnostic laboratory tests including information acquired from at least one of genetic, genomic, RNA expression, and proteomic analysis. 
     
     
         51 . The method of  claim 47 , including:
 storing translated medical laboratory reports; and   providing at least one of the plurality of clients with controlled access to the stored medical reports.