Patent Issued for Multi-dimensional cryptographically secured datastores for managing medical records (USPTO 11721417): Align Technology Inc.

2023 AUG 30 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Kolli, Sreelakshmi (Fremont, CA, US), Rasovsky, Leon (Mountain View, CA, US), filed on November 6, 2019, was published online on August 8, 2023, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11721417 is assigned to Align Technology Inc. (San Jose, California, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Medical treatment may involve evaluation of a medical condition, development and/or implementation of a treatment plan, coordination of medical resources, communication of healthcare needs to various stakeholders (patients, next of kin, healthcare providers, insurance entities, etc.), and/or evaluation of treatment results.

“Medical treatment may be related to one or more treatment contexts, non-limiting examples of which include dental treatment (e.g., prosthodontic or orthodontic treatment); orthopedic treatment for bone, spinal, etc. conditions (e.g., osteoporosis); treatment for hearing, ear infections, and/or other ear conditions; dialysis and/or other procedures for treatment of kidney disease and/or malfunction; etc.

“Medical treatment plans may use a variety of techniques. As an illustrative example, a prosthodontic treatment plan may call for manufacture, installation, and use of dental prosthesis on a dental site in a patient’s oral cavity to treat gum disease, sleep apnea, and/or other intraoral conditions. An orthodontic treatment plan may use brackets and wires, retainers, clear aligners, and/or functional appliances to treat malocclusions and/or correct misalignment of a patient’s dentition. In an illustrative example, an orthodontic treatment may be designed to move a patient’s teeth to positions where function and/or aesthetics are optimized. Traditionally, appliances such as braces are applied to a patient’s teeth by an orthodontist or dentist and the set of braces exerts continual force on the teeth and gradually urges them toward their intended positions. Over time and with a series of clinical visits and adjustments to the braces, the orthodontist adjusts the appliances to move the teeth toward their final destination. Alternatives to conventional orthodontic treatment with traditional affixed appliances (e.g., braces) include systems including a series of aligners. In these systems, multiple, and sometimes all, of the aligners to be worn by a patient may be designed and/or fabricated before the aligners are administered to a patient and/or reposition the patient’s teeth (e.g., at the outset of treatment). The design and/or planning of a customized treatment for a patient may make use of computer-based three-dimensional (3D) planning/design tools. The design of the aligners can rely on computer modeling of a series of planned successive tooth arrangements, and the individual aligners are designed to be worn over the teeth and elastically reposition the teeth to each of the planned tooth arrangements.

“As additional examples of medical treatment plans, orthopedic treatment plans may use surgical, interventional, minimally invasive, etc. procedures and/or medical devices to correct acute, degenerative, or other osteoporotic conditions. Other treatment plans may call for monitoring of medical conditions, corrective and/or other surgeries, application of medical devices (e.g., dialysis machines to perform kidney dialysis), and intervention (periodic or otherwise) by medical professionals.

“A lot of digital data can be generated during the course of a medical treatment plan. Many dental treatment plans, for instance, call for a patient’s dentition to be scanned at various points in time, including during initial/intermediate/final check-ups and/or at periodic intervals. These scans may include scans from an intraoral scanner or a digital representation of physical impressions captured at a treatment location. Three-dimensional (3D) representations and/or two-dimensional (2D) images of a patient’s smile, face, dental arches, etc. may be developed/taken before, during and/or after dental treatment. These representations/images may show treatment progress for the patient, for example. Dental, orthopedic, nephritic, aural, and/or other treatment plans may generate video, images, anatomical renderings, notes, metadata, and other forms of digital data through the course of treatment.

“While it would be desirable to manage digital data related to a medical treatment plan, existing systems do not always make it efficient or convenient to do so. For instance, many existing data management systems are insufficiently secure, and/or are insufficiently accessible by patients, healthcare providers, insurers, and/or other stakeholders. Many existing systems do not make it sufficiently convenient to leverage the digital data generated during a medical treatment plan into a variety of platforms, including but not limited to those used for: diagnostics, progress tracking, claims verification with insurers and/or other arbitrage entities, and supply chain management.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Discussed herein are systems and methods implementing multi-dimensional blockchain structures for storing digital representations of medical anatomy, such as digital representations of dental anatomy. The systems and methods herein address fundamental technical problems related to managing digital data that is generated and/or managed during the course of a medical treatment plan. The systems and methods herein use multi-dimensional blockchains to store the digital representations of medical anatomy that are generated during the course of a medical treatment plan. As noted herein, the systems and methods described herein allow various platforms (including those platforms related to diagnostics, progress tracking, claims verification with insurers and/or other arbitrage entities, and supply chain management) to leverage digital representations of medical anatomy.

“A “blockchain,” as used herein, may include a datastore of records (e.g., “blocks”) that are linked to one another using cryptography. In some implementations, blocks of a blockchain may contain a cryptographic value (e.g., a cryptographic hash) of another block (e.g., of a previous block). Each block may contain other information, such as timestamps or other identifying information, and transaction data. Transaction data may be represented in a variety of formats, including as a hash (e.g., a merkle tree root hash). A blockchain may form a “distributed ledger” (e.g., a consensus of replicated, shared, and synchronized digital data geographically spread across multiple sites, countries, or institutions) that can record transactions between parties in a verifiable and/or permanent way. In some implementations, the blockchains herein may be managed by a network (e.g., a peer-to-peer (P2P) network) that collectively adheres to a protocol for inter-node communication and/or validation of new blocks. Once recorded, the data in a block in a blockchain may be protected from retroactive alteration without alteration of subsequent blocks (which may require consensus of the network).

“A “digital representation of medical anatomy,” (used interchangeably with “digital medical anatomy” and an “integrated medical record”), as used herein, may include a digital depiction or plurality of digital depictions of a patient’s body and/or anatomy. A digital representation of medical anatomy, for instance, may include textual content (e.g., physician notes, referrals, test procedure results, prescriptions, orders, etc.) and multimedia content (e.g., audio files, video files, and/or medical images, such as electrocardiograms, three-dimensional (3D) scans, etc.). A digital representation of medical anatomy may include multimedia content items of medical records that is utilized in various medical fields. For example, in cardiology, electrocardiogram images or magnetic resonance images (MRI) may be utilized for diagnostics; in orthopedics, computer tomography (CT) and/or MRI images may be utilized for tracking the spine deterioration or the bone density; in nuclear medicine, CT and/or MRI images may be utilized for diagnosis and monitoring of cancerous tumors; in dentistry and/or orthodontics, digital representations of dental anatomy, such as three-dimensional (3D) intraoral scans or cone beam computer tomography (CBCT) images, may be utilized for planning implant surgery, designing tooth repositioning appliances, and/or various other applications.

“A digital representation of medical anatomy may include an integrated online patient record. It may further include meta data (like traditional patient chart components such as progress notes, reports, medications, and orders) with multimedia patient data such as medical images, electrocardiograms, 3D scans, motion video and audio files. A digital representation of medical anatomy may include references (hyperlinks, pointers, etc.) to multimedia that is not stored in the patient’s chart due to size or format limitations.

“In the dental context, a digital representation of medical anatomy may include a digital representation of dental anatomy. A “digital representation of dental anatomy” used interchangeably with “digital dental anatomy,” as used herein, may include a digital depiction or a plurality of digital depictions of a patient’s dentition. Examples of digital representation(s) of dental anatomy include: the depictions (images and/or renditions) from an intraoral scanner, a digital depiction of the results of a physical mold used to capture a patient’s dentition, a digital depiction of the results of a physical mold used to form an intraoral appliance, a three-dimensional (3D) image and/or rendering of a patient’s dentition, etc. A digital representation of dental anatomy may include textual content (e.g., physician notes, referrals, test procedure results, prescriptions, etc.) and multimedia content (e.g., medical images, audio files, video files, etc.).”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method comprising: receiving a plurality of intraoral images of a dental arch of a patient; generating a plurality of three-dimensional (3D) virtual models of the dental arch of the patient based on the plurality of intraoral images, each 3D virtual model of the plurality of 3D virtual models corresponding to a treatment stage of an orthodontic treatment plan; securing the plurality of 3D virtual models using one or more blockchains, wherein securing the plurality of 3D virtual models using the one or more blockchains comprises: determining a size of a first data block; determining whether a size of at least one 3D virtual model of the plurality of 3D virtual models exceeds the size of the first data block; causing, by a computer system, the at least one 3D virtual model to be stored at a storage location responsive to determining that the size of the 3D virtual model exceeds the size of the first data block; appending, to a first data block of an auxiliary blockchain, an identifier of the storage location; appending, to a current data block of a main blockchain, a reference to a first data block of the auxiliary blockchain; appending, to the current data block of the main blockchain, a data item of the at least one 3D virtual model of the dental arch; appending, to the current data block of the main blockchain, a reference to a preceding data block of the main blockchain; and broadcasting the current data block of the main blockchain to a plurality of blockchain nodes; retrieving information for the plurality of 3D virtual models of the orthodontic treatment plan using the one or more blockchains; instructing one or more 3D printing machines to print a plurality of stereolithography (SLA) molds corresponding to the plurality of 3D virtual models; and instructing a thermoforming machine to thermoform a series of aligners over the plurality of SLA molds.

“2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving a notification of a second storage location for storing the at least one 3D virtual model of the dental arch; appending, to a second data block of the auxiliary blockchain, an identifier of the storage location; appending, to the second data block of the auxiliary blockchain, a reference to the first data block of the auxiliary blockchain; and broadcasting the second data block of the auxiliary blockchain to the plurality of blockchain nodes.

“3. The method of claim 1, wherein the reference to the preceding data block of the main blockchain comprises a hash of the preceding data block.

“4. The method of claim 1, further comprising: encrypting the at least one 3D virtual model of the dental arch using a secret cryptographic key; and causing the at least one encrypted 3D virtual model of the dental arch to be stored at the storage location.

“5. The method of claim 4, further comprising: appending the secret cryptographic key to the current data block of the main blockchain.

“6. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving a digital representation of dental anatomy request specifying an identifier of the at least one 3D virtual model of the dental arch; retrieving the at least one 3D virtual model of the dental arch from the storage location; and causing the at least one 3D virtual model of the dental arch to be displayed by a client computing device that has initiated the digital representation of dental anatomy request.

“7. The method of claim 1, wherein the data item of the at least one 3D virtual model of the dental arch comprises a patient identifier and a medical event date.

“8. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one 3D virtual model of the dental arch includes one or more of textual content and multimedia content.

“9. The method of claim 1, wherein retrieving the information for the at least one 3D virtual model comprises: receiving, by a second computer system, a request specifying an identifier associated with the at least one 3D virtual model of the dental arch; identifying, based on an index of identifiers of data blocks of the main blockchain, a data block storing the data item of the at least one 3D virtual model of the dental arch, wherein the data item of the at least one 3D virtual model of the dental arch is identified by the identifier associated with the at least one 3D virtual model of the dental arch; identifying the first data block of the auxiliary blockchain, wherein the first data block is referenced by the data block of the main blockchain; and responsive to determining that the first data block is a terminal block of the auxiliary blockchain, retrieving the at least one 3D virtual model of the dental arch from the storage location referenced by the first data block of the auxiliary blockchain.

“10. The method of claim 9, wherein the identifier associated with the at least one 3D virtual model of the dental arch comprises a patient identifier and a medical event date.

“11. The method of claim 9, wherein identifying the data block comprises traversing a plurality of data blocks of the main blockchain in a chronological order.

“12. The method of claim 9, further comprising: causing the at least one 3D virtual model of the dental arch to be displayed by a client computing device that has initiated the request.

“13. The method of claim 9, further comprising: responsive to determining that the first data block is not the terminal block of the auxiliary blockchain, identifying a second data block of the auxiliary blockchain, wherein the second data block is referenced by the first data block of the auxiliary blockchain; and responsive to determining that the second data block is the terminal block of the auxiliary blockchain, retrieving the at least one 3D virtual model of the dental arch from the storage location referenced by the second data block of the auxiliary blockchain.

“14. The method of claim 1, further comprising: updating an index of identifiers of data blocks of the main blockchain, wherein each entry of the index maps, for a specified patient, a visit date to a corresponding block identifier of the main blockchain.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Kolli, Sreelakshmi. Multi-dimensional cryptographically secured datastores for managing medical records. U.S. Patent Number 11721417, filed November 6, 2019, and published online on August 8, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11721417)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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