Monitoring, predicting and treating clinical episodes

• US 10,238,351 B2
• Filed: 02/26/2015
• Issued: 03/26/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 05/12/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hill-Rom Services Incorporated (Baxter International Inc.)
• Original Assignee: EarlySense Ltd.
• Inventors: Halperin, Avner, Meger, Guy
• Primary Examiner(s): Dougherty, Sean P
• Application Number:
  US14/631,978
• Publication Number:
  US 20150164438A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,489 Days
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/002 Monitoring the patient using a local or closed circuit, e.g. in a room or building A61B5/0017 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/02055 Simultaneously evaluating both cardiovascular condition and temperature
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/11 Measuring movement of the entire body or parts thereof, e.g. head or hand tremor, mobility of a limb for measuring pulse A61B5/02 ;A61B5/1038 takes precedence; motion detection to correct for motion artifacts in physiological signals A61B5/721
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1115 Monitoring leaving of a patient support, e.g. a bed or a wheelchair
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6891 Furniture
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6892 Mats
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7282 Event detection, e.g. detecting unique waveforms indicative of a medical condition A61B5/4094, A61B5/4818, A61B5/349, A61B5/0823 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/746 Alarms related to a physiological condition, e.g. details of setting alarm thresholds or avoiding false alarms alarms per se G08B
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063112 Skill-based matching of a person or a group to a task
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06312 Adjustment or analysis of established resource schedule, e.g. resource or task levelling, or dynamic rescheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06398 Performance of employee with respect to a job function
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0211 Combination with medical sensor, e.g. for measuring heart rate, temperature
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0461 integrated or attached to an item closely associated with the person but not worn by the person, e.g. chair, walking stick, bed sensor
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/006 Alarm destination chosen according to type of event, e.g. in case of fire phone the fire service, in case of medical emergency phone the ambulance
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 20/10 relating to drugs or medications, e.g. for ensuring correct administration to patients
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 20/60 relating to nutrition control, e.g. diets
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/63 for local operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems

Abstract

A location sensing system identifies respective locations of a plurality of clinicians and a patient-monitoring system measures a clinical parameter of a patient. A control unit identifies a historical alert-response time for each clinician, and normalizes the historical alert-response times to account for respective historical distances of each clinician from respective patients and respective historical numbers of alerts each clinician had received within respective previous given time periods. The control unit then (a) determines that an alert has occurred, (b) identifies a subset of the clinicians in response to the distance of each of the clinicians from the patient, and the number of alerts each of the clinicians has received within the previous given time period, and the normalized historical alert-response times, and (c) communicates an alert to the identified clinicians before communicating the alert to any other clinician. Other embodiments are also described.

Claims

1. Apparatus for use with a plurality of clinicians, the apparatus comprising:

a location sensing system that comprises a plurality of location sensors, the location sensing system being configured to;

identify respective locations of a plurality of clinicians, and

generate a location-sensing-system signal in response thereto; and

a patient-monitoring system comprising;

a clinical sensor, configured to measure a clinical parameter of a patient, and to generate a clinical-sensor signal in response thereto; and

a control unit configured to;

identify a historical alert-response time for each of the clinicians,

normalize the historical alert-response time for each of the clinicians to account for (i) respective historical distances of each of the clinicians from respective patients and (ii) respective historical numbers of alerts each of the clinicians had received within respective previous given time periods,

in response to the clinical-sensor signal, determine that an alert event has occurred, and

in response to determining that the alert event has occurred;

in response to the location-sensing-system signal, identify the distance of each of the clinicians from the patient,

identify a respective number of alerts that each of the clinicians has received within a previous given time period,

identify a subset of the clinicians in response to (i) the distance of each of the clinicians from the patient, (ii) the number of alerts each of the clinicians has received within the previous given time period, and (iii) the normalized historical alert-response times, and

communicate an alert to the identified subset of the clinicians before communicating the alert to any other clinician.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control unit is configured to identify the subset of the clinicians by identifying a subset of the clinicians (a) in response to (i) the distance of each of the clinicians from the patient and (ii) the number of alerts each of the clinicians has received within the previous given time period, and (b) whose respective normalized historical alert-response times are less than the normalized historical alert-response time of at least one clinician who is not a member of the subset.

3. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control unit is configured to identify the subset of the clinicians by identifying a subset of the clinicians (a) in response to (i) the distance of each of the clinicians from the patient and (ii) the number of alerts each of the clinicians has received within the previous given time period, and (b) whose respective normalized historical alert-response times are greater than the normalized historical alert-response time of at least one clinician who is not a member of the subset.

4. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control unit is further configured to compare a severity of the alert event to a threshold, and wherein the control unit, in identifying the subset of the clinicians, is configured to identify the subset of the clinicians in response to (i) the distance of each of the clinicians from the patient, (ii) the number of alerts each of the clinicians has received within the previous given time period, (iii) the normalized historical alert-response times, and (iv) the comparison of the severity of the alert event to the threshold.

5. The apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the control unit is configured to:

if the severity of the alert event is greater than the threshold, identify the subset of the clinicians by identifying a subset of the clinicians (a) in response to (i) the distance of each of the clinicians from the patient and (ii) the number of alerts each of the clinicians has received within the previous given time period, and (b) whose respective normalized historical alert-response times are less than the normalized historical alert-response time of at least one clinician who is not a member of the subset, and

if the severity of the alert event is not greater than the threshold, identify the subset of the clinicians by identifying a subset of the clinicians whose respective normalized historical alert-response times are greater than the normalized historical alert-response time of at least one clinician who is not a member of the subset.

6. Apparatus for use with a plurality of clinicians in a hospital, the apparatus comprising:

a location sensing system that comprises a plurality of location sensors, the location sensing system being configured to;

identify respective locations of a plurality of clinicians, and

generate a location-sensing-system signal in response thereto; and

a patient-monitoring system comprising;

a clinical sensor, configured to measure a clinical parameter of a patient, and to generate a clinical-sensor signal in response thereto; and

a control unit configured to;

identify a historical alert-response time for each of the clinicians,

in response to the location-sensing-system signal, calculate respective estimated times for the clinicians to reach the patient using average historical times taken to travel between various locations in the hospital, the average historical times being stored in a relational database,

in response to the clinical-sensor signal, determine that an alert event has occurred, and

in response to determining that the alert event has occurred;

identify a subset of the clinicians in response to the historical alert-response times and the respective estimated times for the clinicians to reach the patient, and

communicate an alert to the identified subset of the clinicians before communicating the alert to any other clinician.