Methods, systems and computer program products for aggregating medical information

• US 10,297,354 B2
• Filed: 04/25/2018
• Issued: 05/21/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 10/17/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Craine, Ari, Reeves, Jonathan, Tischer, Steven
• Primary Examiner(s): Eiseman, Lynsey C
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hough, Jessandra F
• Application Number:
  US15/962,128
• Publication Number:
  US 20180247716A1
• Time in Patent Office: 391 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/63 for local operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/80 for detecting, monitoring or modelling epidemics or pandemics, e.g. flu

Abstract

A method of aggregating medical information can include receiving, at a remote aggregation system, individual syndromes collected by mobile personal medical devices associated with respective bodies as the mobile personal medical devices move within an environment, aggregating the individual syndromes at the remote aggregation system, and determining whether an environmental syndrome exists for at least some of the individual syndromes. Related systems and computer program products are also disclosed.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

obtaining, by a processing system including a processor, individual syndromes collected by mobile devices associated with a plurality of bodies, wherein the individual syndromes comprise medical information measured from the plurality of bodies by the mobile devices;

determining, by the processing system, whether a similarity exists between the individual syndromes based on a comparison of the individual syndromes;

detecting, by the processing system, movement information from the mobile devices;

obtaining, by the processing system, proximity information from the mobile devices, wherein the proximity information identifies groups of the mobile devices that have been in proximity to each other; and

determining, by the processing system, whether an environmental syndrome exists for a plurality of the individual syndromes based on the movement information, the proximity information and that the similarity exists between the individual syndromes.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting, by the processing system, an alert to the mobile devices.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising transmitting, by the processing system, the alert to a target mobile device that did not collect one of the individual syndromes.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the obtaining of the individual syndromes comprises receiving the individual syndromes with identifiers, respectively, that each identify one of the mobile devices from which the one of the individual syndromes was received, respectively.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

accessing, by the processing system, a persistent long-term storage device to retrieve historical medical information associated with one of the bodies using one of the identifiers that identifies the one of the mobile devices associated with the one of the bodies.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

transmitting, by the processing system, a broadcast message including respective keys obtained from the persistent long-term storage device to other mobile devices to enable transmission of the medical information from the other mobile devices to the processing system.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the environmental syndrome comprises one of a plurality of hierarchically related environments, and wherein the method further comprises forwarding, by the processing system, selected ones of the individual syndromes to a higher level aggregation system responsive to determining that the selected ones of the individual syndromes match a predetermined criteria.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

transmitting, by the processing system, a broadcast message to other mobile devices to enable transmission of the medical information to the processing system.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the other mobile devices are identified based on the proximity information relative to the mobile devices.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the mobile devices comprise cell phones.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the determining of whether the environmental syndrome exists comprises:

determining, by the processing system, a number of the individual syndromes that match a predetermined environmental threshold, wherein the medical information is measured by sensors implanted in the plurality of bodies that wirelessly transmit the medical information to the mobile devices.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the individual syndromes collected by the mobile devices are collected by sensors configured to communicate with the mobile devices as the mobile devices become proximate to the sensors.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising transmitting an update message to other mobile devices to record a syndrome event.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the mobile devices are configured to measure parameters from the plurality of bodies to provide the medical information.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the medical information measured from the plurality of bodies is transmitted amongst the mobile devices.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising receiving, by the processing system, environmental information from a source other than by the mobile devices.

17. A system comprising:

a memory comprising machine-readable program code; and

a processing system including a processor configured to execute the machine-readable program code from the memory to facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising;

receiving individual syndromes obtained by mobile devices associated with bodies, respectively, wherein the individual syndromes obtained by the mobile devices are collected by sensors configured to communicate with the mobile devices as the mobile devices become proximate to the sensors, and wherein the individual syndromes comprise medical information measured from the respective bodies by the mobile devices, respectively;

receiving movement information from the mobile devices;

receiving proximity information from the mobile devices, wherein the proximity information identifies groups of the mobile devices that have been in proximity to each other;

comparing the individual syndromes to determine whether a similarity exists between the individual syndromes;

determining whether an environmental syndrome exists for a plurality of the individual syndromes based on the movement information, the proximity information and that the similarity exists between the individual syndromes; and

transmitting a broadcast message to other mobile devices to enable transmission of the medical information to the processing system.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the environmental syndrome comprises one of a plurality of hierarchically related environments, wherein the processing system forwards selected ones of the individual syndromes to a higher level aggregation system responsive to determining that the selected ones of the individual syndromes match at least one predetermined criteria, and wherein the processing system comprises a plurality of processors operating in a distributed processing environment.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the operations further comprise:

transmitting an alert to the mobile devices, the alert identifying the environmental syndrome.

20. A computer program product for determining whether an environmental syndrome exists, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory, machine-readable medium comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processing system including a processor, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising:

computer readable program code configured to receive individual syndromes collected by mobile devices associated with bodies, respectively, wherein the individual syndromes comprise medical information measured from the respective bodies;

computer readable program code configured to receive movement information from the mobile devices;

computer readable program code configured to receive proximity information from the mobile devices, wherein the proximity information identifies groups of the mobile devices that have been in proximity to each other;

computer readable program code configured to compare the individual syndromes to determine whether a similarity exists between the individual syndromes; and

computer readable program code configured to determine whether the environmental syndrome exists for the plurality of the individual syndromes based on the movement information, the proximity information and that the similarity exists between the individual syndromes.