Prioritizing alert recipients using activity monitoring data

• US 10,319,214 B1
• Filed: 01/11/2018
• Issued: 06/11/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 01/11/2018
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Hannigan, Ciaran E., Sandonato, Nicholas R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Flores, Leon
• Application Number:
  US15/868,375
• Time in Patent Office: 516 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/005 Alarm destination chosen according to a hierarchy of available destinations, e.g. if hospital does not answer send to police station
• 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: G08B 25/10 using wireless transmission systems G08B25/009 takes precedence

Abstract

Devices and methods for prioritizing alert recipients using activity monitoring data are disclosed. A method includes: receiving, by a computing device, an incoming alert; receiving, by the computing device, activity data corresponding to a first on-call person; determining, by the computing device, whether or not the first on-call person is available using the activity data corresponding to the first on-call person; in response to determining that the first on-call person is available, the computing device sending the incoming alert to the first on-call person; and in response to determining that the first on-call person is not available, the computing device sending the incoming alert to a second on-call person.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a computing device, an incoming alert;

receiving, by the computing device, activity data corresponding to a first on-call person;

determining, by the computing device, whether or not the first on-call person is available using the activity data corresponding to the first on-call person;

in response to determining that the first on-call person is available, the computing device sending the incoming alert to the first on-call person; and

in response to determining that the first on-call person is not available, the computing device sending the incoming alert to a second on-call person in response to;

receiving, by the computing device, activity data corresponding to the second on-call person;

determining, by the computing device, that the second on-call person is not available using the activity data corresponding to the second on-call person; and

determining that an unavailability level associated with the second on-call person is lower than an unavailability level associated with the first on-call person,

wherein the determining of whether the first on-call person and the second on-call person are available, and the determining of the level of unavailability of the first on-call person and the second on-call person are determined based on data received from biosensor devices and GPS devices of the first on-call person and the second on-call person.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the sending the incoming alert to the second on-call person is further in response to the computing device receiving activity data corresponding to the second on-call person and determining that the second on-call person is available using the activity data corresponding to the second on-call person.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the computer device communicates with the biosensor devices and the GPS devices of the first on-call person and the second on-call person by at least one selected from the group consisting of:

Bluetooth;

WiFi; and

cellular connection.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the activity data corresponding to the first on-call person is received in response to a request from the computing device.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein activity data received by the computing device is pushed to the computing device at predetermined intervals or in response to a change in activity status.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the activity data indicates an activity status selected from the group consisting of sleeping, eating, exercising, and driving.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising, in response to the first on-call person and the second on-call person having a same unavailability level, randomly selecting one of the first on-call person and the second on-call person for sending the incoming alert to.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising reducing the level of unavailability of at least one of the first on-call person and the second on-call person based on an estimated arrival time of the first on-call person and the second on-call person, which arrival time is determined based on data received from the respective GPS devices of the first on-call person in the second on-call person.

9. A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a computing device to cause the computing device to:

receive a request to transmit an alert;

receive activity data corresponding to each of a plurality of on-call persons;

determine, using the received activity data, each of the plurality of on-call persons is one of available and unavailable; and

based on the determining, send the incoming alert to one of;

an only available one of the plurality of on-call persons;

one of a plurality of available ones of the plurality of on-call persons;

or

a least unavailable one of the plurality of on-call persons,

wherein the determining of whether each of the plurality of on-call persons is available, and the determining of the least unavailable one of the plurality of on-call persons, are determined based on data received from biosensor devices and GPS devices of each of the plurality of on-call persons.

10. The computer program product according to claim 9, the program instructions further causing the computing device to, for each of the plurality of on-call persons who is determined to be unavailable, determine a level of unavailability.

11. The computer program product according to claim 9, wherein, for each of the plurality of on-call persons, the activity data corresponding to the on-call person is received from the biosensor device of the on-call person by at least one selected from the group consisting of:

Bluetooth;

WiFi; and

cellular connection.

12. The computer program product according to claim 9, wherein the activity data is received in response to a request from the computing device.

13. The computer program product according to claim 9, wherein activity data received by the computing device is pushed to the computing device at predetermined intervals or in response to a change in activity status.

14. The computer program product according to claim 9, wherein the activity data indicates an activity status selected from the group consisting of sleeping, eating, exercising, and driving.

15. A system comprising:

a hardware processor, a computer readable memory, and a computer readable storage medium associated with a computer device;

program instructions of an incoming alert receiver configured to receive an alert;

program instructions of an on-call person determiner configured to determine a plurality of on-call persons;

program instructions of an activity data gatherer configured to receive activity data corresponding to each of the plurality of on-call persons determined by the on-call person determiner; and

program instructions of an alert recipient selector configured to select an alert recipient from the plurality of on-call persons determined by the on-call person determiner using the activity data received by the activity data gatherer and to send the alert received by the incoming alert receiver to the selected alert recipient;

wherein the activity data is data received from biosensor device and GPS devices provided for each of the plurality of on-call persons.

16. The system according to claim 15, wherein the alert recipient selector is configured to select as the alert recipient an on-call person from the plurality of on-call persons who is determined to be available using the activity data received by the activity data gatherer.

17. The system according to claim 15, wherein the alert recipient selector is configured to select as the alert recipient an on-call person from the plurality of on-call persons who is determined to have a lowest unavailability level.

18. The system according to claim 15, wherein the activity data gatherer is configured to receive the activity data in response to a request.

19. The system according to claim 15, wherein the activity data gatherer is configured to receive activity data that is pushed to the system computing device at predetermined intervals or in response to a change in activity status as the activity data.

20. The system according to claim 15, wherein the activity data indicates an activity status selected from the group consisting of sleeping, eating, exercising, and driving.