Management of medical workflow

• US 10,438,694 B2
• Filed: 11/19/2007
• Issued: 10/08/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 11/19/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RFW LLC, Siemens Medical Solutions USA Incorporated (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: Medicalis Corp. (Siemens AG)
• Inventors: Napora, Brian, Copeland, Jon, Duvoisin, Stephen, Keyes, William, Murray, Dan, Schulte, William, Teel, Gordon
• Primary Examiner(s): Cobanoglu, Dilek B
• Application Number:
  US11/942,652
• Publication Number:
  US 20090132586A1
• Time in Patent Office: 4,341 Days
• Field of Search: 705 3, 705 2
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/20 for the management or administration of healthcare resources or facilities, e.g. managing hospital staff or surgery rooms
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/63 for local operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 80/00 ICT specially adapted for facilitating communication between medical practitioners or patients, e.g. for collaborative diagnosis, therapy or health monitoring

Abstract

Various embodiments provide participants in a medical workflow with an integrated way to interact with a variety of medical information systems. Medical information can be collected from different medical information systems and/or data sources and presented to a user in one or more customized interfaces. Users can interact with the interface(s) and perform tasks associated with a medical workflow.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

one or more hardware processors; and

one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media storing computer-executable instructions that are executable by the one or more hardware processors;

a structured data acquisition tool executable by the one or more processors to perform operations including wrapping an external graphical user interface (GUI) of a first medical information application that is external to the structured data acquisition tool such that user interaction with the external GUI is detectable by the structured data acquisition tool, the first medical information application managed by a first medical information system containing, for each of a plurality of medical records, medical workflow data, wherein a particular medical record of the plurality of medical records is configured to be displayed within the external GUI;

a second medical information application managed by a second medical information system that is external to the first medical information system, the second medical information application executable by the one or more processors to perform operations including;

receiving from the structured data acquisition tool a notification indicating a user selection of the particular medical record from the external GUI of the first medical information application;

responsive to receiving the notification from the structured data acquisition tool, performing operations including;

launching a form in a local GUI of the second medical information application the local GUI being separate from the external GUI of the first medical information application;

utilizing the form to automatically capture the medical workflow data from the particular medical record of the first medical information application, including capturing text from particular the medical record included in the external GUI;

automatically populating the form within the local GUI with the medical workflow data such that at least some of the medical workflow data is displayed in the form, including automatically populating the text captured from the external GUI to the local GUI;

receiving user input to the form within the local GUI of the second medical information application, the user input including an edit of the text populated to the local GUI from the external GUI; and

causing the particular medical record managed by the first medical information application to be automatically updated based on the input by the user into the form by pushing the edited text from the local GUI of the second medical information application to the first medical information application of the first medical information system such that the updated medical record with the edited text is accessible via the external GUI of the first medical information application.

2. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the system further comprises an aggregator module executable by the one or more processors to perform operations including receiving the medical workflow data from the first medical information application, and wherein the aggregator module includes a message broker that determines whether the medical workflow data is to be forwarded to one or more external entities.

3. A system as recited in claim 2, wherein the aggregator module includes a data flow controller that is executable by the one or more processors to perform operations including performing normalization of medical workflow data.

4. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the system further comprises a dictionary processor module executable by the one or more processors to perform operations including receiving a plurality of medical codes from external medical information systems and correlating each of the plurality of medical codes with a common medical procedure.

5. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the second application implements the structured data acquisition tool.

6. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the structured data acquisition tool is executable by the one or more processors to perform operations including utilizing the form to capture other medical workflow data from at least one other medical information application, and wherein the system further include a workflow tool module executable by the one or more processors to perform operations including automatically populating the form with at least some of the other medical workflow data.

7. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the structured data acquisition tool is further executable by the one or more processors to perform operations including utilizing the form to capture other medical workflow data from an external medical information system, and automatically populating the form with at least some of the other medical workflow data.

8. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the second medical information application is further configured to perform operations including generating the form in response to detecting a user selection of an external instance of the medical record.

9. A system as recited in claim 8, wherein the external instance of the medical record is maintained by an external medical information application.

10. A system as recited in claim 9, wherein the structured data acquisition tool is further executable by the one or more processors to perform operations including updating the external instance of the medical record in response to a user saving changes made to the form.

11. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the system further comprises a workflow tool module executable by the one or more processors to perform operations including monitoring a pending medical procedure and automatically triggering an alert if the pending medical procedure exceeds an allowed pending time.

12. A system as recited in claim 11, wherein the workflow tool module is further executable by the one or more processors to perform operations including enforcing assignment rules that specify whether a particular medical task is assignable to a particular medical resource.

13. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the system further comprises a resource scheduler module executable by the one or more processors to perform operations including causing a medical resource to be automatically scheduled to perform a medical procedure in response to the user interaction with the first medical information application.

14. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the system further comprises a workflow analytics module executable by the one or more processors to perform operations including performing a statistical analysis utilizing the medical workflow data and reassigning a medical procedure based on the statistical analysis indicating that one or more of medical personnel or a medical facility is behind schedule.

15. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the system further comprises a workflow tool module executable by the one or more processors to perform operations including pushing the updated medical record to an entity as at least one of a new medical task or a new medical workflow.

16. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the system further comprises a workflow tool module executable by the one or more processors to perform operations including pushing the updated medical record to an entity as at least one of an update to an existing medical task or an update to an existing medical workflow.

17. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the user input to the form causes a change to the medical workflow data, and wherein the system further comprises a message broker module executable by the one or more processors to perform operations including ascertaining whether the change to the medical workflow data is to be forwarded to the first medical information application.

18. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions are executable by the one or more hardware processors to perform operations comprising:

receiving an indication that the user performs a login to the first medical information application; and

causing, automatically and responsive to the login to the first medical information application, the user to be logged into the structured data acquisition tool.

19. A computer-implemented method comprising:

wrapping, by a local medical information application of a local medical information system, an external graphical user interface (GUI) of an external medical information application that is external to a computing system that implements the local medical information system such that user interaction with the external GUI is detectable by the local medical information application;

receiving, by the computing system, a signal indicating a user selection of a medical record from the external GUI that is external to the computing system;

launching, by the computing system, a form in a local GUI of the local medical information application that is separate from the external GUI, said launching occurring automatically by the local medical information application and in response to detecting the user selection of the medical record from the external GUI;

utilizing, by the computing system, the form to capture medical workflow data from the medical record of the external medical information application that is external to the computing system, the medical workflow data including text content from the external GUI;

automatically populating, by the computing system, the form in the local GUI with the medical workflow data in response to a user interaction with the external medical information application such that at least some of the medical workflow data is displayed in the form;

receiving, by the computing system, user input to the local GUI to edit the text content; and

updating, by the computing system, the medical record based on input by the user into the form in the local GUI by pushing the edited text content from the local medical information application to the external medical information application.

20. A computer-implemented method comprising:

utilizing, by a computing system, a form in a local graphical user interface (GUI) to capture medical workflow data from an external medical information application by wrapping an external graphical user interface (GUI) of the external medical information application that is external to the computing system such that user interaction with the external GUI is detectable by the computing system;

automatically populating, by the computing system, the form in the local GUI with the medical workflow data in response to an interaction by a user with the external medical information application such that at least some of the medical workflow data is displayed as part of the form in the local GUI;

automatically updating, by the computing system, one or more external instances of a medical record based on input by the user into the form by pushing the input to the one or more external instances of the medical record;

performing a statistical analysis utilizing the medical workflow data to determine that a medical procedure assigned to a particular entity and associated with the one or more external instances of the medical record is behind schedule;

generating an alert indicating that the medical procedure is behind schedule based on one or more of the procedure approaching an allowed pendency time, or the procedure exceeding the allowed pendency time; and

reassigning, automatically and in response to the alert, the medical procedure to a different entity that is indicated as being available to perform the procedure.