Methods and kits for managing diagnosis and therapeutics of bacterial infections

• US 20020107641A1
• Filed: 10/05/2001
• Published: 08/08/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 03/10/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Illinois Institute of Technology, Northwestern University
• Original Assignee: Northwestern University
• Inventors: Frieder, Ophir, Schaeffer, Anthony J.
• Granted Patent: US 7,418,399 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 702/19
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/20 for electronic clinical trials or questionnaires
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/70 for mining of medical data, e.g. analysing previous cases of other patients
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 70/60 relating to pathologies

Abstract

A method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system capable of providing a continuous data stream of epidemiological data to the records system via kits provided to the symptomatic population to obtain and record an epidemiological profile in a searchable database by applying data mining or automated intelligence techniques whereby, when a valid epidemiological profile is established in the database, automated diagnosis and prescription of treatment may be had for patients presenting similar symptoms. Knowledge discovery techniques may further operate on the database to provide suggested courses of treatment for a virtual class of patients, epidemic threat awareness, and knowledge of drug resistance mutations by a pathogen without direct query of the database.

Claims

1. A method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system, comprising:

a) collecting prior epidemiological information of persons previously having symptoms similar to those of patient;

b) entering and storing the collected epidemiological information in an electronic database;

c) creating an automated knowledge discovery system including organizing the prior epidemiological information in the electronic database to make the epidemiological information amenable to data mining;

d) collecting patient epidemiological information;

e) entering at least some of the patient information into a query function of said database;

f) data mining the organized epidemiological information to predict a pathogen infecting the patient based on similarities of the patient information with the organized epidemiological information; and

g) prescribing a course of treatment to the patient based on the prediction of the data mining.

2. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 1, further including allowing the patient to test for pathogen identification and entering results of the identification test into the database.

3. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 1, further including allowing patient to test for treatment efficacy and entering results of the efficacy test into the database.

4. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 1, wherein said course of treatment includes an antimicrobial prescribed to the patient.

5. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 1, wherein said course of treatment includes enumeration of antimicrobials not to be prescribed to the patient.

6. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 1, wherein said data mining further includes:

identifying information common to the persons who developed an infection from a particular pathogen.

7. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 6, wherein said data mining further includes:

identifying the efficacy of antimicrobials used in treating a particular pathogen.

8. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 1, wherein said data mining further includes:

identifying the efficacy of antimicrobials used in treating a particular pathogen.

9. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 1, wherein said data mining further includes:

continuously executing knowledge discovery operations on the data and giving suggestions selected from the group including treatment patterns, and epidemiological scenarios, for presentation to a health care practitioner.

10. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 9, wherein the given suggestions are based at least in part on past decisions made by a health care practitioner and entered into the electronic database.

11. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 9, wherein the suggestions are based at least in part on past comments of a health care practitioner regarding the degree of validity or value of the given suggestions, the past comments being stored as further information in the knowledge discovery system.

12. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 9, wherein said knowledge discovery system further includes:

executing manipulation routines to derive further suggestions based on the given suggestions.

13. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 1, said knowledge discovery system further providing predictive treatment outcome generation via a virtual patient to develop answers to hypothetical scenarios by automatically mining the data to derive potential treatment patterns for a virtual patient or group of patients as one type of the given suggestions.

14. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 1, said knowledge discovery system further providing epidemic threat detection through data mining related to group diagnostic patterns and demographic categories as one type of the given suggestions.

15. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 1, wherein the knowledge discovery tools include data cleaning of the entered epidemiological information for potential integration of data from several sources.

16. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 1 wherein the knowledge discovery tools include data transformation of the entered epidemiological information to a common format.

17. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 1 wherein the knowledge discovery tools include data mining of the entered epidemiological information to detect patterns found in the entered epidemiological information.

18. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 1 wherein the knowledge discovery tools include pattern evaluation and knowledge representation.

19. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 1 wherein the knowledge discovery tools include a process comprising iterative refinement of the following steps:

a) data cleaning of the entered epidemiological information;

b) data transformation of the entered epidemiological information to a common format;

c) data mining of the entered epidemiological information; and

d) pattern evaluation and knowledge representation of knowledge gained from the data mining.

20. The method of treating a patient according to claim 1 wherein the data mining technique includes at least one of:

Discrimination, Association Rules (Analysis), Classification (Decision Trees), and Clustering data mining techniques.

21. A method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system, comprising:

a) providing a kit to each of a plurality of members of a population presenting symptoms associated with a particular disease, the kit having means for collecting prior epidemiological information of members of the population previously having symptoms similar to those of patient;

b) entering and storing the collected epidemiological information in an electronic database;

c) creating an automated knowledge discovery system including organizing the prior epidemiological information in the electronic database to make the epidemiological information amenable to data mining;

d) providing a similar kit to the patient for collecting epidemiological information of the patient;

e) entering at least some of the patient information into a query function of said database;

f) data mining the organized epidemiological information to predict a pathogen infecting the patient based on similarities of the patient information with the organized epidemiological information; and

g) prescribing a course of treatment to the patient based on the prediction of the data mining;

h) whereby the patient with symptoms of an infection may be diagnosed or treated or both before testing for the presence of specific pathogens which may be infecting the patient.

22. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 21, further including allowing the patient to test for pathogen identification and entering results of the identification test into the database.

23. The method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system according to claim 21, further including allowing patient to test for treatment efficacy and entering results of the efficacy test into the database.

24. A method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system, comprising:

a) distributing a kit to a population presenting symptoms of disease, the kit having means for establishing and recording at least the below listed epidemiological data for the population;

b) establishing and recording epidemiological data for the symptoms in the population;

c) establishing and recording epidemiological data for demographic and personal information in the population;

d) establishing and recording epidemiological data for incidence of a pathogen causing symptoms in the population;

e) establishing and recording epidemiological data for use of a medicine for treatment of the pathogen in the population;

f) establishing and recording epidemiological data for results of treatment via the medicine in the population;

g) building an epidemiological profile of the population via data mining of the recorded data of steps b)-f);

h) distributing a kit to an undiagnosed patient presenting symptoms;

i) iterating at least steps a)-c) for the undiagnosed patient;

j) comparing the undiagnosed patient information to the epidemiological profile of the population; and

k) recommending treatment to the undiagnosed patient based on the comparison of j).

25. A method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system, comprising:

a) distributing a kit to a population presenting symptoms, the kit having means for establishing and recording at least the below listed epidemiological data for the population;

b) establishing and recording epidemiological data for symptoms in the population;

c) establishing and recording epidemiological data for demographic and personal information in the population;

d) establishing and recording epidemiological data for incidence of a pathogen causing the symptoms in the population;

e) establishing and recording epidemiological data for a medicine used for treatment of the pathogen in the population;

f) establishing and recording epidemiological data for results of the treatment via the medicine in the population;

g) constructing a searchable database of the established and recorded epidemiological data;

h) building an epidemiological profile of the population via data mining of the recorded data of steps b)-f);

i) distributing a kit to an undiagnosed patient presenting symptoms;

j) iterating at least steps a)-c) for the undiagnosed patient;

k) comparing the undiagnosed patient information to the database; and

l) recommending a treatment to the undiagnosed patient based on the comparison of k).

26. A method for the construction and utilization of a medical records system, comprising:

a) distributing a kit to a population presenting symptoms, the kit having means for establishing and recording at least the below listed epidemiological data for the population;

b) establishing and recording epidemiological data for symptoms in population;

c) establishing and recording epidemiological data for demographic and personal information in the population;

d) establishing and recording epidemiological data for incidence of a pathogen causing the symptoms in the population;

e) establishing and recording epidemiological data for a medicine for treatment of the pathogen in the population;

f) establishing and recording epidemiological data for results of treatment via the medicine in the population;

g) constructing a searchable database of the established and recorded epidemiological data;

h) data mining the searchable database to build an epidemiological profile of the population;

i) distributing a kit to an undiagnosed patient presenting symptoms;

j) iterating at least steps a)-c) for the undiagnosed patient;

k) comparing the undiagnosed patient information to the database;

l) recommending a treatment to undiagnosed patient based on the comparison of k); and

m) iterating steps d)-g) for the data established and recorded on the undiagnosed patient.