ENHANCED MEDICAL TREATMENT SYSTEM

• US 20030055679A1
• Filed: 04/09/1999
• Published: 03/20/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 04/09/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Andrew H. Soll, Liana Violet Soll
• Original Assignee: Andrew H. Soll, Liana Violet Soll
• Inventors: SOLL, ANDREW H., SOLL, LIANA VIOLET
• Granted Patent: US 7,593,952 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/20 for electronic clinical trials or questionnaires
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 20/40 relating to mechanical, radiation or invasive therapies, e.g. surgery, laser therapy, dialysis or acupuncture
• 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 70/20 relating to practices or guidelines
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 70/60 relating to pathologies
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

This invention deals with an enhanced medical treatment system which seeks input from the patient and the physician about the medical problems faced by the patient. It analyzes this information and seeks to guide physicians to a correct diagnosis of the complaint. It also seeks to educate the patient about his/her medical problems and provides information about the problem. It is able to store all this information, so that a continues record of the patient'"'"'s visits and problems is kept on file and the physician is able to utilize the medical history to solve the patient'"'"'s current problems. With this system in place the medical establishment will be able to improve health care delivery to the patients and be able to better manage the process of the providing health care. Furthermore, this system will also lower the cost of providing health care without compromising on the quality of health care.

Claims

1. A data processing system for implementing program controlled management of physician-patient interactions, comprising:

a) a first workstation program adapted for accepting biographical and/or insurance information about a patient;

b) a second workstation program adapted for accepting information about at least one of;

patient complaints, patient symptoms, medication, and responses to triage questions relating to one or more reasons for the patient'"'"'s visit, so as to enable the system to formulate one or more specific questions directed to a medical problem of the patient;

c) a third workstation program adapted for accepting vital sign data including at least one of;

temperature, blood pressure, pulse, weight;

further adapted for accepting at least one of;

one or more reasons why the patient is seeking medical treatment, responses to medical questions, whether the visit is for an urgent matter, and data relating to potentially emergent problems;

d) a fourth workstation program adapted for accepting information obtained from the patient during a medical check up, including information indicative of patient thoughts on his or her complaint and potential diagnosis of the complaint, the fourth workstation module also adapted to provide a physician with optional information about patient history from previous visits;

e) a database server for providing access to the first, second, third and fourth workstation programs so as to form a local area network used to store medical information related to a plurality of patients, the database server adapted to capture and manage at least one of;

costs of medical care, utilization of one or more physicians, laboratory data, indicia of disease, referral data, surgery data and pathology data;

f) a communication server adapted for connection to at least one of;

the Internet, a hospital computer network, and an insurance company computer network, to access information accepted by any of the first, second, third and fourth workstation programs.

2. The data processing system of claim 1 wherein each of the first, second, third and fourth workstation programs are executed on one or more workstations, each workstation including a display terminal with a touch sensitive screen to display questions and information, a mouse and a keyboard to accept information, a microphone to record information, and one or more speakers or a headset.

3. The data processing system of claim 1 wherein the database server includes a mechanism to connect with any of a plurality of computer-based patient record systems, thereby ensuring completeness of data and avoiding redundant entry of data across multiple system.

4. The data processing system of claim 1 further including a mechanism by which a physician may create and refine patient assessment processes and/or modify clinical algorithms and guidelines.

5. The data processing system of claim 1 wherein the second workstation program includes a system response analyzer subroutine that operates as a background software process so as to track inconsistent information entries that are indicative of a failure on part of the patient to understand the nature and operation of the system, and/or a patient uninterested in participating in the process of entering information into the system, by checking the patient'"'"'s responses after the second workstation program accepts the information, so as to determine if this information is consistent with previously entered information.

6. The data processing system of claim 5 wherein the system response analyzer, after determining one or more patient responses to be inconsistent, generates an output indicative of such inconsistency, and runs an instructional prompting program informing the patient of the inconsistency and/or how to avoid such inconsistency.