Systems and methods for risk stratification of patient populations

• US 20050203773A1
• Filed: 03/04/2005
• Published: 09/15/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/05/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Terumo Medical Corporation (Terumo Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Iocent LLC
• Inventors: Spertus, John Albert, Soto, Gabriel Enrique
• Granted Patent: US 7,853,456 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/02 Knowledge representation; Symbolic representation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/20 for electronic clinical trials or questionnaires
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 15/00 ICT specially adapted for medical reports, e.g. generation or transmission thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/30 for calculating health indices; for individual health risk assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/50 for simulation or modelling of medical disorders
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/70 for mining of medical data, e.g. analysing previous cases of other patients

Abstract

A statistical processing system includes a server operably configured with program instructions implementing a plurality of statistical models to at least one of (a) predict a health outcome based on questionnaire responses, (b) assist a patient'"'"'s choice of therapeutic modality based on questionnaire responses, and (c) assess a health risk or status based on questionnaire responses. Also provided is a research agency communicating with the server and contracted to provide the statistical models using a visual interface communicated by the server. The server is configured to analyze requests received from users relating to a plurality of said statistical models to reduce redundancy in requests for patient data.

Claims

1. A method for supplying information, the method comprising:

operating, or contacting with an agent to operate a server to communicate via one or more networks with at least one of a research agency or an intermediary agency;

contracting with the research agency for the research agency to supply to the server, via at least one of the networks, statistical models each using one or more parameters, the models configured to determine statistical outcomes of at least one course of procedure or of non-treatment, or risks of developing a pathological condition later in life; and

contracting with the intermediary agency for the intermediary agency to receive, on request from the intermediary agency via at least one of the networks, parameter lists with reduced redundancy sufficient to apply the requested statistical models to produce model results and with default values of parameters when such default values are available, to receive and reformat the parameter lists and default values, when available, for transmission to end users or their agents as queries, to transmit information received in response to the queries to the server for processing in the requested models, to receive statistical results from the models, and to reformat the results and transmit the reformatted results to the end users or their agents.

2. A method in accordance with claim 1 wherein the contracting with the research agency further comprises contracting for the research agency to supply updated models to the server at mutually agreed-to intervals.

3. A method in accordance with claim 2 wherein the contracting with the intermediary includes agreeing to provide structured lists of parameters and default values, when default values are available.

4. A method in accordance with claim 1 wherein the contracting with the intermediary further comprises the intermediary agreeing to provide reformatted results embedded in a format customized dependent upon which of the end users or agents is to receive the reformatted results.

5. A method in accordance with claim 4 wherein the end users or agents are medical providers, patients, purchasers, payers or combinations thereof and the courses of procedures comprise at least one of medical procedures, medical treatments, medical procedures combined with medical treatments, and refraining from both a medical treatment and a medical procedure.

6. A method in accordance with claim 5 wherein the customized format is an informed consent agreement between a medical provider and a medical patient.

7. A method in accordance with claim 5 wherein the contracting with the research agency further comprises agreeing that the research agency provide access to a medical database of information relating to specific patients to allow default values of parameters to be obtained.

8. A method in accordance with claim 5 wherein the contracting with the intermediary further comprises agreeing that the intermediary will transmit medical data relating to specific patients back to the server and allow the medical data to be provided as default parameter data when a subsequent request is received at the server regarding the specific patient, and the method further includes transmitting the default parameter data from the server to the intermediary.

9. A method in accordance with claim 5 wherein the method further comprises, before sending, to the intermediary agency via at least one of the networks, parameter lists with reduced redundancy sufficient to apply the requested statistical models to produce model results, analyzing the request from the intermediary agency to determine common parameters between models invoked in the request and transmitting a list of parameters sufficient to process a plurality of the requested models without transmitting any repeated parameter more than once.

10. A method in accordance with claim 5 wherein the contracting with the intermediary includes agreeing to provide XML-formatted lists of parameters and default values, when default values are available.

11. A method in accordance with claim 10 wherein the contracting with the intermediary includes agreeing for the intermediary to supply HTML or WML-formatted pages to end users or their agents including lists of the parameters and the default values.

12. A method in accordance with claim 8 wherein at least some end users or their agents select courses of action corresponding to requested models, and an outcome resulting from the course of action is achieved, and wherein the method further comprises contracting with the intermediary for the intermediary to receive information concerning the selected courses of action and the resulting outcomes and to transmit same to the server for further analysis and model revision.

13. A method in accordance with claim 12 wherein the contracting with the research agency further comprises contracting for the research agency to receive information concerning the selected courses of action and the resulting outcomes via the server, for the research agency to analyze and revise models using the received information concerning the selected courses of action and the resulting outcomes, and to transmit revised models to the server.

14. A method for risk-stratifying individual patients, the method comprising:

contracting with a research agency for the research agency to create statistical health models configured to provide model results including patient risk assessments using health query responses, health parameter data, or both;

operating a server to store instructions to receive requests to use the models, to distribute requests for data used by the models, and to apply a redundancy reduction procedure to the requests for data when a plurality of models are requested that pertain to a single patient, to analyze data received in response to the requests, and to transmit results from the analysis;

contracting with an intermediary agency for the intermediary agency to receive model requests from users, to transmit the model requests to the server to use the stored instructions relating to the model, to disseminate reduced redundancy requests for data relating to requested models, to transmit data received in response to the data requests to the server, to receive the transmitted results from the analysis, and to format the results from the analysis for transmission to users.

15. A method in accordance with claim 14 further comprising contracting with the research agency to update the models.

16. A method in accordance with claim 14 further comprising contracting with the research agency to expand the statistical model to accommodate additional health outcomes.

17. The method of claim 14, further comprising contracting with the research agency to supply models for a plurality of diseases.

18. A statistical processing system comprising:

a server operably configured with program instructions implementing a plurality of statistical models to at least one of

(a) predict a health outcome based on questionnaire responses,

(b) assist a patient'"'"'s choice of therapeutic modality based on questionnaire responses, and

(c) assess a health risk or status based on questionnaire responses;

a research agency communicating with the server and contracted to provide the statistical models using a visual interface communicated by the server; and

the server configured to analyze requests received from users relating to a plurality of the statistical models to reduce redundancy in requests for patient data.

19. The statistical processing system of claim 18, further comprising the server operatively configured to present medical information questions to a user for human response and for receiving human responses to the medical information questions.

20. The statistical processing system of claim 19, wherein the program instructions are configured to assign a percentage range associated with likelihoods of encountering adverse outcomes.

21. A method for supplying information, the method comprising:

operating, or contacting with an agent to operate a server to communicate via one or more networks with a research agency and with either end users or their agents;

contracting with the research agency for the research agency to supply to the server, via at least one of the networks, statistical models each using one or more parameters, the models configured to determine statistical outcomes of at least one course of procedure or of non-treatment, or risks of developing a pathological condition later in life;

receiving, via at least one of the networks, requests for use of the statistical models;

constructing parameter lists with reduced redundancy sufficient to apply the requested statistical models to produce model results and with default values of parameters when such default values are available;

transmitting the reduced redundancy parameter lists and default values, when available, to end users or their agents as queries;

receiving information in response to the queries for processing in the requested models; and

transmitting statistical results of the models to the end users or their agents.

22. A method for supplying information, the method comprising:

operating, or contacting with an agent to operate a server to communicate via one or more networks including an intermediary agency;

providing, in the server, statistical models each using one or more parameters, the models configured to determine statistical outcomes of at least one course of procedure or of non-treatment, or risks of developing a pathological condition later in life; and

contracting with the intermediary agency for the intermediary agency to receive, on request from the intermediary agency via at least one of the networks, parameter lists with reduced redundancy sufficient to apply the requested statistical models to produce model results and with default values of parameters when such default values are available, to receive and reformat the parameter lists and default values, when available, for transmission to end users or their agents as queries, to transmit information received in response to the queries to the server for processing in the requested models, to receive statistical results from the models, and to reformat the results and transmit the reformatted results to the end users or their agents.