Bio-surveillance system

• US 20060152372A1
• Filed: 08/19/2003
• Published: 07/13/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 08/19/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Stout Solutions LLC
• Original Assignee: Stout Solutions LLC
• Inventors: Stout, Todd
• Granted Patent: US 9,642,562 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/573.100
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0002 Remote monitoring of patients using telemetry, e.g. transmission of vital signals via a communication network A61B5/07 takes precedence; transmission systems for measured values G08C; transmission H04B; transmission of digital information H04L; wireless communication networks H04W
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1112 Global tracking of patients, e.g. by using GPS
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/10 responsive to calamitous events, e.g. tornados or earthquakes
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 31/00 Predictive alarm systems characterised by extrapolation or other computation using updated historic data
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/80 for detecting, monitoring or modelling epidemics or pandemics, e.g. flu

Abstract

A bio-surveillance system monitors symptoms or groups of symptoms experienced by people in a geographical area. The system tracks symptoms reported by calls to an emergency service dispatcher. The bio-surveillance system monitors the symptoms and associates the geographical location with the symptoms. Various triggers are programmed and stored in the system to look for certain types of threats. Each trigger is set based on a statistical variation of the historical data relating to the symptoms within a predetermined time in a predefined geographical area. When the reported symptoms exceed one of the triggers, an alert is activated to provide an indication of a potential biological or chemical terrorist attack.

Claims

1. A method of detecting an event comprising the steps of:

a) monitoring occurrences of at least one health symptom;

b) comparing the occurrences of the at least one health symptom to a trigger value; and

c) activating an alert when the occurrences of the at least one health symptom exceed the trigger value.

2. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein said step a) further includes the step of monitoring the occurrences from at least one emergency services dispatcher.

3. The method as recited in claim 2 further including the step of inputting the at least one health symptom into a dispatcher computer.

4. The method as recited in claim 2 further including the step of providing the at least one health symptom in a first geographical area.

5. The method as recited in claim 4 further including the step of accumulating the at least one health symptom in a second geographical area which includes the first geographical area and which is greater than the first geographical area.

6. The method as recited in claim 4 wherein the information about the at least one health symptom is provided to the first main computer at a variable time.

7. The method as recited in claim 1 further including the steps determining a geographic location of each of the at least one health symptom and associating the geographical location with each of the at least one health symptom.

8. The method as recited in claim 7 further including the step of displaying the geographical location of each of the at least one health symptom on a display.

9. The method as recited in claim 1 further including the step of adjusting the trigger value to generate a new trigger value and then comparing the new trigger value to the number of the at least one health symptom.

10. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the trigger value is a statistical variation of a historical value of the at least one symptom.

11. The method as recited in claim 1 further including the step of weighting the at least one health symptom.

12. The method as recited in claim 1 further including the step of calculating the trigger value prior to the step of comparing the number of the at least one health symptom to the trigger value.

13. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the at least one health symptom is one of headache, fever, fainting, clammy, unconscious, bleeding, vomiting and nausea.

14. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the event is one of a biological attack and a chemical attack.

15. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein said step a) further includes the step of monitoring the occurrences within a time window.

16. The method as recited in claim 15 further including the step of generating a trigger based upon historical occurrences of the at least one symptom within the time window.

17. The method as recited in claim 16 further including the step of updating the trigger at an update frequency, the step of updating including the steps of adding new occurrences to the historical occurrences.

18. The method as recited in claim 17 wherein the step of updating further includes the step of dropping old occurrences from the historical occurrences.

19. The method as recited in claim 16 wherein the trigger is based upon criteria, the method further including the steps of changing criteria of the trigger and recalculating the trigger based upon the changed criteria and the historical occurrences.

20. The method as recited in claim 19 wherein the at least one symptom includes a plurality of symptoms, and where the criteria for the trigger includes the plurality of symptoms, the step of changing the criteria including the step of adding a symptom to the plurality of symptoms.

21. The method as recited in claim 19 wherein the at least one symptom includes a plurality of symptoms, and where the criteria for the trigger includes the plurality of symptoms and a statistical relationship to the historical occurrences, the step of changing the criteria including the step of changing the statistical relationship to the historical occurrences.

22. A system for detecting a biological or chemical attack comprising:

a first computer for monitoring occurrences of at least one health symptom, and comparing the occurrences of the at least one health symptom to a trigger value; and

an alert system indicating an alarm based upon the comparison of the occurrences of the at least one health symptom to the trigger value

23. The system as recited in claim 22 further including a plurality of input computers for gathering occurrences of the at least one health symptom.

24. The system as recited in claim 22 wherein the first main computer determines a geographic location of the at least one health symptom.

25. The system as recited in claim 24 further including a visual display that displays a location of the at least one symptom.

26. The system as recited in claim 22 wherein the trigger value is based on a statistical variation of a historical value of the at least one symptom.

27. The system as recited in claim 22 wherein the at least one health symptom is one of headache, fever, fainting, clammy, unconscious, bleeding, vomiting and nausea.

28. The system of claim 22 wherein the at least one symptom includes a plurality of symptoms.

29. The system of claim 28 wherein the trigger value is based upon historical occurrences of the plurality of symptoms.

30. The system of claim 29 wherein the trigger value is updated at an update frequency, wherein new occurrences are added to the historical occurrences to update the trigger value.