Multiple resource planning system

• US 20060195339A1
• Filed: 11/28/2005
• Published: 08/31/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 02/25/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Virtual Radiologic Corporation (Mednax Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Virtual Radiologic Consultants Incorporated (Mednax Incorporated)
• Inventors: Backhaus, Brent, Ebesu, Dean, Lusic, Lorna
• Granted Patent: US 7,729,928 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06311 Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 30/40 for processing medical images, e.g. editing
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/20 for the management or administration of healthcare resources or facilities, e.g. managing hospital staff or surgery rooms

Abstract

A system for managing remote doctor medical request workflow may include a workflow module that optimizes assignments of medical requests to remote doctors based on parameterized doctor and scheduling information and may further include a forecasting module that predicts the hospital credentials, state licenses or doctors needed to fulfill a projected volume of future medical requests. In one embodiment, radiologists are parameterized and then matched with requests for radiological readings based on information extracted from DICOM image headers and merged with associated information contained in a medical work order. In this embodiment, the radiologists are parameterized based on their locations, schedules, hospital credentials, state licensing, compensation metrics, and performance metrics and incoming requests for review of CT scans and the like are filtered based on the parameterized radiologist information to identify one or more radiologists who are to fulfill the medical request.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a medical request from a medical facility, wherein the medical request comprises a medical facility identifier;

receiving from a data module parameterized doctor information including a plurality of parameters selected from a group consisting of a doctor identifier, doctor schedule information, an order volume and doctor classification composite metric, doctor location information, preference information, performance information, and contract terms;

filtering the medical requests using the medical facility identifier and the parameterized doctor information, wherein the filtering identifies at least one doctor to receive the medical request; and

transmitting the medical request to a client device that is accessible by the identified doctor.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the medical request includes an image, an order, or both.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a doctor credential parameter or doctor subspecialty parameter from the data module.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising filtering the medical requests further based on the doctor credential parameter or doctor subspecialty parameter.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving from the data module medical facility parameters including a medical facility schedule parameter or medical facility location parameter.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising filtering the medical requests further based on the medical facility schedule parameter or the medical facility location parameter.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein filtering the medical request includes transmitting the medical facility identifier to the data module and receiving the parameterized doctor information associated with the medical facility identifier from the data module.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying a medical facility connectivity status that indicates whether an encrypted network connection used by the medical facility to transmit the order is operational.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising filtering the medical request based on the connectivity status.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying a number of previously assigned medical requests that a doctor has completed and using the number to filter the medical request.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the medical request further comprises a patient age, a body region, or both.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising determining a complexity factor for the medical request using the patient age, the medical facility identifier, the body region, or combination thereof, and filtering the medical request based on the complexity factor.

13. The method of any of the claims 1-12, further comprising identifying a doctor connectivity status that indicates whether an encrypted network connection used by the client device to receive the medical request is active.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising filtering the medical request based on the connectivity status.

15. A method, comprising:

receiving from a data module data associated with previous medical requests submitted by a plurality of medical facilities at a plurality of different locations;

identify a volume of previous medical requests associated with each location;

identify a volume of future medical requests expected to be received from the medical facilities during a future time period;

identify one or more assignment parameters selected from the group consisting of doctor work schedules, expected licensing approvals, expected credentialing approvals, medical facility preferences for certain doctors, doctor contract terms, doctor compensation metrics, historical doctor performance metrics, and additional medical facilities to be serviced during the future time period; and

determine, based on the previous medical requests and the one or more assignment parameters, a number of licenses, credentials, or doctors needed to fulfill the future medical requests.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising identifying a projected shortfall of credentials, licenses, or doctors.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising identifying a projected shortfall of medical requests necessary to substantially utilize a plurality of doctors.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein determining comprises iteratively assigning expected medical requests to different combinations of doctors to identify a substantially optimized assignment schedule.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising identifying volumes of previous medical requests associated with each of a plurality of hospitals.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein the future time period is a month.

21. The method of claim 15, further comprising determining a minimum number or cost of credentials or licenses needed to fulfill the future medical requests.

22. The method of claim 15, wherein the number of licenses, credentials, or doctors needed to fulfill the future medical requests is determined based on two or more of the assignment parameters.

23. The method of claim 15, wherein the number of licenses, credentials, or doctors needed to fulfill the future medical requests is determined based on three or more of the assignment parameters.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the doctor contract terms comprise medical request minimums.

25. The method of claim 23, wherein the doctor compensation metrics comprise premiums for additional medical requests fulfilled beyond a quota.

26. The method of claim 23, wherein historical doctor performance metrics comprise timeliness or quality metrics.

27. The method of claim 15, wherein the volume of future medical requests is determined based on the volume of previous medical requests.