Visualizing the Documentation and Coding of Surgical Procedures

• US 20090070140A1
• Filed: 08/04/2008
• Published: 03/12/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/03/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Optum360, LLC (UnitedHealth Group Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: A-Life Medical, Inc. (UnitedHealth Group Incorporated)
• Inventors: Jennings, Blair C., Landis, Michael A., Morsch, Mark L.
• Granted Patent: US 9,946,846 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/2
• 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 20/40 relating to mechanical, radiation or invasive therapies, e.g. surgery, laser therapy, dialysis or acupuncture
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 70/20 relating to practices or guidelines

Abstract

Among other things, methods, systems and computer program products for providing visual indication of documentation and coding of medical procedures may include providing a choice of medical codes associated with a medical procedure. A user selection of one of the medical codes is detected. Based on the detection, a visual indication of the user selection is generated on one or more anatomical diagrams.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method comprising:

providing a choice of medical codes associated with a medical procedure;

detecting a user selection of one or more of the medical codes;

based on the detection, generating a visual indication of the user selection on one or more anatomical diagrams.

2. A computer implemented method comprising:

providing one or more anatomical diagrams associated with a medical procedure, wherein at least one of the one or more anatomical diagrams includes one or more user selectable areas;

detecting a user selection of the one or more user selectable areas on the one or more anatomical diagrams and;

based on the detection, generating a textual description of the user selection.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 2, wherein the providing comprises:

presenting the one or more user selectable areas to include one or more catheter insertion locations.

4. The computer implemented method of claim 3, further comprising:

receiving a user selection of one of the one or more catheter insertion locations and a user identification of at least one destination location, wherein the selected catheter insertion location and the identified destination location represent two points on a catheter route.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 4, further comprising:

receiving a user selection of another destination location.

6. The computer implemented method of claim 5, further comprising:

obtaining medical codes based on the user selections of the insertion point and at least one of the two destinations.

7. The computer implemented method of claim 6, wherein obtaining the medical codes comprises:

translating a description of the catheter route into standard medical codes and a series of line segments on the one or more anatomical diagrams, wherein the description of the catheter route includes an ordered sequence of anatomy identifiers that represent parts of an anatomy.

8. The computer implemented method of claim 7, further comprising using the series of line segments to generate a visual indication of the catheter route.

9. A system comprising:

a user input device; and

one or more computer systems coupled to the user input device, each computer system including a processor and a display configured to provide a graphical user interface, wherein the graphical user interface comprises;

a text display region configured to display textual descriptions associated with a medical procedure;

a medical code display region configured to display user selectable medical codes corresponding to the displayed textual descriptions; and

a diagram display region configured to display one or more anatomical diagrams associated with a medical procedure, wherein at least one of the one or more diagrams includes one or more user selectable regions corresponding to the user selectable medical codes.

10. A system of claim 9, wherein the one or more user selectable regions are configured to provide a visual indication of a user selection of the corresponding medical code.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the one or more user selectable regions comprises one or more catheter insertion locations.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the diagram display region is configured to receive a user selection of one of the one or more catheter insertion locations and a user identification of at least one destination location, wherein the selected catheter insertion location and the identified destination location represent two points on a catheter route.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the diagram display region is configured to receive a user selection of another destination location.

14. The system of claim 13, further comprising a data storage device communicatively coupled to the one or more computer systems, wherein the one or more computer systems are configured to obtain medical codes stored in the data storage device based on the user selections of the insertion point and at least one of the two destinations.

15. A system comprising:

a data storage unit configured to store medical data associated with one or more catheter routes; and

a route mapper communicatively coupled to the data storage unit, wherein the route mapper is configured to perform the following;

translate a description of one of the one or more catheter routes into standard medical codes, and

translate the description of one of the one or more catheter routes into a series of line segments.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the data storage unit is configured to store the medical data that comprises:

a directed graph; and

a mapping table.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the route mapper is configured to traverse the directed graph based on the description to obtain the standardized medical codes.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the description comprises a sequence of anatomy identifiers;

and

the route mapper 130 is configured to identify from the mapping table the one or more line segments associated with each anatomy identifier.

19. The system of claim 17, further comprising an interface handler 110 in communication with the route mapper, wherein the interface handler 110 is configured to provide a visual indication of the catheter route.