Apparatus and methods for determining and processing medical outcomes

• US 20090204642A1
• Filed: 04/16/2009
• Published: 08/13/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/12/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Richard E. Gliklich
• Original Assignee: Richard E. Gliklich
• Inventors: Gliklich, Richard E.
• Granted Patent: US 8,706,519 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06375 Prediction of business process outcome or impact based on a proposed change
• 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 20/10 relating to drugs or medications, e.g. for ensuring correct administration to patients
• 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 50/70 for mining of medical data, e.g. analysing previous cases of other patients
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

A data processing system is provided for determining clinical outcomes of medical data gathered by the system. The system can allow a person to define a medical study and can then administer the medical study and can collect and analyze data from potentially geographically diverse doctors, patients and other people associated with a study. Users enter sets of medical information. The system can analyze the medical data according to any number of clinical algorithms that may be custom defined and edited before and during the study. The system conditionally outputs the clinical outcome to the user. The clinical outcome can be used for treatment of patients participating in the study immediately after the data is input and analyzed. The medical outcomes can indicate such things as performance comparisons, composite outcomes, and risk stratification and assessments for such things as treatments, drugs, illnesses, doctors, patients and physician groups.

Claims

1. A digital data processing system, comprising:

memory to store instructions for execution;

one or more processing devices configured to execute the instructions, the instructions for causing the one or more processing devices to;

receive medical data associated with a medical study into a memory of a computer system, the medical data including information in accordance with definitional information for a medical study;

process the medical data using a clinical algorithm executed by at least a processor of the computer system to determine first clinical outcome data, the first clinical outcome data indicating an effectiveness of treating patients associated with the medical study;

output at least a portion of the first clinical outcome data to a user;

receive input from the user during the course of the medical study;

generate modified definitional information for the medical study based on the input; and

repeat the receiving and processing of additional medical data using the modified definitional information for the medical study during the course of the medical study to determine second clinical outcome data.

2. The digital data processing system of claim 1, wherein receiving the medical data, processing the medical data, and generating the modified medical study definitional information occur in substantially real-time during which the medical data is gathered in an ongoing manner during the medical study as the medical study evolves over time based on the input.

3. The digital data processing system of claim 1, wherein outputting at least a portion of the first clinical outcome data comprises:

outputting at least a portion of the first clinical outcome data to a user according to a user characteristic of the user.

4. The digital data processing system of claim 3, wherein the user characteristic comprises at least one of an identity or a privilege level of the user.

5. The digital data processing system of claim 1, wherein the instructions further comprise instructions for causing the one or more processing devices to:

compare the medical study definitional information with the modified medical study definitional information to determine an extent of development of the medical study.

6. The digital data processing system of claim 1, wherein the input received from the user comprises an instruction to redefine an element of the medical study, wherein the element comprises at least one of a medical study parameter, a question to be asked in the medical study, a timeline of the medical study, a trigger event, or a drug protocol.

7. The digital data processing system of claim 6, wherein generating the modified medical study definitional information comprises:

changing a type of medical data to be gathered in accordance with the medical study definitional information during a subsequent portion of the medical study.

8. The digital data processing system of claim 6, wherein generating the modified medical study definitional information comprises:

modifying a list of questions associated with the medical study, the list of questions being for presentation to at least one of patients of the medical study to gather the additional medical data or the doctors to gather the additional medical data on behalf of the patients.

9. A computer program product having a computer readable medium comprising computer program logic encoded thereon, such that the computer program logic, when executed on at least one processing unit with a computing device, causes the at least one processing unit to perform the steps of:

receiving medical data associated with a medical study into a memory of a computer system, the medical data including information in accordance with definitional information for a medical study;

processing the medical data using a clinical algorithm executed by at least a processor of the computer system to determine first clinical outcome data, the first clinical outcome data indicating an effectiveness of treating patients associated with the medical study;

outputting at least a portion of the first clinical outcome data to a user;

receiving input from the user during the course of the medical study;

generating modified definitional information for the medical study based on the input; and

repeating the receiving and processing of additional medical data using the modified definitional information for the medical study during the course of the medical study to determine second clinical outcome data.

10. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein receiving the medical data, processing the medical data, and generating the modified medical study definitional information occur in substantially real-time during which the medical data is gathered in an ongoing manner during the medical study as the medical study evolves over time based on the input.

11. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein outputting at least a portion of the first clinical outcome data comprises:

outputting at least a portion of the first clinical outcome data to a user according to a user characteristic of the user.

12. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the user characteristic comprises at least one of an identity or a privilege level of the user.

13. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the computer program logic, when executed on the at least one processing unit with the computing device, causes the at least one processing unit to perform the step of:

comparing the medical study definitional information with the modified medical study definitional information to determine an extent of development of the medical study.

14. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the input received from the user comprises an instruction to redefine an element of the medical study, wherein the element comprises at least one of a medical study parameter, a question to be asked in the medical study, a timeline of the medical study, a trigger event, or a drug protocol.

15. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein generating the modified medical study definitional information comprises:

changing a type of medical data to be gathered in accordance with the medical study definitional information during a subsequent portion of the medical study.

16. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein generating the modified medical study definitional information comprises:

modifying a list of questions associated with the medical study, the list of questions being for presentation to at least one of patients of the medical study to gather the additional medical data or the doctors to gather the additional medical data on behalf of the patients.

17. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving medical data associated with a medical study into a memory of a computer system, the medical data including information in accordance with definitional information for a medical study;

processing the medical data using a clinical algorithm executed by at least a processor of the computer system to determine first clinical outcome data, the first clinical outcome data indicating an effectiveness of treating patients associated with the medical study;

outputting at least a portion of the first clinical outcome data to a user;

receiving input from the user during the course of the medical study;

generating modified definitional information for the medical study based on the input; and

repeating the receiving and processing of additional medical data using the modified definitional information for the medical study during the course of the medical study to determine second clinical outcome data.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 17, wherein receiving the medical data, processing the medical data, and generating the modified medical study definitional information occur in substantially real-time during which the medical data is gathered in an ongoing manner during the medical study as the medical study evolves over time based on the input.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 17, wherein outputting at least a portion of the first clinical outcome data comprises:

outputting at least a portion of the first clinical outcome data to a user according to a user characteristic of the user.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 19, wherein the user characteristic comprises at least one of an identity or a privilege level of the user.

21. The computer-implemented method of claim 17, further comprising:

comparing the medical study definitional information with the modified medical study definitional information to determine an extent of development of the medical study.

22. The computer-implemented method of claim 17, wherein the input received from the user comprises an instruction to redefine an element of the medical study, wherein the element comprises at least one of a medical study parameter, a question to be asked in the medical study, a timeline of the medical study, a trigger event, or a drug protocol.

23. The computer-implemented method of claim 22, wherein generating the modified medical study definitional information comprises:

changing a type of medical data to be gathered in accordance with the medical study definitional information during a subsequent portion of the medical study.

24. The computer-implemented method of claim 22, wherein generating the modified medical study definitional information comprises:

modifying a list of questions associated with the medical study, the list of questions being for presentation to at least one of patients of the medical study to gather the additional medical data or the doctors to gather the additional medical data on behalf of the patients.