Method for Processing a Linked List of Time Segments

• US 20090276278A1
• Filed: 02/17/2006
• Published: 11/05/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/04/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Agfa Healthcare Inc (Agfa-Gevaert N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Quadrat (Agfa-Gevaert N.V.)
• Inventors: Machtelinck, Geert
• Granted Patent: US 8,660,879 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/9
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1093 Calendar-based scheduling for persons or groups
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1095 Meeting or appointment

Abstract

An appointment scheduling method and associated user interface wherein an overview of appointments of a patient, an overview of the agendas of involved resources and details on an instantiated appointment are displayed on a single screen permitting verification and confirmation of an instantiated appointment by the user.

Claims

1. An appointment scheduling method comprising the steps of:

computing and storing a solution space comprising all possible appointment solutions for an appointment scheduling procedure,

computing and storing a filtered solution space comprising all solutions resulting from a filtering of said solution space on availability of resources and a client'"'"'s time preferences,

flagging solutions of said filtered solution space as occupied,

selecting and storing an instantiated solution out of the filtered solution space,

retrieving from memory and displaying on single screen at least two of following overviews;

overview of said client'"'"'s appointments, an overview of the agenda of involved resources, details of a selected appointment,

verifying whether a contextual problem exists for an instantiated solution between items on said overviews,

in case no contextual problem exists, confirming said instantiated appointment,

rendering all non-confirmed solutions from said filtered solution space available for another appointment scheduling procedure.

2. A method according to claim 1 comprising the step of recording a confirmed appointment in stored agendas of client'"'"'s appointments and resource occupation.

3. A method according to claim 1 wherein said solution space is computed by the steps of

defining relationships between actions of available resources having associated action constraints, said actions being described by means of time windows comprising linked lists of time segments describing ranges of start times or end times or duration times, said relationships belonging to the set comprising relational, comprising or sequential relationships;

identifying a set of resources of a certain kind,

processing said time windows to determine possible solutions for the actions of the identified resources;

wherein said processing comprises an inductive logic step.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the inductive logic step comprises:

obtaining a time window of start times of an action by processing a time window of end times of said action and a time window of a previous action.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein the inductive step of obtaining a time window of start times of an action by processing a time window of end times of said action and a time window of a previous action comprises the following steps:

adding the duration of said previous action to the start times of the time segments of the time window of said previous action to obtain a time window of the end times of said previous action;

shifting the time segments of the time window of the end times of said action backward by the duration of said action to obtain a time window of the start times of said action;

obtaining a time window of the start times of said action of which the segments are the cross section of the segments of the time window of the end times of the previous action and the segments of the time window of the start times of said action.

6. The method according to claim 10, wherein the inductive step of obtaining a time window of end times of an action by processing a time window of said action, a time window of a following action and a slack time comprises the following steps:

subtracting the duration from the end times of the time segments of the time window of said following action to obtain a time window of start times of said following action;

adding the slack time to the end times of the time segments of the time window of said action to obtain a time window of said action plus slack;

adding the duration to the start times of the time segments of the time window of said action plus slack to obtain a time window of end times of said action;

obtaining a time window of end times of said action of which the time segments are the cross section of the time segments of a time window of start times of said following action and the time segments of a time window of end times of said action.

7. The method of claim 11, wherein the inductive step of obtaining a time window of an action by processing the time windows of actions that are either a parent action or related actions comprises the following steps:

replacing the time segments of time windows of related actions by time segments that are the cross sections of the original time segments of said time windows of said related actions;

adjusting the begin and end times of time segments of children actions so that are comprised in the time segments of the time window of the parent action.

8. A method according to claim 1, wherein at least one of said resources is a patient, a physician, a nurse, a medical diagnostic apparatus, a medical treatment apparatus, an examination room or a treatment room.

10. The method according to claim 3, wherein the inductive logic step comprises obtaining a time window of end times of an action by processing a time window of said action, a time window of a following action and a slack time.

11. The method according to claim 3, wherein the inductive logic step comprises obtaining a time window of an action by processing the time windows of actions that are either a parent action or related actions.

9. A user interface for an appointment scheduling system comprising

a display screen on which at least two of the following items are displayed:

an overview of a client'"'"'s appointments, an overview of an agenda of resources involved in an appointment scheduling procedure, details on an appointment,

confirmation means for confirming an appointment, said means being arranged so that in correspondence to their activation a confirmed appointment is reserved and entered in a stored agenda of a client'"'"'s appointments and in said agenda of the involved resources and non-confirmed appointments in a filtered solution space pertaining to said appointment scheduling procedure are set free.