Automated systems and methods for obtaining, storing, processing and utilizing immunologic information of individuals and populations for various uses
First Claim
1. A method of analyzing immunological and other information pertaining to a population of individuals, comprising:
- (a) establishing a database comprising a plurality of records of information each record comprising one or more fields, where each such field contains;
(1) the results of one or more assays for the presence of a biochemical, or(2) individual-specific information comprising one or more of said individual'"'"'s medical history, doctors'"'"' observations of said individual and/or historical, demographic, lifestyle, and familial information relating to said individual;
(b) segmenting the population by commonality as to values in one or more of the fields;
(c) as to each segment;
automatically processing the information in said segment of the database to find a first set of correlations between clusters of two or more fields of records within each segment of individuals in the population;
(c) automatically processing each correlation to generate a second set of correlations; and
(d) for each correlation in the second set;
for each field in the cluster, automatically generating a set of hypotheses or other relevant data that may explain the correlation; and
(e) reporting the second set of correlations, their associated hypotheses and related information to a user.
4 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method for assessing the immunological status of one or more individuals in a patient population is presented. The method includes establishing a database comprising a plurality of records of information each representative of the immune status of an individual in the population, each of said records including (1) current information from one or more assays for the presence of a biochemical, and (2) individual specific information comprising one or more of said individual'"'"'s medical history, said individual'"'"'s doctors'"'"' observations and historical, demographic, lifestyle, and familial information relating to said individual. The method further includes processing the information in said database to find trends or patterns relating to the immune status of individuals in said patient population; and using the said trends or patterns as part of a health care related decision making process. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention, processing the information in the database includes generating a list of correlations between variables or fields in the database. The correlations in the list can be further refined automatically, and a set of hypotheses or literature citations can be linked to the final correlations. The correlations, the processing, their associated hypotheses can then be reported to a user or automatically fed into another system component to generate a medical or health related decision. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention, a first assay panel containing a plurality of cytokine assays can be administered and the results processed. Based on automatic analyses of the cytokine data, a second tier or set of assays can be run on the same individual. The cytokine assay results being used to inform the contents of a second assay panel.
-
Citations
28 Claims
-
1. A method of analyzing immunological and other information pertaining to a population of individuals, comprising:
-
(a) establishing a database comprising a plurality of records of information each record comprising one or more fields, where each such field contains; (1) the results of one or more assays for the presence of a biochemical, or (2) individual-specific information comprising one or more of said individual'"'"'s medical history, doctors'"'"' observations of said individual and/or historical, demographic, lifestyle, and familial information relating to said individual; (b) segmenting the population by commonality as to values in one or more of the fields; (c) as to each segment; automatically processing the information in said segment of the database to find a first set of correlations between clusters of two or more fields of records within each segment of individuals in the population; (c) automatically processing each correlation to generate a second set of correlations; and (d) for each correlation in the second set; for each field in the cluster, automatically generating a set of hypotheses or other relevant data that may explain the correlation; and (e) reporting the second set of correlations, their associated hypotheses and related information to a user. - View Dependent Claims (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 25)
-
-
2. The method of claim 1, further comprising using the correlations found in (b) and (c) as part of a health care related decision making process.
-
17. A method of analyzing an individual'"'"'s immunological state, comprising:
-
(a) establishing a database comprising a plurality of records of information for a number of individuals, each record comprising one or more fields, where each such field contains; (1) the results of one or more assays for the presence of a biochemical, or (2) individual-specific information comprising one or more of said individual'"'"'s medical history, doctors'"'"' observations of said individual and/or historical, demographic, lifestyle, and familial information relating to said individual; (b) segmenting the population by commonality as to values in one or more of the fields; (d) as to each segment; automatically processing the information in said segment of the database to find a first set of correlations between clusters of two or more fields of records within each segment of individuals in the population; (e) automatically processing each correlation to generate a second set of correlations; and (f) applying a set of rules to the individual'"'"'s record to generate health care recommendations and findings, said findings including whether the individual supports any of the first or the second set of correlations found for the individuals in a first and a second segment to which the individual belongs. - View Dependent Claims (26)
-
-
18. The method of claim 15, applied collectively to a set of individuals.
-
18-1. A method of analyzing information related to the immune status of one or more individuals in a population, comprising:
-
(a) establishing a database comprising a plurality of records of information each representative of the immune status of an individual in the population each of said records including; (i) current information from one or more assays to determine the immunity of said individual to one or more vaccine-preventable diseases; and (ii) patient-specific information comprising one or more of said patient'"'"'s medical history, said patients doctors observations, and/or social, environmental, lifestyle and other demographic information relating to said patient; and (b) processing the information in said database to find trends or patterns relating to the immune status of individuals in said patient population; wherein said processing the information in said database includes; generating a list of correlations between variables or fields in the database; for each correlation in the list; generating a set of hypotheses that may explain said correlation; and as to each hypothesis in the set, automatically analyzing the data to refute, support or stating that there is insufficient data to analyze said hypothesis by further processing of the database.
-
-
19. The method of claim 17, wherein said one or more assays for the presence of a biochemical comprises a plurality of cytokine assays.
-
19-2. A method for analyzing information related to the immune status of one or more individuals in a population, comprising:
-
(a) establishing a database comprising a plurality of records of information each representative of the immune status of an individual in the population, to one or more vaccine-preventable diseases, each of said records including (1) current information from one or more assays to determine the immunity of said individual to one or more vaccine-preventable diseases, and (2) patient-specific information comprising one or more of said patients medical history, said patients doctors observations and/or demographic information relating to said patient; (b) updating said records from time to time with current information as recited in (a)(1) and/or (a)(2); (c) processing the information in said database to find trends or patterns relating to the immune status of individuals in said patient population; (d) modifying the said algorithms to reflect the patterns and trends found in step (c); (e) processing the information in an individual'"'"'s record through said algorithms, and (f) processing the information in said database to find trends or patterns relating to the immune status of individuals in said patient population; wherein said processing the information in said database includes; generating a list of correlations between variables or fields in the database; for each correlation in the list; generating a set of hypotheses that may explain said correlation; and as to each hypothesis in the set, automatically analyzing the data to refute, support or stating that there is insufficient data to analyze said hypothesis by further processing of the database.
-
-
20. A method for generating recommendations for vaccinating one or more individuals in a patient population, comprising:
-
(a) establishing a database comprising a plurality of records of information each representative of the immune status of an individual in the population, to one or more vaccine-preventable diseases, each of said records including (i) current information from one or more assays to determine the immunity of said individual to one or more vaccine-preventable diseases, and (ii) patient-specific information comprising one or more of said patient'"'"'s medical history, said patients doctors observations, and/or demographic information relating to said patient; (b) updating said database from time to time with current information; (c) providing one or more algorithms to determine whether or not to vaccinate said individuals based upon an assay result for antibodies for said one or more vaccine-preventable diseases and other defined factors; (d) processing the information in said database to find trends or patterns relating to the immune status of individuals in said patient population to said vaccine preventable disease; (e) incorporating information comprising said patterns or trends into one or more of said algorithms; (f) processing the information in an individual'"'"'s record through one or more of said algorithms, and (g) thereby generating a recommendation for vaccinating said individual; wherein said processing the information in said database includes; generating a list of correlations between variables or fields in the database; for each correlation in the list; generating a set of hypotheses that may explain said correlation; and as to each hypothesis in the set, automatically analyzing the data to refute, support or stating that there is insufficient data to analyze said hypothesis by further processing of the database.
-
-
21. A method of optimizing the management of health care for an individual in a population, comprising:
-
examining the individual'"'"'s immune status; identifying diseases that the insured may be susceptible to; calculating the risk of contraction for each disease; identifying all prophylactic therapies that could prevent each identified disease; calculating, for all possible combinations of diseases and prophylactic therapies, expected costs of treatment and costs of associated prophylactic therapies; and requiring prophylactic therapies optimized for overall cost, wherein at least one of said examining immune status and identifying diseases that the individual may be susceptible to includes; (a) establishing a database comprising a plurality of records of information each representative of the immune status of an individual in the population, to one or more vaccine-preventable diseases, each of said records including (1) current information from one or more assays to determine the immunity of said individual to one or more vaccine-preventable diseases, and (2) patient-specific information comprising one or more of said patient'"'"'s medical history, said patient'"'"'s doctors observations and/or demographic information relating to said patient; (b) processing the information in said database to find trends or patterns relating to the immune status of individuals in said patient population; and (c) using the said trends or patterns found in (b) in deciding whether or not to vaccinate an individual. wherein said processing the information in said database includes; generating a list of correlations between variables or fields in the database; for each correlation in the list; generating a set of hypotheses that may explain said correlation; and as to each hypothesis in the set, automatically refuting, supporting or stating that there is insufficient data to analyze said hypothesis by further processing of the database. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23)
-
-
24. A system, comprising:
-
at least one local assay device; a central processor connected to an input/output device; a system database; a hypothesis database; a rules database; and a data network connecting the local assay devices and the central processor; wherein in operation immunologic and other data relative to a plurality of individuals is obtained at the assay devices and sent to the system database for storage, and wherein the central processor accesses said data and firstly processes said data to find correlations between variables or fields in the database across many individuals, and secondly processes said correlations via rules stored in said rules database to generate a set of hypotheses from those stored in said hypothesis database, and thirdly processes said hypotheses and said data to confirm, exclude or state as inconclusive each of said hypotheses for one or more of said correlations.
-
-
27. A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having computer readable program code means embodied therein, the computer readable program code means in said computer program product comprising means for causing a computer to:
-
establish a database comprising a plurality of records of information each record comprising one or more fields, where each such field contains; (1) the results of one or more assays for the presence of a biochemical, or (2) individual-specific information comprising one or more of said individual'"'"'s medical history, doctors'"'"' observations of said individual and/or historical, demographic, lifestyle, and familial information relating to said individual; (b) segment the population by commonality as to values in one or more of the fields; (c) as to each segment; automatically process the information in said segment of the database to find a first set of correlations between clusters of two or more fields of records within each segment of individuals in the population; (c) automatically process each correlation to generate a second set of correlations; and (d) for each correlation in the second set; for each field in the cluster, automatically generating a set of hypotheses or other relevant data that may explain the correlation; and (e) reporting the second set of correlations, their associated hypotheses and related information to a user.
-
-
28. A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having computer readable program code means embodied therein, the computer readable program code means in said computer program product comprising means for causing a computer to:
-
examine the individual'"'"'s immune status; identify diseases that the insured may be susceptible to; calculate the risk of contraction for each disease; identify all prophylactic therapies that could prevent each identified disease; calculate, for all possible combinations of diseases and prophylactic therapies, expected costs of treatment and costs of associated prophylactic therapies; and require prophylactic therapies optimized for overall cost, wherein at least one of said examine immune status and identify diseases that the individual may be susceptible to includes; (a) establishing a database comprising a plurality of records of information each representative of the immune status of an individual in the population, to one or more vaccine-preventable diseases, each of said records including (1) current information from one or more assays to determine the immunity of said individual to one or more vaccine-preventable diseases, and (2) patient-specific information comprising one or more of said patient'"'"'s medical history, said patient'"'"'s doctors observations and/or demographic information relating to said patient; (b) processing the information in said database to find trends or patterns relating to the immune status of individuals in said patient population; and (c) using the said trends or patterns found in (b) in deciding whether or not to vaccinate an individual. wherein said processing the information in said database includes; generating a list of correlations between variables or fields in the database; for each correlation in the list; generating a set of hypotheses that may explain said correlation; and as to each hypothesis in the set, automatically refuting, supporting or stating that there is insufficient data to analyze said hypothesis by further processing of the database.
-
Specification