METHOD FOR DIRECT-TO-PATIENT MARKETING AND CLINICAL TRIALS RECRUITMENT WITH OUTCOMES TRACKING AND METHOD FOR CONFIDENTIAL APPOINTMENT BOOKING

• US 20100057491A1
• Filed: 02/24/2009
• Published: 03/04/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/19/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ThreeWire, Inc. (WCG Clinical, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: ThreeWire, Inc. (WCG Clinical, Inc.)
• Inventors: Renaud, Jennifer Mary Zwiefel, Lindberg, Gary Russell, Summers, Mark
• Granted Patent: US 8,015,028 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06311 Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063112 Skill-based matching of a person or a group to a task
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063116 Schedule adjustment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1093 Calendar-based scheduling for persons or groups
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/20 for electronic clinical trials or questionnaires
• 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 50/20 for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems

Abstract

Generally, the present invention is directed to marketing techniques and more particularly to direct-to-patient marketing for medical devices, pharmaceutical drugs, and biotechnology products. The approach presented here may also be applied to the recruitment of patients for clinical trials evaluation including tracking outcomes after treatment. An embodiment of the invention includes the steps of finding potential patients, qualifying potential patients, connecting potential patients to preferred physicians, and tracking the patient'"'"'s progress through the appointment phase and tracking outcomes.

Claims

1-56. -56. (canceled)

57. An electronic method for booking appointments for a medical product or therapy to a patient via a marketer'"'"'s web site, comprising:

a. finding potential patients who are suitable candidates for a specific medical condition including the steps of;

b. interactively qualifying interested parties utilizing predetermined criteria comprising;

verifying whether specific alternative medical options for treating the patient'"'"'s medical condition have been considered, including the steps of

1) interactively querying the interested party as to the potential patient'"'"'s medical condition with respect to the subject matter of the web site and storing such data in a database.

electronically referring the qualified interested party to at least one preferred health care professional capable of offering the client'"'"'s specific product comprising;

1) electronically querying, in advance, with preferred health care professionals which can provide medical services utilizing client'"'"'s product or therapy,

2) electronically querying a further database of said preferred health care professionals providing the patient with a preferred health care professional most appropriate to the patient;

in advance of booking appointments, electronically contracting with preferred health care professionals to obtain pre-approved appointment slots which may be scheduled by the marketer; and

storing said data in marketer'"'"'s data base;

electronically querying the patient to schedule an appointment for the patient with a preferred health care professional drawing from the data base of pre-approved appointment slots.

58. The method of claim 57 wherein said health care professional providing step is based on the professional most geographically convenient to the patient base.

59. The method of claim 57 wherein said vendor providing step includes providing professionals names based on objective criteria associated with selection of professionals stored in a database.

60. The method of claim 57 wherein said qualifying step includes:

interactively querying the interested party as to the potential patient'"'"'s current medical treatment with respect to the subject matter of the web site;

61. An electronic method for booking appointments for a medical product or therapy to a patient via a marketer'"'"'s web site, comprising:

a. finding potential patients who are suitable candidates for a specific medical condition including the steps of;

1) posting a non-branded, informational website with information relevant to the specific medical condition;

2) providing interactive technical assistance reachable via the site to assist interested parties with questions relating generally to said specific medical condition.

b. qualifying interested parties utilizing predetermined criteria comprising;

verifying that specific alternative medical options for treating the patient'"'"'s medical condition have been considered, including the steps of

1) interactively querying the interested part as to the potential patient'"'"'s medical treatment with respect to the subject matter of the web site;

verifying that the potential patient has means to pay for medical treatments;

c. connecting the qualified interested party to at least one preferred health care professional capable of offering the client'"'"'s specific product comprising;

1) contracting in advance with preferred health care professionals which can provide medical services utilizing client'"'"'s product or therapy,

2) querying a database of said preferred health care professionals

3) providing the patient with a preferred health care professional most appropriate to patient;

in advance of booking appointments, contracting with preferred health care professionals to obtain pre-approved appointment slots which may be scheduled by the marketer; and

storing said data in marketer'"'"'s data base;

querying the patient to schedule an appointment for the patient with a preferred health care professional drawing from the data base of pre-approved appointment slots;

issuing a confirmatory communication from marketer'"'"'s database to preferred health care professional, referring to the patient by indirect data so as not to transmit name identifiable patient data over a communications channel, confirming that the time slot provided by contract is now engaged and blocking that slot from further use;

in response to said confirmatory communication, allowing the health care professional to query the marketer'"'"'s secure portal and obtain patient data corresponding to that patient for said time slot;

monitoring the secure portal to confirm that the health care professional has accessed and retrieved the patient data.

62. The method of claim 61 wherein said providing step is based on the health care professional most geographically convenient to the patient.

63. The method of claim 61 wherein said providing step includes providing health care professional names based on objective criteria associated with selection of professionals from the database.

64. The method according to claim 61 wherein the finding step includes:

in response to the contact by the interested party, interactively collecting information from said interested party concerning as to how they found the web site; and

periodically optimizing the website by modifying its contents in response to the survey information to increase the probability that interested parties searching the internet for information about the specific medical condition will be directed to the site;

65. The method according to claim 61 wherein the qualifying step includes:

interactively querying the interested party as to the potential patient'"'"'s medical condition with respect to the subject matter of the web site;

1) interactively querying the interested part as to the potential patient'"'"'s current medical treatment with respect to the subject matter of the web site; and

2) verifying that specific alternative medical options for treating the patient'"'"'s medical conditions, not supported by the client'"'"'s product or therapy, have been considered;

66. The method according to claim 61 when the connecting step includes:

upon obtaining patient consent, recording patient information in marketer'"'"'s database and making patient information available only to preferred health care professionals by way of a secure portal.