SYSTEM AND METHOD TO MANAGE A QUALITY OF DELIVERY OF HEALTHCARE

• US 20100082363A1
• Filed: 09/30/2008
• Published: 04/01/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: General Electric Company
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Sievenpiper, Crispian, Solliday-McRoy, Jeffrey, Warner, Adrian
• Granted Patent: US 8,190,450 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/2
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/20 for the management or administration of healthcare resources or facilities, e.g. managing hospital staff or surgery rooms

Abstract

A system and method to manage a quality of delivery of healthcare to a patient. The method includes tracking completion of a portion of a protocol associated with one of a series of candidate hypotheses to deliver healthcare to the patient; tracking a change in a quality of care metric directed to the patient with completion of a portion the protocol, the quality of metric including at least one of a time to rate of reduction in a health risk to the patient and a time to or rate of reduction in symptom or abnormal biometric data of the patient; and outputting an alert in response to the quality of care metric exceeding a threshold.

Claims

1. A method of managing a quality of delivery of healthcare to a patient, the method comprising the steps of:

tracking completion of a portion of a protocol associated with one of a plurality of candidate hypotheses to deliver healthcare to the patient;

tracking a change in a quality of care metric directed to the patient with completion of a portion the protocol, the quality of metric including at least one of a time to rate of reduction in a health risk to the patient and a time to or rate of reduction in symptom or abnormal biometric data of the patient; and

outputting an alert in response to the quality of care metric exceeding a threshold.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

creating a medical record that includes the at least one symptom data of the patient; and

creating a database having a plurality of templates, each template comprising at least one keyword associated with one of a plurality of medical conditions and a respective protocol to diagnose or treat each of the plurality of medical conditions.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising the steps of:

parsing the medical record for the at least one symptom data to compare to the keyword in each of the plurality of templates;

outputting the plurality of candidate hypothesis each associated to different disease templates and a confidence level in each candidate hypothesis;

acquiring an instruction of a selection of one of the plurality of candidate hypothesis; and

automatically outputting the protocol associated with the selected candidate hypothesis for illustration at the output device.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising the steps of:

decreasing confidence in the selected candidate hypothesis and increasing confidence in one or more of the other plurality of candidate hypotheses triggered by acquiring the at least one quality of care metric exceeding the threshold.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

outputting to an output device an illustration of the at least one quality of care metric relative to the threshold and the completion of the portion of the protocol.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

increasing a priority of the patient relative to other patients in the schedule of resources if the at least one quality of care metric that exceeds the threshold such that the system schedules the patient to receive use of the resources before the other patients.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

generating a request for a re-calculation of a list of candidate hypotheses triggered by acquiring the at least one quality of care metric exceeding the threshold.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the health risk to the patient includes at least one of mortality risk;

acute physiology and chronic health evaluation (APACHE II);

simplified acute physiology (SAP) score;

Glasgow coma score (GCS);

sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) score;

Apgar assessment;

;

pain perception profile;

visual analogue scale (VAS);

quality of life metrics;

depression scale;

impact of event scale (IES); and

thrombosis risk assessment.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein symptom or biometric data of the patient includes one or more of the following:

a chest pain, an abnormal heart rate or pressure;

a respiratory rate or pressure;

a temperature; and

a blood test parameters such as oxygen level, glucose level, iron level, white blood cell count, red blood cell count, platelet level, hemoglobin level, cholesterol level, lipoprotein level, troponin level, enzyme level, electrolyte level, calcium level, BUN level, CRP level, and homocysteine level.

10. A system to manage delivery of healthcare to a patient, the system comprising:

a database having a plurality of templates, each template comprising at least one keyword associated with a medical condition and a protocol to diagnose or treat; and

a controller with a memory in communication with a processor, the memory including program instructions for execution by the processor to perform the steps of;

tracking completion of a portion of a protocol of the template associated with one of a plurality of candidate hypotheses to deliver healthcare to the patient,

tracking a change in a quality of care metric directed to the patient with completion of a portion the protocol, the quality of metric including at least one of a time to rate of reduction in a health risk to the patient and a time to or rate of reduction in symptom or abnormal biometric data of the patient, and

outputting an alert in response to the quality of care metric exceeding a threshold.

11. The system of claim 10, the controller further operable to perform the steps of:

creating a medical record that includes the at least one symptom data of the patient; and

creating a database having a plurality of templates, each template comprising at least one keyword associated with one of a plurality of medical conditions and a respective protocol to diagnose or treat each of the plurality of medical conditions.

12. The system of claim 11, the controller further operable to perform the steps of:

parsing the medical record for the at least one symptom data to compare to the keyword in each of the plurality of templates;

outputting the plurality of candidate hypothesis each associated to different disease templates and a confidence level in each candidate hypothesis;

acquiring an instruction of a selection of one of the plurality of candidate hypothesis; and

automatically outputting the protocol associated with the selected candidate hypothesis for illustration at the output device.

13. The system of claim 12, the controller further operable to perform the steps of:

decreasing confidence in the selected candidate hypothesis and increasing confidence in one or more of the other plurality of candidate hypotheses triggered by acquiring the at least one quality of care metric exceeding the threshold.

14. The system of claim 10, the controller further operable to perform the steps of:

outputting to an output device an illustration of the at least one quality of care metric relative to the threshold and the completion of the portion of the protocol.

15. The system of claim 10, the controller further operable to perform the steps of:

increasing a priority of the patient relative to other patients in the schedule of resources if the at least one quality of care metric that exceeds the threshold such that the system schedules the patient to receive use of the resources before the other patients.

16. The system of claim 10, the controller further operable to perform the steps of:

generating a request for a re-calculation of a list of candidate hypotheses triggered by acquiring the at least one quality of care metric exceeding the threshold.

17. The system of claim 10, wherein the health risk to the patient includes at least one of mortality risk;

acute physiology and chronic health evaluation (APACHE II);

simplified acute physiology (SAP) score;

Glasgow coma score (GCS);

sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) score;

Apgar assessment;

;

pain perception profile;

visual analogue scale (VAS);

quality of life metrics;

depression scale;

impact of event scale (IES); and

thrombosis risk assessment.

18. The system of claim 10, further comprising an agent to acquire the symptom or biometric data for communication to the controller, the symptom or biometric data of the patient comprising at least one of the following:

a chest pain;

an abnormal heart rate or pressure;

a respiratory rate or pressure;

a temperature; and

a blood test parameters such as oxygen level, glucose level, iron level, white blood cell count, red blood cell count, platelet level, hemoglobin level, cholesterol level, lipoprotein level, troponin level, enzyme level, electrolyte level, calcium level, BUN level, CRP level, and homocysteine level.

19. The system of claim 10, wherein the quality of care metric includes a time since last turnover of the patient relative to a threshold.