EXTENSIBILITY FOR MANIPULATION OF MEDICAL DATA

• US 20110246565A1
• Filed: 03/31/2011
• Published: 10/06/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Welch Allyn Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Welch Allyn Incorporated
• Inventors: Bobowski, Matthew J., Robinson, James M., Hoch, Michael D., Arnold, Gary L., Pingel, Mark E., Rynkiewicz, David E., Gamble, David D., Magee, Marshall W., Irwin, John H.
• Granted Patent: US 8,583,728 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44526 Plug-ins; Add-ons
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/40 for the management of medical equipment or devices, e.g. scheduling maintenance or upgrades
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]

Abstract

A method for extending a functionality of a computing device programmed to obtain physiological measurements from a patient includes: registering, at the computing device, a plug-in module, the plug-in module providing additional functionality for the computing device; using the plug-in module to communicate with a medical device; commanding the medical device to obtain physiological information from a patient; receiving data associated with the physiological information from the medical device; and transferring the data to a central repository.

Claims

1. A software platform for healthcare diagnostic applications comprising:

a computing device including memory and a processor that, when executing instructions stored on the memory, creates;

a client-side framework defining elements for use by platform client applications;

a composite application framework supporting extensible modules, the composite application framework supporting construction of composite applications in which functionality is implemented by a container application which hosts plug-in modules to support specific diagnostic functions;

a plug-in module extending platform applications;

a composite application combining base application code with plug-in modules to support a set of clinical functions; and

a domain-specific framework for defined clinical measurement domains, wherein the domain-specific framework shares certain common code and resources with other modules and contain domain-specific expandable sets of sensor measurement plug-ins which obtain physiologic data of a type covered by a domain.

2. The software platform of claim 1, further comprising:

a remote authentication service providing a means to manage access to wireless networks, internal networks, and the Internet;

a device connection protocol service providing a simple directory of TCP/IP-based services, allowing devices which use TCP/IP communication a means in which to lookup an address and a port of the service with which they wish to communicate;

a device connectivity service acting as a relay/translator for both wired and wireless devices, allowing direct communication to and from supported devices to the software platform, the device connectivity service providing an interoperability layer between device-level communication protocol-based messaging and platform services;

a login service providing methods to confirm and track application authorization;

a data service providing Create-Retrieve-Update-Delete operations for basic data entities of a platform repository;

an admin service providing access to administration functions of the platform services;

an event service providing a general publish-and-subscribe mechanism to communicate via event messages within a system; and

a service provider running on the server performing tasks in support of the platform services, the services interfacing with external systems such as an HIS or file system.

3. The software platform of claim 1, wherein the plug-in module provides an interface implementation with methods to serialize and de-serialize the measurement-derived class, and a schema which describes the measurement'"'"'s serialized form which can be used by a server to efficiently store and search within measurement data.

4. The software platform of claim 1, wherein the plug-in module provides two or more views, the views being user interface elements for the acquisition and review of test measurement-specific data, these views being registered with the composite application so that an application may invoke an appropriate view when a request to acquire or review the corresponding test type is made.

5. The software platform of claim 1, wherein the plug-in module implements report elements, the report elements being visualizations of test measurement-specific data which is incorporated into a report, the report elements being registered with the composite application which makes them available for creating and processing of report templates.

6. The software platform of claim 1, wherein the plug-in module defines several report templates, the report templates incorporating the report elements the plug-in module defines and support both the print function of various views defined by the plug-in module and standard reports for the plug-in'"'"'s test measurement type.

7. The software platform of claim 1, wherein the client-side framework includes:

a service manager functioning as a class factory for the service proxy classes of the platform services, the service manager being used by client-side code which directly communicates with the services;

an entity module creating an object-oriented abstraction for the platform functionality, the entity module abstracting the service functions as entity objects and methods, the objects including patient, visit, test, user, clinician, group, configuration and audit entry;

an entity manager acting as a class-factory and manager of the entity objects;

a general logging mechanism being used by applications to maintain a log of application events;

a general reporting mechanism which can be used by applications to generate reports using templates and entity data;

wherein the client-side framework defines data types being shared by application and framework modules, the data types including basic quantity types and queries;

wherein the client-side framework defines user interface elements including styles, templates, user controls and dialogs, the user interface elements supporting a common look-and-feel for platform-based applications; and

wherein the client-side framework supports methods to communicate with devices.

8. The software platform of claim 1, wherein the composite application includes:

an inversion-of-control container allowing loose coupling of application components by allowing the components to register interfaces they export and resolve interfaces they need from a registered list of interfaces; and

a module framework defining attributes and classes which support the construction of modules which can be loaded and managed by the composite application.

9. The software platform of claim 1, wherein the domain-specific framework defines types of data of measurement classes and other domain-specific types shared by modules and plug-ins for the domain, and defines user interface elements common to modules and plug-ins in the domain.

10. The software platform of claim 1, wherein the composite application includes:

a screen management module controlling how user interface elements are laid out on the screen;

a navigation module controlling how a user moves from screen to screen within an application;

a patient management module allowing patient information to be created, retrieved, and modified;

a test management module allowing test acquisition to be initiated, test results to be saved, retrieved and reviewed; and

a configuration module allowing settings for the application and its plug-ins to be defined and stored.

11. The software platform of claim 1, wherein the plug-in module is a vitals plug-in which facilitates vitals measurement acquisition, review, editing, batch import, and configuration.

12. The software platform of claim 11, wherein the vitals plug-in is an extensible module that uses plug-in modules for extended set of measurements, each plug-in following a defined pattern so that new plug-ins conforming to the pattern can be created and added for future measurements.

13. The software platform of claim 11, wherein the vitals plug-in communicates to devices through USB or serial port using a framework device connectivity layer library.

14. The software platform of claim 11, wherein the vitals plug-in sends requests to devices and wait for responses to decipher and process, each measurement being responsible for its own data processing.

15. The software platform of claim 11, wherein the vitals plug-in allows entering data manually when device data is not available and allows manual overwriting of device data when needed.

16. The software platform of claim 11, wherein the vitals plug-in provides assets to review test/measurement information, the data being organized in historical order with limited set of information or with extended set of information, each test being reviewed with a full set of information.

17. The software platform of claim 11, wherein the vitals plug-in allows editing of measurement information after test is taken, is installed as a part of the platform installation, provides assets to change its own configuration, and provides default settings to the assets.

18. The software platform of claim 1, wherein the software platform includes an application being an extensible composite client platform for hosting functional modules that interact with the platform services, the application providing application services, along with access to the platform services via client-side framework elements.

19. A method for extending a functionality of a computing device programmed to obtain physiological measurements from a patient, the method comprising:

registering, at the computing device, a plug-in module, the plug-in module providing additional functionality for the computing device;

using the plug-in module to communicate with a medical device;

commanding the medical device to obtain physiological information from a patient;

receiving data associated with the physiological information from the medical device; and

transferring the data to a central repository.

20. A computer-readable storage medium encoding instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform steps comprising:

registering, at a computing device, a plug-in module, the plug-in module providing additional functionality for the computing device;

using the plug-in module to communicate with a medical device;

commanding the medical device to obtain physiological information from a patient;

receiving data associated with the physiological information from the medical device; and

transferring the data to a central repository.