FACILITATING AND TRACKING CLINICIAN-ASSIGNMENT STATUS

• US 20120253836A1
• Filed: 09/19/2011
• Published: 10/04/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/25/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cerner Innovation, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Cerner Innovation, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: NOLTE, MARK ALLEN, Mehra, Rajneesh, Lim, Terng, Kays, Eric, McCracken, Henri, McIver, Brice
• Granted Patent: US 9,818,164 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• 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

Abstract

Subject matter described herein is related to assigning a healthcare clinician to provide care to a patient. For example, a GUI is provided that includes contextual information relevant to the assignment and that allows a user to electronically create the assignment. Relevant information includes a list of clinicians, a list of patients, and an estimate of the amount of resources required to provide care to a patient. In addition, this disclosure describes tracking the status of a healthcare clinician, such as primary provider, secondary provider, and on-break. Status might be tracked by capturing an image of a display board, which supports clinician barcodes that are movable to desired locations within a depiction of a healthcare facility (e.g., floor plan laid out using barcodes).

Claims

1. Computer storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that, when executed, facilitate a method of assigning a healthcare clinician to provide care to a patient, the method comprising:

receiving a clinician list identifying one or more shift-scheduled clinicians who are scheduled to work during a same shift,

wherein an identifier of the healthcare clinician is included on the clinician list, and

wherein the clinician list omits non-scheduled healthcare clinicians who are not scheduled to work during the same shift;

presenting the clinician list in a graphical user interface (GUI) together with a patient list identifying one or more patients that are admitted to receive care, wherein the patient list includes an identifier of the patient;

receiving a selection via the GUI of both the identifier of the healthcare clinician and the identifier of the patient; and

responsive to the selection, automatically creating a clinician-assignment data item, which is communicated to a datastore and represents that the healthcare clinician is assigned to provide care to the patient.

2. The computer storage media of claim 1, wherein the clinician list is generated from information provided to an event repository from a scheduling program, which is used to schedule the one or more shift-scheduled clinicians to work during the same shift.

3. The computer storage media of claim 1 further comprising, presenting in the GUI a resource-consumption score that suggests a relative amount of healthcare resources expended to provide care to the patient, the resource-consumption score providing contextual information that is relevant to assigning the healthcare clinician to provide care to the patient.

4. The computer storage media of claim 1 further comprising, in response to creation of the clinician-assignment data item, displaying the identifier of the healthcare clinician in a position in the GUI that indicates the healthcare clinician is assigned to provide care to the patient.

5. The computer storage media of claim 1 further comprising, in response to creation of the clinician-assignment data item, sending a clinician-assignment event notification to an event repository, thereby making assignment information, which indicates that the clinician is assigned to provide care to the patient, available to be consumed by other systems.

6. The computer storage media of claim 1, wherein receiving the selection includes receiving a drag/drop input.

7. Computer storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that, when executed, facilitate a method of assigning a provider status to a healthcare clinician that indicates whether the healthcare clinician is responsible to provide care to a patient, the method comprising:

receiving an image that depicts a clinician barcode representing the healthcare clinician and that depicts an arrangement of barcodes representing one or more areas of a healthcare unit in which the healthcare clinician is scheduled to provide care;

analyzing the clinician barcode to determine that the clinician barcode represents the healthcare clinician;

detecting in the image a position of the clinician barcode relative to the arrangement of barcodes;

determining that the position of the clinician barcode qualifies the healthcare clinician to be assigned the provider status; and

creating a provider-status data item that indicates whether the healthcare clinician is responsible to provide care to the patient.

8. The computer storage media of claim 7, wherein the one or more areas represented by the arrangement of barcodes includes a patient-care area, which is designated to be used to provide patient care.

9. The computer storage media of claim 8, wherein the provider status indicates that the healthcare clinician is primarily responsible to provide care to the patient when the position includes a primary-provider position relative to the patient-care area.

10. The computer storage media of claim 8, wherein the provider status indicates that the healthcare clinician is secondarily responsible to provide care to the patient when the position includes a secondary-provider position relative to the patient-care area.

11. The computer storage media of claim 7 further comprising, visually depicting in a graphical user interface (GUI) a clinician-to-patient association, which represents that the healthcare clinician is assigned to provide care to the patient.

12. The computer storage media of claim 7 further comprising, transmitting a provider-status event notification to an event repository, which allows other systems to consume provider-status information.

13. The computer storage media of claim 7, wherein the one or more healthcare-unit areas represented by the arrangement of barcodes includes a non-patient-care area, which is not designated to be used to provide patient care.

14. The computer storage media of claim 13, wherein the provider status indicates that the healthcare clinician is not currently responsible to provide care to the patient when the position is included in the non-patient-care area represented by the arrangement of barcodes.

15. Computer storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that, when executed, facilitate a method of assigning a healthcare clinician to provide care to a patient, the method comprising:

receiving a clinician list identifying one or more healthcare clinicians;

presenting the clinician list in a graphical user interface (GUI) together with a patient list identifying one or more patients, wherein the GUI includes a selectable input that, when selected, invokes an assignment-suggestion component;

receiving a selection via the GUI of the selectable input; and

responsive to the selection, applying an algorithm to determine that the healthcare clinician qualifies to be assigned to provide care to the patient.

16. The computer storage media of claim 15, wherein the algorithm takes into account a resource-consumption score of the patient that suggests a relative amount of healthcare resources expended to provide care to the patient.

17. The computer storage media of claim 16, wherein the resource-consumption score is calculated using a nonclinical-information metric.

18. The computer storage media of claim 17, wherein the nonclinical-information metric includes a rating of the healthcare clinician submitted by the patient, a number of nurse-call events, a medical-device-alarm metric, a clinician-location metric, or a combination thereof.

19. The computer storage media of claim 15, wherein the algorithm takes into account a clinician-workload score, which includes a summation of resource-consumption scores of all patients assigned to the healthcare clinician.

20. The computer storage media of claim 15,

wherein the clinician list identifies shift-scheduled clinicians who are scheduled to work during a same shift,

wherein an identifier of the healthcare clinician is included on the clinician list, and

wherein the clinician list omits non-scheduled healthcare clinicians who are not scheduled to work during the same shift.