DEVICES AND METHODS FOR REMOTELY MANAGING CHRONIC MEDICAL CONDITIONS

• US 20200135334A1
• Filed: 10/25/2019
• Published: 04/30/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 10/26/2018
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Airx Health, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Airx Health, Inc.
• Inventors: RAJASEKHAR, Vijaykumar, CASTILLO, Marlon Sebastian, RAGAVENDER, Ritesh Narayan, BUNCOM, IV, Frank James
• Application Number:
  US16/664,434
• Publication Number:
  US 20200135334A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0022 Monitoring a patient using a global network, e.g. telephone networks, internet
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0205 Simultaneously evaluating both cardiovascular conditions and different types of body conditions, e.g. heart and respiratory condition
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/024 Detecting, measuring or recording pulse rate or heart rate A61B5/0205, A61B5/021 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/08 Detecting, measuring or recording devices for evaluating the respiratory organs A61B5/0205 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0816 Measuring devices for examining respiratory frequency measuring frequency of electric signals G01R23/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0823 Detecting or evaluating cough events
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7282 Event detection, e.g. detecting unique waveforms indicative of a medical condition A61B5/4094, A61B5/4818, A61B5/349, A61B5/0823 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/746 Alarms related to a physiological condition, e.g. details of setting alarm thresholds or avoiding false alarms alarms per se G08B
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 3/006 based on simulated virtual individual or collective life forms, e.g. social simulations or particle swarm optimisation [PSO]
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 3/042 Knowledge-based neural networks; Logical representations of neural networks
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 3/044 Recurrent networks, e.g. Hopfield networks
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 3/084 Backpropagation, e.g. using gradient descent
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 7/01 Probabilistic graphical models, e.g. probabilistic networks
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0423 detecting deviation from an expected pattern of behaviour or schedule
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0453 worn on the body to detect health condition by physiological monitoring, e.g. electrocardiogram, temperature, breathing detecting, measuring or recording for diagnostic purposes A61B5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/24 Reminder alarms, e.g. anti-loss alarms
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/012 using recorded signals, e.g. speech G08B25/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/016 Personal emergency signalling and security systems emergency non-personal manually actuated alarm activators G08B25/12
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 : for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/30 : for calculating health indices; for individual health risk assessment
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 11/045 : using recorded signals, e.g. speech
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 11/10 : with dictation recording and playback systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/40 : using speech recognition speech recognition per se G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42008 : Systems for anonymous communication between parties, e.g. by use of disposal contact identifiers
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42221 : Conversation recording systems at the subscriber's set H04M1/656
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4936 : Speech interaction details speech recognition per se G10L15/00

Abstract

A method for managing or remotely monitoring chronic medical conditions (e.g., chronic respiratory conditions) of a plurality of patients includes, at one or more processors, receiving a plurality of bodily metrics associated with each of the plurality of patients over one or more remote communication links (e.g., an automated phone system), characterizing the severity of the medical condition for each patient based on the plurality of bodily metrics associated with the patient, and transmitting a programmed alert to a medical care provider for at last one patient having a medical condition characterized as having a threshold level of severity.

Claims

1. A method for remotely monitoring chronic respiratory conditions of a plurality of patients, the method comprising:

at one or more processors;

receiving a plurality of bodily metrics associated with each of the plurality of patients over an automated phone system;

characterizing the severity of the respiratory condition for each patient based on the plurality of bodily metrics associated with the patient; and

transmitting a programmed alert to a medical care provider for at least one patient having a respiratory condition characterized as having a threshold level of severity.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the plurality of bodily metrics comprises prompting at least one patient during a phone call established with the automated phone system to provide at least a portion of the plurality of bodily metrics.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein receiving the plurality of bodily metrics comprises receiving and recording one or more bodily metrics recited by the at least one patient over the automated phone system, wherein the method further comprises performing speech-to-text transcription of the recording.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein receiving the plurality of bodily metrics comprises receiving one or more bodily metrics entered through a telephone keypad interface.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising receiving the phone call through the automated phone system from a patient phone number associated with the at least one patient, and masking the patient phone number with a second phone number to de-identify the at least one patient.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein characterizing the severity of the respiratory condition comprises assessing at least a portion of the received bodily metrics substantially in real-time during the phone call.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising assessing the received bodily metrics, dynamically generating one or more supplemental prompts based on the assessment of at least one received bodily metric, and prompting at least one patient with the one or more supplemental prompts over the automated phone system to provide supplemental patient data in response to the one or more supplemental prompts.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the one or more supplemental prompts is generated based on at least one received bodily metric satisfying at least one predetermined dynamic threshold, wherein the at least one predetermined dynamic threshold is customizable with respect to a medical care provider, the at least one patient, or both.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the automated phone system is configured with a programmable communications platform.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the programmable communications platform comprises at least one of a programmable voice service and a programmable text service.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein characterizing the severity of the respiratory condition for each patient comprises comparing at least a first bodily metric to a first predetermined threshold.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the first predetermined threshold is customizable with respect to a medical care provider, one or more patients, or both.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of bodily metrics is received at least once daily over a monitoring period of two or more days.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising contacting at least one of a patient and a patient-designated contact person in response to failing to receive the plurality of bodily metrics for the patient within a predetermined time window.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the medical care provider is associated with a virtual clinic.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising establishing a patient-medical care provider relationship for at least one of the plurality of patients through an asynchronous store and forward transmission of medical information associated with the at least one patient, from an originating site to the medical care provider not at the originating site, and without a real-time presence of the patient.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising verifying an identity of the at least one patient through a non-documentary identity verification process.

18. The method of claim 16, further comprising receiving an intake questionnaire to be reviewed by the medical care provider.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein the medical care provider is a first medical care provider comprising an auxiliary staff member working under supervision of a second medical care provider, wherein the first medical care provider and the second medical care provider are working in different physical locations, at different times, or both.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein the medical care provider provides designated medical care coverage during a covering period in the absence of a primary medical care provider associated with at least one patient.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of bodily metrics comprises at least one of oxygen saturation, heart rate, breathlessness severity, cough severity, and mucus severity for the at least one patient.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein receiving the plurality of bodily metrics comprises receiving and recording a phone call during which one or more bodily metrics is recited over an automated phone system, wherein the plurality of bodily metrics further comprises respiratory rate, and wherein the method comprises measuring respiratory rate at least in part by counting patient breaths detected in the recording.

23. The method of claim 21, wherein the plurality of bodily metrics further comprises a quantification of home supplemental oxygen used by the at least one patient.

24. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating an index score for each patient, wherein the index score corresponds to the characterized severity of the patient, and further comprising sorting the plurality of patients according to the index scores for the plurality of patients.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein sorting the plurality of patients comprises grouping each of the plurality of patients into one of a low-risk category, a medium-risk category, and a high-risk category.

26. The method of claim 24, wherein characterizing the severity of the respiratory condition comprises deriving a first points value for each bodily metric for at least one patient, and wherein the index score for the at least one patient based at least in part on the first points values for the plurality of bodily metrics.

27. The method of claim 24, wherein receiving a plurality of bodily metrics is repeated for the at least one patient over a monitoring period, and wherein characterizing the severity of the respiratory condition comprises:

deriving a second points value of at least one bodily metric for the at least one patient based on the relative change of the at least one bodily metric during the monitoring period,

wherein the index score based at least in part on the first points values for the plurality of bodily metrics and the second points value of at least one bodily metric.

28. The method of claim 1, further comprising enabling the medical care provider to adjust a medical treatment for at least one patient in response to the transmitted programmed alert.

29. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing a reminder to the at least one patient over the automated phone system to conform to prescribed medical treatment, or inviting the at least one patient to ask a question to the medical care provider, or both.

30. The method of claim 1, wherein the automated phone system is configured to facilitate interactive communication between the medical care provider and at least one patient.