Method and apparatus for reporting emergency incidents

• US 6,594,634 B1
• Filed: 09/14/1998
• Issued: 07/15/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 09/14/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Physio-Control Incorporated (Stryker Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Medtronic Physio-Control Corp. (Medtronic Plc)
• Inventors: Hampton, David R., Smith, Robert E., Briscoe, Kathleen E.
• Primary Examiner(s): ROSEN, NICHOLAS D
• Application Number:
  US09/152,837
• Time in Patent Office: 1,765 Days
• Field of Search: 705/2,3,9 600/300 704/243,247 707/6
• US Class Current: 705/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/95 Retrieval from the web
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 70/20 relating to practices or guidelines
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 70/40 relating to drugs, e.g. their side effects or intended usage

Abstract

An event reporting program (48) is provided which electronically records information critical to reconstructing events occurring during an emergency incident. The event reporting program (48) includes an event recording component (204) for recording events as they occur during the incident, and a post-processing component (206) for further processing the events recorded by the event recording component after completion of the incident. The event recording component (204) enables an emergency service provider to input a plurality of event records (148) describing each event as it occurs and the time at which each event takes place. The event recording component also enables an emergency service provider to input a predefined protocol of expected event records. Each expected event record (148) identifies an event which is expected to occur during the incident and a time at which the event is expect to occur. Finally, the event recording component also includes a number of tools for providing and/or recording information in addition to the event records to the emergency service provider, e.g., an address book, drug guidelines, a narrative recorder, etc. The post-processing component (206), on the other hand, enables the user to modify or add to the event records (148) and other information previously recorded by the event recording component. In addition, the post-processing component (206) exports event records (148) to and imports event records (148) from external devices, such as a remote computer or medical electronic device. Finally, the post-processing component (206) generates a run report including the recorded event records (148) and information related to the incident.

Claims

1. A method for recording an emergency incident, wherein the emergency incident comprises a collection of events, the method comprising:

(a) identifying the incident;

(b) recording an event/time pair for each event that occurs during the identified incident, wherein the event/time pair identifies the event and a time at which the event occurred during the incident, wherein the act of recording records a narrative describing the incident;

(c) parsing the recorded narrative for at least one expected modifier, wherein parsing the recorded narrative comprises;

(i) identifying at least one keyword in the narrative which indicates the presence of the expected modifier in the narrative;

(ii) identifying a modifier template associated with the keyword which identifies a narrative pattern in which the expected modifier and keyword typically appear; and

(iii) scanning the narrative to locate a modifier which matches the modifier template.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein parsing the recorded narrative further comprises comparing the located modifier with a validation rule to ensure that the located modifier is valid.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

for at least one expected event/time pair, issuing an alarm indicating the occurrence of an expected event when the time at which the event is expected to occur passes.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising, in addition to changing event/time pair records based on actions that occur during the handling of the identified emergency incident, recording information that further describes the emergency incident.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a report containing the recorded event/time pairs.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising exporting the recorded event/time pairs to an external destination.

7. A computer-readable medium having computer executable components for recording and reporting an emergency incident, wherein the incident comprises a plurality of events associated with treatment of a patient during the incident, the computer-readable medium having computer-executable components comprising:

(a) an event recording component for recording events as they occur during the incident, wherein the event recording component records events by enabling a user to input a plurality of event records, wherein each event record identifies an event which occurred during the incident and a time at which the event occurred, wherein the event recording component enables the user to input a narrative story describing the incident; and

(b) a post-processing component for further processing the events recorded by the event recording component, wherein the post-processing component processes the narrative story input by the user by parsing the narrative story for predefined information, wherein the post-processing component parses the narrative story by;

(i) identifying at least one keyword in the narrative story which indicates the presence of the expected modifier in the narrative;

(ii) identifying a modifier template associated with the keyword which identifies a narrative pattern in which the expected modifier and keyword typically appear; and

(iii) scanning the narrative story to locate a modifier which matches the modifier template.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein parsing the recorded narrative story further comprises comparing the located modifier with a validation rule to ensure that the located modifier is valid.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the event recording component further records events by enabling the user to input a predefined treatment protocol for the patient, wherein the predefined treatment protocol comprises a plurality of predefined event records and wherein each predefined event record identifies an event which is expected to occur during the incident and a time at which the event is expected to occur during the incident.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the event recording component enables the user to modify at least one selected event record.

11. The computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein the event recording component enables the user to input event records verbally.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the event recording component has at least one computer-executable subcomponent for providing information in addition to the plurality of event records recorded by the event recording component.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 12, wherein said at least one computer-executable subcomponent for providing information is an address book subcomponent for providing address information to the user.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 12, wherein said at least one computer-executable subcomponent for providing information is a medication identification subcomponent for enabling the user to record medication information regarding the patient.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 12, wherein said at least one computer-executable subcomponent for providing information is a stop watch subcomponent for timing the duration of an action taken by the user.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 12, wherein said at least one computer-executable subcomponent for providing information is a drug guideline subcomponent for providing drug information to the user.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 12, wherein said at least one computer-executable subcomponent for providing information is a medication dosage/infusion calculating component for calculating the dosage/infusion rate of a drug to be administered by the user to the patient.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the post-processing component further processes the events recorded by the event recording component by enabling the user to modify at least one selected event record previously recorded by the event recording component.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the post-processing component further processes the events recorded by the event recording component by enabling the user to record at least one event record in addition to those previously recorded by the event recording component.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the post-processing component enables the user to verbally record said at least one event record.

21. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the post-processing component further processes the events recorded by the event recording component by enabling the user to incorporate event records recorded by an external source, wherein each event record incorporated identifies an event recorded by the external source and a time recorded by the external source at which the event occurred.

22. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the post-processing component further processes the events recorded by the event recording component by enabling the user to record additional information regarding the incident.

23. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the post-processing component further processes the events recorded by the event recording component by exporting recorded events to external devices.

24. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the post-processing component further processes the events recorded by the event recording component by generating a run report containing all of the event recorded by the event recording component and further processed by the post-processing component.

25. An apparatus for reporting for reporting an emergency incident, wherein the incident comprises a plurality of events associated with treatment of a patient during the incident, the apparatus comprising:

(a) a processing unit; and

(b) a storage medium coupled to the processing unit, the storage medium containing program code executed by the processing unit for recording an event/time pair for each event as it occurs during the incident, wherein the event/time pair identifies the event and a time at which the event occurred during the incident, wherein the storage medium further contains program code executed by the processing unit for recording a narrative describing the incident, wherein the storage medium further contains program code executed by the processing unit for parsing the narrative for an expected modifier comprising a piece of desired information, wherein the narrative is parsed by;

(i) identifying at least one keyword in the narrative which indicates the presence of the expected modifier in the narrative;

(ii) identifying a modifier template associated with the keyword which identifies a narrative pattern in which the expected modifier and keyword typically appear; and

(iii) scanning the narrative to locate a modifier which matches the modifier template.

26. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein parsing the recorded narrative further comprises comparing the located modifier with a validation rule to ensure that the located modifier is valid.

27. The apparatus of claim 25, further comprising a microphone coupled to the processing unit for receiving event/time pairs verbally input by a user, wherein the event/time pairs verbally input by the user are recorded by the program code stored in the storage medium and executed by the processing unit.

28. The apparatus of claim 25, further comprising a display coupled to the processing unit for displaying the recorded event/time pairs in an event summary.

29. The apparatus of claim 25, further comprising an external interface coupled to the processing unit for exporting recorded event/time pairs to an external destination.

30. The apparatus of claim 29, wherein the external interface coupled to the processing unit imports event/time pair records recorded by an external source.

31. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the storage medium further contains program code executed by the processing unit for recording a predefined protocol of events, wherein the predefined protocol of events comprises a collection of expected event/time pairs, and wherein each expected event/time pair identifies an event that is expected to occur during the incident and a time at which the event is expected to occur during the incident.

32. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein the storage medium further contains program code executed by the processing unit for issuing an alarm indicating the occurrence of at least one expected event of the predefined protocol when the time at which the event is expected to occur passes.

33. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the storage medium further contains program code executed by the processing unit for recording information describing the incident in addition to the event/time pairs and the narrative.

34. The apparatus of claim 33, wherein the storage medium further contains program code executed by the processing unit for generating a report containing the recorded event/time pairs, information and narrative.

35. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the storage medium further contains program code executed by the processing unit for modifying previously recorded event/time pairs.

36. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the storage medium further contains program code executed by the processing unit for providing address information to a user.

37. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the storage medium further contains program code executed by the processing unit for providing medication information to a user.

38. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the storage medium further contains program code executed by the processing unit for providing a stop watch to a user.

39. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the storage medium further contains program code executed by the processing unit for providing drug guideline information to a user.

40. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the storage medium further contains program code executed by the processing unit for calculating a dosage of medication.