System and method for a seamless user interface for an integrated electronic health care information system

• US 7,703,042 B2
• Filed: 08/15/2007
• Issued: 04/20/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Epic Systems Corporation
• Original Assignee: Epic Systems Corporation
• Inventors: Ma, Andrew, Seow, Khiang, Larsen, Steve, Dvorak, Carl D., Bormann, Daniel, Brummel, Tony, Cornelius, Aaron T.
• Primary Examiner(s): BAUTISTA, XIOMARA L
• Application Number:
  US11/839,251
• Publication Number:
  US 20080033761A1
• Time in Patent Office: 979 Days
• Field of Search: 715/700, 715/741, 715/743, 715/762, 715/764, 715/765, 715/781, 715/792, 715/804, 715/810, 715/835, 715/866, 705/1, 705/2, 705/3, 706/45, 706/46, 706/47, 707/1, 707/3, 707/9, 707/100, 707/104.1, 600/300
• US Class Current: 715/804
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/63 for local operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 70/00 ICT specially adapted for the handling or processing of medical references
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing

Abstract

An interface for a medical record database allows multiple different applications to be opened accessing the records of a common and/or different patients. For those applications accessing the records of a common patient, a visual indication is provided indicating whether or not records of the same patient are being accessed to prevent the user from mistakenly comparing the records of different patients.

Claims

1. An electronic healthcare system, comprising:

a graphical user-interface;

at least one electronic computer communicating with the graphical user interface to provide;

(a) at least one electronic healthcare database including medical records;

(b) a set of different software applications usable in any order by a single user on the electronic computer, the different software applications allowing a user to access different records of the electronic healthcare database for each of different patients;

(c) a provider program running on the at least one electronic computer to;

(i) receive input from a user through the graphical user-interface identifying multiple software applications to be initialized and opened for at least two different patients;

(ii) provide multiple graphical workspaces each defining an area holding initialized and opened software applications, each graphical workspace visually linking only the multiple software applications accessing records of a single patient of the at least two different patients;

(iii) require first user actions to switch among software applications within a workspace and second user actions distinct from the first user actions to switch among workspaces of the at least two different patients; and

(iv) require a user to switch between workspaces before and in order to switch between a first and second initialized and opened software application accessing different patients;

whereby confusion between records of different patients is reduced;

wherein the provider program further provides multiple different graphical indications each associated with applications accessing different common patients, the different graphical indications visually distinguishing among the multiple software applications accessing records of different patients.

2. The electronic healthcare system of claim 1 wherein the provider program further accepts input from a user to switch between workspaces.

3. The electronic system of claim 2 wherein the user input is from a mouse, a predetermined key, or a stylus.

4. The electronic healthcare system of claim 1 wherein the provider program further accepts input from a user to switch between software applications within a workspace.

5. The electronic system of claim 4 wherein the user input is from a mouse, a predetermined key, or a stylus.

6. The electronic system of claim 1 wherein each workspace allows only a different subset of software applications to be opened and initialized.

7. The electronic system of claim 6 wherein the software applications are collected from software applications selected from the group consisting of:

order entry, charts and graphs, chart review, results review, registration, flowsheets, patient alerts, snapshot, visit navigator, patient history, patient demographics, and an enterprise added activity.

8. The electronic system of claim 1 wherein data entered through a first software applications may cause an automatic opening and initialization of a second software application accessing records of a same patient as accessed by the first software application.