Home health point-of-care and administration system

• US 8,019,622 B2
• Filed: 10/24/2006
• Issued: 09/13/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/24/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Celltrak Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Celltrak Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Wegner, Steven A., Kaboff, Andrew M.
• Primary Examiner(s): COLLINS, MICHAEL
• Application Number:
  US11/586,325
• Publication Number:
  US 20100198608A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,785 Days
• Field of Search: 705/7.13, 705/7.15, 701201-202, 342/357.25, 713/150, 715/741, 715/241
• US Class Current: 705/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06311 Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063114 Status monitoring or status determination for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 20/00 ICT specially adapted for therapies or health-improving plans, e.g. for handling prescriptions, for steering therapy or for monitoring patient compliance
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation

Abstract

A home health point-of-care and administration system having a server system in communication with a plurality of mobile devices associated with care providers. The server system includes modules for staff scheduling, tracking and travel management, visit record and care plan administration, and communications. The server system bidirectionally communicates with a plurality of mobile devices associated with the caregivers to assist in providing home healthcare services, including the ability to better verify visits by caregivers.

Claims

1. A home care administration system, comprising

a server system accessible via a communication network, the server system comprising:

a staff scheduling module for creating a work schedule for a plurality of caregivers. wherein the work schedule assigns each of the plurality of caregivers to a plurality of visits with a respective plurality of patients;

a tracking and travel management module for determining visit e information for the plurality of caregivers, tracking visit times, and determining actual travel distance between visits by caregivers. wherein at least a portion of the work schedule created by the staff scheduling module is dynamically updated based on the tracked visit times;

visit record and care plan module for administering visit records initiated by the caregivers during the visits and for designing patient-specific, visit-specific care plans comprising tasks to be performed during the visits; and

a communication module for bidirectionally communicating care plans, scheduling information, and route information to

a plurality of mobile devices via the communication network, wherein the plurality of mobile devices are associated with the respective plurality of caregivers scheduled to visit the respective plurality of patients, wherein the server system transmits the care plans to the mobile devices so that the associated caregivers receive information regarding tasks to be performed on the patients, and wherein the mobile devices are used by the caregivers to transmit back to the server system visit record information regarding performed tasks.

2. The home care administration system of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of mobile devices comprises at least one application for rendering a fillable form based on a particular patient-specific, visit-specific care plan transmitted by the server system to the mobile device, wherein the caregiver enters data into the fillable form, and wherein a representation of the entered data is transmitted by the mobile device to the server system.

3. The home care administration system of claim 1, wherein communications between the server system and the plurality of mobile devices are encrypted.

4. The home care administration system of claim 2, wherein each of the plurality of mobile devices comprises data storage for temporarily storing the entered data if the mobile device is temporarily unable to communicate via the communication network, and wherein the temporarily stored entered data is transmitted to the communication network at a time when the mobile device is again able to communicate via the communication network.

5. The home care administration system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the plurality of mobile devices is a cell phone and wherein the communication network is a cellular network.

6. The home care administration system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the plurality of mobile devices includes a GPS receiver so that the location of the mobile device can be tracked, and wherein the location is transmitted from the mobile device to the tracking and travel management module of the server system.

7. The home care administration system of claim 6, wherein the tracking and travel management module uses the transmitted location to tracks the location of the caregiver associated with the mobile device.

8. The home care administration system of claim 7, wherein the tracking and travel management module determines an actual route traveled by the caregiver.

9. The home care administration system of claim 1, wherein the staff scheduling module creates the work schedule based on caregivers'"'"' respective locations.

10. The home care administration system of claim 1, wherein the visit record and care plan module collects and stores the visit record information and accepts a selection of tasks to be performed in a care plan for a particular patient.

11. The home care administration system of claim 1, wherein the server system further comprises a clinical messaging and notification module so that messages may be broadcast to the plurality of mobile devices.

12. The home care administration system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the mobile devices comprises an imaging device, wherein the mobile device transmits at least one image of a patient to the server system, and wherein the transmitted images may be used to remotely assess a condition of the patient.

13. The home care administration system of claim 12, wherein the caregiver associated with the mobile device records an annotation to accompany the at least one transmitted image.

14. The home care administration system of claim 1, wherein the mobile devices accept supply orders from the caregivers and transmit the supply orders to the server system for fulfillment.

15. The home care administration system of claim 1, wherein the server system further comprises a disease management intelligence module for applying rules to entered data transmitted from the mobile devices to the server system to determine whether additional action should be taken.

16. The home care administration system of claim 15, wherein the additional action comprises transmitting medical advice from the server system to the mobile device associated with the caregiver performing the visit from which the entered data originated.

17. The home care administration system of claim 1, wherein the server system includes an enterprise application integration module for integrating with a third-party application.

18. The home care administration system of claim 17, wherein the third-party application is selected from the group consisting of a billing system, a payroll system, and a scheduling system.

19. The home care administration system of claim 1, wherein the server system comprises at least one database storing information selected from the group consisting of patient demographic information, home care tasks, staff information, locations, visit records, visit status, care plans, actual tasks that are performed in each actual visit, clinical outcomes, and clinical measurements.

20. The home care administration system of claim 1, wherein the server system verifies that scheduled visits have actually occurred, based on comparing information from the staff scheduling module with information from the tracking and travel management module.