Intelligent patient visit information management and navigation system

• US 8,050,944 B2
• Filed: 09/10/2001
• Issued: 11/01/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/20/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Epic Systems Corporation
• Original Assignee: Epic Systems Corporation
• Inventors: Alban, Christopher, Eichhorst, Brad, Brummel, Tony, Cornelius, Aaron T.
• Primary Examiner(s): MORGAN, ROBERT W
• Assistant Examiner(s): Fuelling; Michael
• Application Number:
  US09/950,242
• Publication Number:
  US 20020035487A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,704 Days
• Field of Search: 705 2- 3
• US Class Current: 705/3
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/20 for the management or administration of healthcare resources or facilities, e.g. managing hospital staff or surgery rooms
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/70 for mining of medical data, e.g. analysing previous cases of other patients
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 70/20 relating to practices or guidelines

Abstract

A patient health record system uses knowledge bases to dynamically build visit templates and suggest content based on the user'"'"'s profile and current patient information. The visit template is available to the health care provider using the system, and is presented within an easy-to-use graphical interface comprising a navigation pane for moving from one section of the template to another, and a visit information window that displays current visit information and allows the user to add and edit that information.

Claims

1. A system for assisting healthcare providers in entering patient visit data in a database comprising:

a database holding patient visit data providing clinical information about a patient visit to a healthcare provider and at least one of other patient information and healthcare provider information;

a set of section-definition templates defining at least one section for an entry of patient visit data by the healthcare provider;

a visit template engine communicating with the set of section-definition templates and operating to;

(1) automatically select section-definition templates from the set of section-definition templates to create a visit template having sections;

(2) monitor entry of patient visit information by the healthcare provider into the sections of the visit template; and

(3) automatically modify the selection of the section templates contemporaneously with the entry of patient visit information into the sections to modify the sections forming the visit template in response to patient visit information entered into sections of the visit template by a user to provide different sections in the visit template for the entry of patient visit data.

2. The system for assisting healthcare providers of claim 1 wherein the visit template engine further operates to:

automatically select at least one content template proposing patient visit data to be entered into a section of the visit template; and

wherein each content template is linked to locator data and wherein the selected content template is automatically selected based on a match between the locator data and the patient visit data entered into another section of the visit template.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the selected content template is automatically selected based on a match between the locator data and other clinical patient data in the database related to the patient visit data.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the section-definition templates are each linked to an encounter type describing a type of visit and wherein the selected section-definition templates are automatically selected based on an encounter type.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein the encounter type is selected from the group consisting of office visits and immunization administrations.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the sections of the section-definition templates are selected from the group consisting of:

patient vital signs, medications, allergies, nursing notes, charting notes, progress notes, problem list, diagnoses, orders, patient instructions, follow up, and level of service.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the section-definition templates are further selected according to a user profile containing information about a health care provider.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein multiple users may simultaneously enter patient visit data into different sections of the visit template and only one user may enter data into a given section of the visit template at one time.

9. A computer-implemented method for assisting healthcare providers in entering patient visit data in a database comprising the steps of:

(1) automatically selecting section-definition templates from a set of section-definition templates stored in a computer database to create a visit template having sections, each section-definition template defining at least one section for an entry of patient visit data;

(2) monitoring entry of patient visit information into the sections of the visit template by a user using a computer-implemented graphical user interface;

(3) automatically modifying the selection of the section templates comprising the visit template during the entry of patient visit information into the sections by the user in response to patient visit information entered into sections of the visit template by the user, the modification changing sections in the visit template that receive patient visit data; and

(4) enrolling the patient visit information from the visit template into a computer database holding patient visit data.

10. The method of claim 9 further including the steps of:

automatically selecting at least one content template proposing patient visit data to be entered into the sections of the visit template wherein each content template is linked to locator data; and

wherein the content template is automatically selected based on a match between the locator data and the patient visit data entered into another section of the visit template.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the selected content template is automatically selected based on a match between the locator data and other clinical patient data in the database related to the patient visit data.

12. The method of claim 9 wherein the section-definition templates are each linked to an encounter type describing a type of visit and wherein the selected section-definition templates are automatically selected based on an encounter type.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the encounter type is selected from the group consisting of office visits and immunization administrations.

14. The method of claim 9 wherein the sections of the section-definition templates are selected from the group consisting of:

patient vital signs, medications, allergies, nursing notes, charting notes, progress notes, review of systems, problem list, diagnoses, orders, patient instructions, follow up, and level of service.

15. The method of claim 9 wherein the section-definition templates are further selected according to a user profile containing information about a health care provider.

16. The method of claim 9 including the step of allowing multiple users to simultaneously enter patient visit data into different sections of the visit template while prohibiting more than one user at a time from entering data into a given section of the visit template.