Panel diagnostic method and system

• US 8,055,516 B2
• Filed: 08/23/2010
• Issued: 11/08/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 05/15/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Healthways SC, LLC (Discovery Communications, Inc.)
• Sponsoring Entity: Clinical Decision Support, LLC
• Inventors: Iliff, Edwin C
• Primary Examiner(s): O'Connor; Gerald J.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Pauls; John
• APPLICATION: US 20100318381A1
• Time in USPTO: 442 Days
• Field of Search: 705/2, 705/3, 600/300
• US Class Current: 705/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/22 : Social work
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/24 : Patient record management processing of medical or biological data for scientific purposes G06F19/00
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/20 : for electronic clinical trials or questionnaires
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 : for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems

Abstract

A method and system for computerized medical diagnostics is disclosed. Beginning with interacting with a patient or a healthcare professional via a diagnostic module to obtain patient health items, the system automatically obtains an initial differential diagnosis and multiple strategy differential diagnoses based on the patient health items. In one embodiment, each strategy differential diagnosis is obtained with different analysis criteria of the patient health items. At least a portion of the strategy differential diagnoses are compared and a panel differential diagnosis based on the compared differential diagnoses is determined. The initial diagnosis and the panel differential diagnosis are reconciled so as to recommend an action or provide a diagnosis to the patient or the healthcare professional.

Claims

1. A computerized medical diagnostic system, the system comprising:

a plurality of disease objects, each disease object to reference a list comprising one or more associated patient health items representative of at least candidate diseases applicable to the patient, and collectively provide an initial differential diagnosis;

a panel module in data communication with the disease objects, the panel module comprising a plurality of diagnostic strategy processes, each of which generates a corresponding strategy differential diagnosis based on the patient health items, wherein the panel module compares at least a portion of the strategy differential diagnoses to thereby generate a panel differential diagnosis;

a computing environment operative to execute the modules, the computing environment comprising at least one processor; and

wherein the initial differential diagnosis and the panel differential diagnosis are reconciled so as to recommend an action or provide a diagnosis via output to the patient or the healthcare professional.

2. The system defined in claim 1, wherein each diagnostic strategy process is assigned a weight for each one of a diagnosis associated with a selected chief complaint.

3. The system defined in claim 2, wherein the panel differential diagnosis is reordered in decreasing levels of probability after the assigned weight is applied.

4. The system defined in claim 2, wherein the weight is dynamic and changes dependent on one of a position in a disease timeline for the patient and a position in a consultation timeline for the patient.

5. The system defined in claim 1, wherein each diagnostic strategy process is assigned a weight for each diagnosis in its differential diagnosis.

6. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the panel module additionally comprises a moderator module in data communication with at least the one or more diagnostic strategy processes, wherein the moderator evaluates the results of each diagnostic strategy process and generates the panel differential diagnosis by comparing the strategy differential diagnoses and reordering the panel differential diagnosis accordingly.

7. The system defined in claim 6, wherein the plurality of disease objects repetitively select a patient health item to be evaluated, evaluate the patient health item, and provide the results of the evaluation to the diagnostic strategy processes.

8. The system defined in claim 7, wherein the influence of at least one of the diagnostic strategy processes on the moderator changes after each patient health item is evaluated.

9. The system defined in claim 8, wherein at least one strategy process updates its respective strategy differential diagnosis after each patient health item is evaluated.

10. The system defined in claim 1, additionally comprising a judge module in data communication with at least the panel module, wherein the judge module reconciles the initial differential diagnosis and a differing differential diagnosis of the panel.

11. The system defined in claim 10, wherein the judge module reconciles by determining the more probable differential diagnosis based on previous performance of the panel diagnostic strategy processes.

12. The system defined in claim 10, wherein the judge module reconciles by blending the initial differential diagnosis and the differing differential diagnosis of the panel into a combined differential diagnosis.

13. The system defined in claim 1, wherein convergence of the differential diagnoses among the diagnostic strategy processes and the initial differential diagnosis adds a convergence weight to a score so as to generate the diagnosis.

14. The system defined in claim 1, wherein each strategy differential diagnosis updates its respective strategy based on the patient health items.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the initial diagnosis comprises at least a disease with an associated first weight and the panel differential diagnosis comprises at least the disease with an associated second weight different than the first weight.

16. A computerized medical diagnostic method, comprising:

obtaining a list of patient health items from at least one disease object;

automatically obtaining an initial differential diagnosis based on the patient health items;

automatically obtaining a plurality of strategy differential diagnoses based on the patient health items, each strategy differential diagnosis being obtained with different analysis criteria of the patient health items;

comparing at least a portion of the strategy differential diagnoses;

determining a panel differential diagnosis based on the compared differential diagnoses;

reconciling the initial diagnosis and the panel differential diagnosis so as to recommend an action or provide a diagnosis to the patient or the healthcare professional and

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

17. The method defined in claim 16, additionally comprising:

selecting the patient health item to be evaluated;

evaluating the patient health item; and

providing the results of the evaluation to the obtaining of differential diagnoses.

18. The method defined in claim 17, wherein the influence of at least one of the diagnostic strategy processes on the panel differential diagnosis changes after each patient health item is evaluated.

19. The method defined in claim 17, additionally comprising:

establishing a synergy weight based on the evaluated patient health item; and

providing the synergy weight to the obtaining of differential diagnoses.

20. The method defined in claim 19, wherein interacting with the patient includes developing a set of candidate diseases and further developing a list of patient health items to be evaluated based on the set of candidate diseases.

21. The method defined in claim 16, wherein automatically obtaining at least one of the strategy differential diagnoses includes operating in an active mode, wherein one or more patient health items to be evaluated are selected.

22. The method defined in claim 21, additionally comprising:

merging the selected patient health items; and

ranking the merged patient health items according to the influence of each strategy differential diagnosis.

23. A computerized medical diagnostic system, comprising:

means for interacting with a patient or a healthcare professional via a plurality of disease objects to obtain associated patient health items representative of the health of the patient;

means for automatically obtaining an initial differential diagnosis based on the patient health items provided by the plurality of disease objects associated with candidate diseases applicable to the patient;

means for automatically obtaining a plurality of strategy differential diagnoses based on the patient health items, each strategy differential diagnosis being obtained with different analysis criteria of the patient health items;

means for comparing at least a portion of the strategy differential diagnoses;

means for determining a panel differential diagnosis based on the compared differential diagnoses; and

means for reconciling the initial diagnosis and the panel differential diagnosis so as to recommend an action or provide a diagnosis to the patient or the healthcare professional.

24. The system defined in claim 23, additionally comprising:

means for merging the selected patient health items; and

means for ranking the merged patient health items according to the influence of each strategy differential diagnosis.

25. The system defined in claim 23, wherein recommending the action comprises means for recommending that the patient consult with the diagnostic method at a future time.

26. The system defined in claim 23, wherein recommending the action comprises means for requesting that the patient have a particular test or study performed.