System management dashboard

• US 8,131,562 B2
• Filed: 11/23/2007
• Issued: 03/06/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/24/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Compressus, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Compressus, Inc.
• Inventors: Hernandez, Albert, Pede, Susan, Riscalla, Daniel, Gasztonyi, Laszlo R., Gesell, Ronald G., Rosenfield, Joel
• Primary Examiner(s): Morgan, Robert
• Assistant Examiner(s): CHNG, JOY P
• Application Number:
  US11/944,530
• Publication Number:
  US 20080140448A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,565 Days
• Field of Search: 705 2- 3
• US Class Current: 705/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0633 Workflow analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/22 Social work or social welfare, e.g. community support activities or counselling services
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/20 for electronic clinical trials or questionnaires
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 30/20 for handling medical images, e.g. DICOM, HL7 or PACS
• 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 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/30 for calculating health indices; for individual health risk assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G16Z 99/00 Subject matter not provided for in other main groups of this subclass

Abstract

A system and method for acquiring, compiling and displaying data indicative of healthcare data workflow within an integrated healthcare enterprise simplifies the monitoring and identification of inefficiencies such as bottlenecks in the enterprise. Information gathered from enterprise system components and data files are used to measure individual component performance. System alerts and messaging capabilities allow an enterprise administrator to remedy potential bottlenecks before problems arise. Remedial measures may be programmed into the system to automatically remedy inefficiencies as they are identified.

Claims

1. A method for monitoring image studies and workflow within an integrated healthcare enterprise having a plurality of individual components, the method comprising:

maintaining a workflow package file associated with each image study on each individual component of the integrated healthcare network that the image study resides, each said workflow package file storing data comprising;

the image study ordered for a patient, physician names associated with the image study, workflow routing rules for the image study, a current individual component location of the image study, a date and time of arrival of the image study to and departure of the image study from each individual component location, a date and time of image study retrieval by a physician if retrieved, and a date and time when the image study was returned by a physician if completed;

generating a query to at least one individual component of the integrated healthcare network from an administrator workstation/server over at least one network for selected data stored in one or more workflow package files;

generating a return value at the at least one individual component within the healthcare enterprise based upon data stored in the one or more workflow package files;

comparing the return values to a user specified threshold value; and

generating at the administrator workstation/server a graphical representation of an individual component performance of at least one component of the plurality of individual components within the integrated healthcare enterprise based upon the comparison of the return values to the user specified threshold value.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying the graphical representation of the individual component performance in a first warning color if the component'"'"'s return value exceeds a first risk threshold value.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising displaying the graphical representation of the individual component performance in a second warning color if the component'"'"'s return value exceeds a second risk threshold value.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising displaying the data stored in the workflow package file in response to a user positioning a graphical pointing device over the graphical representation of the individual component.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein said workflow package file further comprises data indicative of usage and capacity of the individual component.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising storing within the workflow package file a record of all individual components to which the image study has been transmitted and the time the image study resided at each of the individual components.

7. The method of claim 3, further comprising modifying at least one of the workflow routing rules for the image study if the individual component return value exceeds either the first or second threshold return value.

8. The method of claim 2, further comprising displaying alternative remedial measures to reduce the individual component return value to a level below the first risk threshold return value.

9. The method of claim 3, further comprising displaying alternative remedial measures to reduce the individual component return value to a level below the second risk threshold return value.

10. The method of claim 2, further comprising querying the workflow package file for selected data to generate a report of the overall status of the integrated health enterprise network.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the selected data comprises patient name, imaging modality, study date, size, study source and percentage complete.

12. The method of claim 3, further comprising alerting an administrator if the individual component return value exceeds either the first or second risk threshold value.

13. A healthcare enterprise system for monitoring image study workflow, comprising:

a plurality of individual components connected to the at least one network to form an integrated healthcare enterprise, each of the plurality of individual components comprising;

a computer memory having stored thereon a workflow package file associated with each resident image study, each said workflow package file storing data comprising an image study type ordered for a patient, physician names associated with the image study, workflow routing rules for the image study, a current individual component location of the image study, a date and time of arrival of the image study and departure of the image study from the current individual component location, a date and time of image study retrieval by a physician if retrieved, and a date and time when the image study was returned by a physician if completed; and

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, the computer readable storage medium having stored thereon software instructions to cause each individual component to generate a return value to the administrator workstation/server within an integrated health enterprise based upon the data stored in the workflow package file; and

an administrator workstation/server connected to at least one network, the administrator workstation/server comprising;

a microprocessor configured and adapted to compare individual component return values to user specified threshold values stored in a second computer memory connected to the microprocessor; and

a display configured and adapted to generate a graphical representation of at least one individual component performance within the integrated healthcare enterprise based upon the comparison of the individual component return values to the user specified threshold value.

14. The healthcare enterprise system of claim 13, wherein the graphical representation of the individual component performance is displayed in a first warning color if the component'"'"'s return value exceeds a first risk threshold return value.

15. The healthcare enterprise system of claim 14, wherein the graphical representation of the individual component performance is displayed in a second warning color if the component'"'"'s return value exceeds a second risk threshold return value.

16. The healthcare enterprise system of claim 14, wherein the data stored in the workflow package file data is displayed in response to a user positioning a graphical pointing device over the graphical representation of the individual component.

17. The healthcare enterprise system of claim 16, wherein said workflow package file further comprises data indicative of the individual component usage and capacity.

18. The healthcare enterprise system of claim 17, wherein the workflow package file further comprises a record of all individual components to which the image study has been transmitted and the time the image study resided at each of the individual components.

19. The healthcare enterprise system of claim 15, wherein at least one of the workflow routing rules for the image study are modified if the individual component return value exceeds either the first or second threshold return value.

20. The healthcare enterprise system of claim 14, wherein the display is further configured to present alternative remedial measures to reduce the individual component return value to a level below the first risk threshold return value.

21. The healthcare enterprise system of claim 15, wherein he display is further configured to present alternative remedial measures to reduce the individual component return value to a level below the second risk threshold return value.

22. The healthcare enterprise system of claim 14, wherein the microprocessor is further configured and adapted to query the workflow package file for selected data to generate a report of the overall status of the integrated health enterprise network.

23. The healthcare enterprise system of claim 22, wherein the selected data comprises patient name, imaging modality, study date, size, study source and percentage complete.

24. The healthcare enterprise system of claim 15, the microprocessor is further configured and adapted to alert an administrator if the return value exceeds either the first or second risk threshold value.

25. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions for monitoring image study workflow within an integrated healthcare enterprise having a plurality of components, the computer executable instructions configured to cause the plurality of components to perform steps comprising:

generating a query to at least one individual component of the integrated healthcare network over at least one network for selected data stored in one or more workflow package files, wherein the one or more workflow package files contain a workflow data file associated with an image study for each study residing on the at least one individual component, said workflow data file storing data comprising image study type ordered for a patient, physician names associated with the image study, workflow routing rules for the image study, a current individual component location of the image study, date and time of arrival of the image study to and departure of the image study from the current individual component location, date and time of image study retrieval by a physician if retrieved, and a date and time when the image study was returned by a physician if completed, wherein the workflow package file is maintained by the at least one individual component;

receiving the return value from each individual component within the integrated healthcare enterprise;

comparing each individual component return value to a user specified threshold value; and

generating a graphical representation of an individual component performance within the integrated health enterprise based upon the comparison of the individual component return value to the user specified threshold value.

26. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 25, wherein the computer executable instructions further comprise instructions to display the graphical representation of the individual component performance in a first warning color if the component'"'"'s return value exceeds a first risk threshold value.

27. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 26, wherein the computer executable instructions further comprise instructions to display the graphical representation of the individual component performance in a second warning color if the component'"'"'s return value exceeds a second risk threshold value.

28. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 26, wherein the computer executable instructions further comprise instructions to display the data stored in the workflow data file data in response to a user placing a graphical pointing device over the graphical representation of the individual component.

29. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 28, wherein said workflow data file further comprises data indicative of the individual component usage and capacity.

30. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 29, wherein the computer executable instructions further comprise instructions to store within the workflow data file a record of all individual components to which the image study has been transmitted and the time the image study resided at each of the individual components.

31. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 26, wherein the computer executable instructions further comprise instructions to modify at least one of the workflow routing rules for the image study if the individual component return value exceeds either the first or second threshold value.

32. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 26, wherein the computer executable instructions further comprise instructions to display alternative remedial measures to reduce the individual component return value to a level below the first risk threshold return value.

33. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 27, wherein the computer executable instructions further comprise instructions to display alternative remedial measures to reduce the individual component return value to a level below the second risk threshold value.

34. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 28, wherein the computer executable instructions further comprise instructions to querying the workflow data file for selected data to generate a report of the overall status of the integrated health enterprise network.

35. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 34, wherein the selected data comprises patient name, imaging modality, study date, size, study source and percentage complete.

36. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 27, wherein the computer executable instructions further comprise instructions to alert an administrator if the individual component return value exceeds either the first or second risk threshold value.