System for identifying and addressing concerns of medical patients

• US 8,538,780 B1
• Filed: 11/26/2012
• Issued: 09/17/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/26/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sweeney Healthcare Enterprises LLC
• Original Assignee: Sweeney Healthcare Enterprises LLC
• Inventors: Sweeney, Colleen, Widder, Steven
• Primary Examiner(s): Najarian, Lena
• Assistant Examiner(s): PASS, NATALIE
• Application Number:
  US13/684,931
• Time in Patent Office: 295 Days
• Field of Search: 706/11, 705 2- 4, 705/7.33, 705/14, 705/14.1, 709/203, 709/224
• US Class Current: 705/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 70/20 relating to practices or guidelines

Abstract

A system is adapted to extract patient'"'"'s demographic information and identify possible concerns the patient may be having about the upcoming medical procedure based on that information. The system accesses a database containing a plurality of candidate concerns commonly associated with the identified medical procedure and establishes their relevancy to the patient based on the patient'"'"'s demographic information. The system allows patient to select relevant concerns from the presented list, and provides responses addressing those concerns. The responses are ranked based on their efficacy of alleviating concerns. The system is also adapted to communicate the information regarding the medical procedure and medical updates to the parties identified by the patient.

Claims

1. One or more non-transitory tangible computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions for performing a method by running a software program on a computer, the computer operating under an operating system, the method including issuing instructions from the software program comprising:

authenticating a user through a login interface generated by the software program;

responsive to authentication, querying a patient database for a patient identifier inputted by the authenticated user, the patient identifier associated with a current patient;

querying the computer for a medical procedure linked to the patient identifier;

querying the computer for demographic information of the current patient stored in the patient database;

applying a query against a matrix of pre-authored concerns associated with the medical procedure, wherein the pre-authored concerns are based on concerns that have previously arisen in other patients undergoing the medical procedure and require no input from the current patient;

retrieving a query response that includes both a plurality of pre-authored concerns related to the medical procedure and a plurality of pre-authored answers addressing the pre-authored concerns, each pre-authored concern weighted against a plurality of demographic factors;

automatically generating a list of the pre-authored concerns from the query response, the list filtered and pre-sorted according to the demographic information of the current patient as applied to the plurality of demographic factors for each pre-authored concern retrieved from the query;

presenting the list of the pre-authored concerns to the user, wherein the list may be resorted and filtered by the user interactively;

in response to the presented list of the pre-authored concerns, confirming relevance of the presented pre-authored concerns to the current patient responsive to a user input;

presenting the pre-authored answers to the confirmed pre-authored concerns;

in response to the presented pre-authored answers, receiving the user input on whether the presented pre-authored answers have effectively addressed the concerns of the current patient; and

notifying an authorized third party of an up-to-date health status of the current patient.

2. The media of claim 1, further comprising instructions to perform the steps of:

updating a rank of the presented pre-authored answers based on the user'"'"'s input, wherein a positive input causes the rank to increase and a negative input causes the rank to decrease.

3. The media of claim 1, wherein the demographic information of the current patient is selected from the group consisting of prior medical history, age, sex, race, weight, height, body mass index, marital status, number of children, income, education level, nationality, religion, place of residence, employment, and health insurance status.

4. The media of claim 1, wherein the computer-readable media is selected form the group consisting of a laptop computer, a desktop computer, a mobile phone, a tablet, and a server.

5. The media of claim 1, wherein the medical procedure is a diagnostic procedure, a medical test, a therapeutic procedure, a surgical procedure, a propaedeutic procedure, or a rehabilitation procedure.

6. The media of claim 1, wherein databases containing the pre-authored concerns and the pre-authored answers are located on a centralized server, the computer accessing the centralized server via Internet.

7. The media of claim 1, wherein the user is the current patient, a healthcare provider, a member of medical personnel, a family member of the current patient, or an authorized third party.

8. The media of claim 1, further comprising instructions to perform the steps of:

receiving from the user an identification of the authorized third party to whom the current patient wishes to communicate information relevant to the medical procedure the current patient is undergoing;

accessing a database containing a plurality of template messages corresponding to the medical procedure;

selecting and customizing a template message based on the demographic information of the current patient and the identification of the authorized third party; and

sending the customized template message to the authorized third party.

9. The media of claim 8, further comprising instructions to perform the steps of:

polling the current patient'"'"'s medical records for a new status update;

responsive to detection of the new status update, composing a message communicating the new status update; and

sending the message to the authorized third party identified by the user.

10. The media of claim 8, wherein the step of receiving from the user an identification of a third party to whom the current patient wishes to communicate information relevant to the medical procedure the current patient is undergoing, comprises the steps of:

accessing an electronic contact list of the current patient and presenting the electronic contact list to the user; and

responsive to the user input, selecting the authorized third party from the electronic contact list whom the current patient wishes to inform about the medical procedure.

11. The media of claim 8, wherein content of the template message corresponds to a classification of the authorized third party to whom the message is being addressed.

12. The media of claim 8, wherein the message is sent via email, SMS, MMS, or a social networking service.

13. One or more non-transitory tangible computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions for performing a method by running a software program on a computer, the computer operating under an operating system, the method including issuing instructions from the software program comprising:

authenticating a user;

receiving an identification information of a current patient;

retrieving demographic information of the current patient by extracting the information from the current patient'"'"'s medical records, public records, a private database, or a government database;

identifying a medical procedure the current patient will be undergoing;

retrieving a plurality of pre-authored concerns without requiring an input from the current patient, the pre-authored concerns based on past concerns that have arisen in other patients undergoing the medical procedure, each pre-authored concern having a profile comprising a set of relevant demographic factors;

matching the demographic information of the current patient to the demographic factors of each pre-authored concern to establish a relevancy value, the relevancy value representing a likelihood that the pre-authored concern will be relevant to the patient;

presenting to the user a predetermined number of the pre-authored concerns in an order of decreasing relevancy values;

receiving a first input from the user selecting the pre-authored concerns of relevance to the current patient;

accessing a database containing a plurality of pre-authored answers corresponding to a selected pre-authored concern, each pre-authored answer having a rank;

presenting to the user the pre-authored answers in an order of descending rank;

receiving a second input from the user on whether the presented pre-authored answer has effectively addressed the selected pre-authored concern, wherein a negative input causes the media to continue presenting pre-authored answers for the current concern; and

notifying an authorized third party of an up-to-date health status of the current patient.

14. The media of claim 13, wherein each demographic characteristic associated with the pre-authored concern has a corresponding coefficient representing the weight of the demographic characteristic on the relevancy value of the pre-authored concern.

15. The media of claim 14, wherein the coefficient is assigned a positive sign if the characteristic matches the current patient'"'"'s demographic information and is assigned a negative sign if the characteristic does not match the current patient'"'"'s demographic information, all coefficients being summed to obtain the relevancy value for the pre-authored concern.

16. The media of claim 14, further comprising instructions to perform the steps of:

increasing the coefficient value if the pre-authored concern is selected as relevant; and

decreasing the coefficient value if the pre-authored concern is not selected.

17. The media of claim 13, wherein each piece of the current patient'"'"'s demographic information is represented by a numerical value, each pre-authored concern having a range of acceptable values for every relevant demographic characteristic, a match is established when the numerical value of the patient'"'"'s information falls within the range of the acceptable values.

18. The media of claim 13, wherein the current patient'"'"'s demographic information is selected from the group consisting of prior medical history, age, sex, race, weight, height, body mass index, marital status, number of children, income, education level, nationality, religion, place of residence, employment, and health insurance status.

19. The media of claim 13, wherein the computer-readable media is selected form the group consisting of a laptop computer, a desktop computer, a mobile phone, a tablet, and a server.