System and method for creating a visualization indicating relationships and relevance to an entity

• US 8,639,520 B2
• Filed: 06/02/2004
• Issued: 01/28/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/06/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cerner Innovation, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Cerner Innovation, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Finn, Christopher S., Crooks, Steven S., McCallie, David P. Jr., O'Larte, David J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Pauls, John
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, TRANG T
• Application Number:
  US10/860,458
• Publication Number:
  US 20050076060A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,527 Days
• Field of Search: 705/2, 705/3
• US Class Current: 705/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/201 Price look-up processing, e.g. updating
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/20 for the management or administration of healthcare resources or facilities, e.g. managing hospital staff or surgery rooms

Abstract

A system and method for generating interactive visualizations of clinical relationships is provided. The method includes determining what entities have had some clinical contact with an entity of interest and collecting data regarding each entity and each entity'"'"'s contacts with the entity of interest. The collected data can be filtered to remove unwanted entities and properties. Algorithms are applied to generate clinical relevance scores, which represent the relationship between the entities and the entity of interest. In addition, each entity is assigned components that allow for some executable behavior when an entity is selected in a display. Finally, the appropriate visualization is selected and a display of the relationships is generated.

Claims

1. One or more non-transitory computer-storage media having computer-executable instructions stored thereon that, when executed, perform a method in a computer system of generating a visualization model used to display clinical relationships between a plurality of physical entity elements and a physical entity of interest, the method comprising:

retrieving properties for each of the entity elements and the entity of interest, the properties including at least one activity type indicative of clinical contact between each of the entity elements and the entity of interest;

calculating a frequency for the at least one activity type, wherein the frequency is a quantity of times the at least one activity type is performed by each entity element;

weighting the at least one activity type based on a desired clinical relevance, wherein the desired clinical relevance represents clinical decision-making ability of each entity element where entity elements with clinical decision-making relevance are identified as being associated with directly physical and invasive activity types including performing a healthcare procedure on the entity of interest rather than indirect activity types including opening a chart associated with the entity of interest;

calculating a clinical relevance score for each entity element based on the at least one activity type, the frequency for the at least one activity type, and the weight of the at least one activity type; and

generating a visualization model using the retrieved properties of each entity element and the calculated clinical relevance scores, the model representing the clinical relationship and clinical relevance of each entity element relative to the entity of interest.

2. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 1, further comprising combining the retrieved properties and sorting by entity element after the properties are retrieved.

3. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 1, further comprising filtering the retrieved properties to eliminate any properties that are not of interest.

4. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 1, further comprising repeating the retrieving, calculating and generating steps for each of a plurality of time periods.

5. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 1, wherein the relationships are clinical relationships, the entity of interest is an individual receiving healthcare and the entity elements are individuals providing the healthcare or resources for providing healthcare.

6. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 1, further comprising displaying, on a display device, the visualization of the relationships using the generated visualization model.

7. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 6, further comprising assigning icons to each of the displayed entity elements.

8. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 7, wherein the size, shape and color of the assigned icons are used to convey relevance and property information.

9. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 7, further comprising associating at least one executable action with at least one of the entity elements.

10. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 7, wherein the executable action is an executable uniform resource locator (URL) that is executed by a mouse click on the entity icon.

11. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 1, wherein the contact between the entity element and the entity of interest is an actual physical contact.

12. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 1, wherein the contact between the entity element and the entity of interest is a request that will direct a physical contact between an entity element and the entity of interest.

13. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 1, wherein the contact between the entity element and the entity of interest is a passive contact between the entity element and the entity of interest.

14. A computer system for generating a patient focused visualization to display clinical relationships between the patient and a plurality of healthcare providers, along with a clinical relevance of the entity elements to the entity of interest, the system comprising:

at least one computing device associated with one or more processors;

at least one originating system adapter component that retrieves properties of healthcare providers that have had clinical contact with the patient during the patient'"'"'s course of treatment from an originating system, the properties including at least one activity type indicative of clinical contact between the healthcare provider and the patient;

a visualization model generation component that calculates a clinical relevance score for each healthcare provider based on a clinical relevance algorithm and the at least one activity type indicative of contact between each healthcare provider and the patient, wherein the clinical relevance algorithm utilizes the at least one activity type, a weight value of the at least one activity type, and a quantity of times that the at least one activity type is performed by each healthcare provider for the patient during the patient'"'"'s course of treatment; and

a visualization engine that generates a visualization using the retrieved properties of each healthcare provider and the clinical relevance score calculated for each healthcare provider,

wherein the visualization model and the visualization engine utilize real-time data to generate the visualization as an animation, where the clinical relevance score is calculated per each frame of the animation.

15. The computer system of claim 14, further comprising a filter component that operates to remove unwanted properties from the retrieved properties prior to the calculation of the relevance score.

16. The computer system of claim 14, wherein a plurality of originating systems are available, further comprising an originating system adapter for each available originating system.

17. The computer system of claim 14, wherein the visualization engine also assigns iconography to the healthcare provider to be displayed and associates action classes with each healthcare provider.

18. The computer system of claim 14, wherein the contact between the healthcare providers and the patient is indirect contact.

19. A user interface stored on a non-transitory computer readable medium and executable on a computer, comprising:

an patient entity of interest icon; and

a plurality of entity element icons, each representing an entity element associated with the entity of interest, wherein each entity element icon has associated therewith an executable action,

and wherein the arrangement of the entity element icons relative to the entity of interest icon conveys information about a clinical relationship between the entity of interest and each entity element based on one or more clinical contacts between the entity of interest and each entity element such that the arrangement represents a clinical relevance score of each entity element based on a plurality of activities, and wherein each of the plurality of activities are associated with a weight value according to a type of each of the plurality of activities, and wherein the one or more clinical contacts are performed between a healthcare provider and a patient during the patient'"'"'s course of treatment,

and wherein the user interface is generated by a visualization engine utilizing the clinical relevance score of each entity element relative to the entity of interest,

and wherein the user interface is continuously updated and animated such that a real-time status is displayed, wherein the clinical relevance score is calculated per each frame of the animation.

20. The user interface of claim 19, wherein the relationship information is conveyed using the color, shape and positioning of the entity element icons.

21. The user interface of claim 20, wherein the executable action is a uniform resource locator (URL) unique to the entity element with which it is associated.

22. The user interface of claim 21, wherein the entity element icons represent healthcare resources and wherein the entity of interest icon represents a person receiving healthcare.

23. One or more non-transitory computer-storage media having computer-executable instructions stored thereon that, when executed, perform a method in a computer system of generating a visualization model used to display clinical relationships between a plurality of healthcare providers and a patient, the method comprising:

retrieving properties for each of the healthcare providers relative to the patient for a plurality of time periods, the properties associated with one or more physical clinical contacts between each healthcare provider and the patient during the patient'"'"'s course of treatment, wherein the plurality of time periods is a predetermined length of time including a range window and an overall time period for which to calculate a recency-of-touch value for each healthcare provider, wherein the recency-of-touch value is a recency of clinical interactions between each healthcare provider and the patient;

generating a visualization model representing the clinical relationship and clinical relevance of each healthcare provider relative to the patient using the retrieved properties of each healthcare provider for each time period, wherein the clinical relevance is calculated based on both a decision-making ability of each healthcare provider and the recency-of-touch value of healthcare provider, wherein the decision-making ability is based on whether a type of clinical interaction is a direct clinical interaction or an indirect clinical interaction, a direct clinical interaction having a weight value associated with the direct clinical interaction that is higher than the weight value associated with the indirect clinical interaction; and

sequentially displaying the clinical relationships using the generated visualization model for each time period such that the clinical relationships are displayed in an animated view and calculations to determine the clinical relationships are calculated per each frame of the animation.

24. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 23, wherein the clinical relevance of each healthcare provider relative to the patient is determined by calculating a relevance score for each healthcare provider using the retrieved properties of each healthcare provider, the relevance score weighting certain properties above others to rank each healthcare provider'"'"'s relevance to the patient.

25. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 24, further comprising filtering the retrieved properties to eliminate any properties that are not of interest.

26. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 23, wherein the relationships are clinical relationships and the patient is an individual receiving healthcare.