Visual physician office systems and methods

• US 8,712,031 B2
• Filed: 05/22/2007
• Issued: 04/29/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/27/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Wellons, David L., Turcan, Diane Brown
• Primary Examiner(s): DEANE JR, WILLIAM J
• Application Number:
  US11/805,104
• Publication Number:
  US 20080091452A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,534 Days
• Field of Search: 37926501-26514, 37926601-2661, 379/309, 379/219, 379/220.01, 379/221.01
• US Class Current: 379/265.01
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24564 Applying rules; Deductive queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/265 Personal security, identity or safety
• 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: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

Methods and systems are disclosed for enabling a virtual physician office (VPO) that uses a network-based physician practice application and leverages the assets of a shared, communications network of legacy systems. A data connection is established with a rule-based application dataserver of a telecommunications network facility to control access, sharing, notification, security, and/or management of electronic healthcare communications. Typically, the rule-based application dataserver is associated with a central office (“CO”), a mobile telephone switching center (“MTSO”), or a combination CO/MTSO.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

establishing a first data connection between a server and a physician office legacy system;

establishing a second data connection between the server and another physician office legacy system;

receiving an electronic healthcare communication over the first data connection that is associated with a sender'"'"'s communications address and with a recipient'"'"'s communications address, the electronic healthcare communication comprising an attachment that has been formatted according to the physician office legacy system;

comparing the recipient'"'"'s communications address to a list of addresses;

when the recipient'"'"'s communications address matches an entry in the list of addresses, then reformatting the electronic healthcare communication from a format compatible with the physician office legacy system to another format that is compatible with the another physician office legacy system; and

sending a reformatted electronic healthcare communication over the second data connection to the another physician office legacy system.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

reformatting the attachment into the another format that is compatible with the another physician office legacy system; and

sending a reformatted attachment to the another physician office legacy system.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein when the recipient'"'"'s communications address does not match entries in the list of addresses, then comparing the recipient'"'"'s communications address to a list of non-participants.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein when the recipient'"'"'s communications address matches an entry in the list of non-participants, then reformatting the electronic healthcare communication to be compatible with a non-participant'"'"'s system.

5. The method according to claim 4, further comprising sending the reformatted electronic healthcare communication to the non-participant'"'"'s system.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein when the recipient'"'"'s communications address matches an entry in the list of non-participants, then reformatting the attachment to be compatible with the non-participant'"'"'s system.

7. The method according to claim 6, further comprising sending a reformatted attachment to the non-participant'"'"'s system.

8. The method according to claim 1, further comprising determining whether an integrated delivery system is associated with the another physician office legacy system.

9. The method according to claim 1, further comprising gathering an incoming calling line identification associated with the electronic healthcare communication.

10. The method according to claim 1, further comprising utilizing an address of a user group as a trigger that causes the electronic healthcare communication to be sent to the server.

11. The method according to claim 1, further comprising utilizing an address of a user group as a trigger that causes an application to automatically run.

12. The method according to claim 1, further comprising invoking a rule that automatically declines to reformat the electronic healthcare communication based on the recipient'"'"'s communications address.

13. The method according to claim 1, further comprising invoking a rule that automatically postpones reformatting the electronic healthcare communication based on the recipient'"'"'s communications address.

14. The method according to claim 1, further comprising retrieving a file that is linked to an incoming calling line identification associated with the electronic healthcare communication.

15. The method according to claim 14, further comprising reformatting the file to the another physician office legacy system.

16. The method according to claim 14, further comprising reformatting the file to a non-participant'"'"'s system.

17. The method according to claim 1, further comprising accessing a rule-based application dataserver providing a rule-based engine that categorizes the electronic healthcare communication.

18. The method according to claim 17, wherein if the sender'"'"'s communications address matches a registered communications address, then automatically categorizing the electronic healthcare communication as (1) data associated with an access agent, (2) data associated with a security agent, (3) data associated a messaging agent, (4) data associated with a transactional agent, (5) data associated with a troubleshooting agent, and (6) data associated with an application agent.

19. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

memory storing code that when executed causes the processor to perform operations, the operations comprising;

establishing a first data connection between a server and a physician office legacy system;

establishing a second data connection between the server and another physician office legacy system;

receiving an electronic communication over the first data connection that is associated with a sender'"'"'s communications address and with a recipient'"'"'s communications address, the electronic communication comprising an attachment that has been formatted according to the physician office legacy system;

comparing the recipient'"'"'s communications address to a list of addresses;

categorizing the sender'"'"'s communications address to a software agent;

determining a match between the recipient'"'"'s communications address and an entry in the list of addresses;

reformatting the electronic communication from a format compatible with the physician office legacy system to another format that is compatible with the another physician office legacy system; and

sending a reformatted electronic communication to the another physician office legacy system at the recipient'"'"'s communications address.

20. A non-transitory computer program product storing processor-executable instructions for performing a method of formatting healthcare information, the method comprising:

establishing a first data connection between a server and a physician office legacy system;

establishing a second data connection between the server and another physician office legacy system;

receiving an electronic communication associated with a sender'"'"'s communications address and with a recipient'"'"'s communications address, the electronic communication comprising an attachment that has been formatted according to the physician office legacy system;

comparing the recipient'"'"'s communications address to a list of addresses;

categorizing the sender'"'"'s communications address to a software agent;

automatically opening the software agent;

when the recipient'"'"'s communications address matches an entry in the list of addresses, then reformatting the electronic communication from a format compatible with the physician office legacy system to another format that is compatible with the another physician office legacy system; and

sending a reformatted electronic communication to the another physician office legacy system at the recipient'"'"'s communications address.