Facilitating and tracking clinician-assignment status

• US 9,818,164 B2
• Filed: 09/19/2011
• Issued: 11/14/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/25/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cerner Innovation, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Cerner Innovation, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Nolte, Mark Allen, Mehra, Rajneesh, McIver, Brice, Lim, Terng, Kays, Eric, McCracken, Henri
• Primary Examiner(s): KANAAN, MAROUN P
• Application Number:
  US13/236,339
• Publication Number:
  US 20120253836A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,248 Days
• Field of Search: 705 2, 705 3
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/20 for electronic clinical trials or questionnaires
• 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

Subject matter described herein is related to assigning a healthcare clinician to provide care to a patient. For example, a GUI is provided that includes contextual information relevant to the assignment and that allows a user to electronically create the assignment. Relevant information includes a list of clinicians, a list of patients, and an estimate of the amount of resources required to provide care to a patient. In addition, this disclosure describes tracking the status of a healthcare clinician, such as primary provider, secondary provider, and on-break. Status might be tracked by capturing an image of a display board, which supports clinician barcodes that are movable to desired locations within a depiction of a healthcare facility (e.g., floor plan laid out using barcodes).

Claims

1. A clinician-assignment system comprising:

a set of healthcare-unit barcodes that are attachable to a display board in a physical arrangement that depicts a floor plan of a healthcare unit;

a set of one or more clinician barcodes that are attachable to the display board within the physical arrangement, which depicts the floor plan of the healthcare unit;

a digital camera that records a digital image of the physical arrangement and the set of one or more clinician barcodes, wherein the digital image includes a depiction of the physical arrangement of the set of healthcare-unit barcodes and a depiction of a clinician barcode among the set of healthcare-unit barcodes;

a barcode-reading application that uses a processor to;

scan the clinician barcode to determine that the clinician barcode represents a clinician identifier of the clinician;

determine a position of the clinician barcode in the digital image;

determine that the position of the clinician barcode is proximate to a healthcare-area barcode included among the healthcare-unit barcodes, wherein the healthcare-area barcode represents a patient room included in the healthcare unit; and

a clinician-assignment application that uses a processor to create a clinician-assignment data item that codifies an assignment of the clinician identifier to the patient room, to a patient identifier associated with the patient room, or a combination thereof when the clinician barcode is proximate to the healthcare-area barcode.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein each barcode of the set of healthcare-unit barcodes includes an attachment mechanism for attachment to the display board.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein each barcode of the set of healthcare-unit barcodes includes a magnet that magnetically attaches to the display board.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein each barcode of the set of one or more clinician barcodes includes an attachment mechanism for attachment to the display board.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein each barcode of the set of one or more clinician barcodes includes a magnet that magnetically attaches to the display board.