Method, apparatus, and system for aggregating, targeting, and synchronizing health information delivery

• US 20020128871A1
• Filed: 12/05/2001
• Published: 09/12/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 12/07/2000
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Shih, Leo, Weitz, Eliot, Adamson, Dan, Rappaport, Alain T.
• Application Number:
  US10/012,058
• Publication Number:
  US 20020128871A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2471 Distributed queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 70/60 relating to pathologies
• CPC Class Codes: G16Z 99/00 Subject matter not provided for in other main groups of this subclass

Abstract

According to one aspect of the present invention, a method is provided in which a request is submitted to a first node in a network containing multiple nodes, the request containing data relating to a healthcare event associated with a patient. The request is processed at the first node to obtain information from one or more databases associated with the first node, based upon the data contained in the request. The request is also processed at one or more additional nodes in the network to obtain information from one or more additional databases associated with the one or more additional nodes, based upon the data contained in the request. A response to the request is generated based upon an aggregation of information obtained from the first node and the one or more additional nodes.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a request from a requester containing data relating to a healthcare event associated with a patient;

processing the request at one or more processing nodes connected via a computer network to obtain information from one or more databases associated with the one or more processing nodes, based upon the data contained in the request; and

generating a response to the request based upon the information obtained from the one or more databases associated with the one or more processing nodes.

2. The method of claim 1 further including:

delivering the response to the requester.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the data contained in the request include an event type corresponding to the healthcare event.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the data contained in the request include data identifying the requester.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the data contained in the request include data about a medical procedure performed for the patient.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the data about the medical procedure include one or more procedure codes indicating the medical procedure performed for the patient.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the one or more procedure codes include procedure codes according to the Current Procedure Terminology (CPT).

8. The method of claim 6 wherein the one or more procedure codes include procedure codes according to the International Classification of Disease (ICD).

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the data contained in the request include data about the patient including diagnosis information based upon a diagnosis of the patient.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the diagnosis information include one or more diagnosis codes indicating one or more conditions of the patient based upon the diagnosis.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein information obtained from the one or more databases includes one or more data sources, and wherein a data source is referenced by an address corresponding to a location where the respective data source resides.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the address corresponding to the location where the data source resides includes a Uniform Resource Locator (URL).

13. The method of claim 1 wherein the data contained in the request include one or more identifiers each corresponding to a set of parameters that are used for processing the respective request.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein each identifier corresponds to a system object that is used to store the corresponding set of parameters used to process the request.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein processing the request includes:

processing the request at a local processing node which is designated to process requests originated by a particular requesting system associated with the requester.

16. The method of claim 15 further including:

processing the request at one or more remote processing nodes being connected to the local processing node via a computer network.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the processing of the request at the local processing node and the processing of the request at one or more remote processing nodes are performed in parallel.

18. The method of claim 1 wherein processing the request at the one or more processing nodes includes:

searching the one or more databases at the one or more processing nodes to retrieve a list of data sources matching a set of search criteria constructed based upon the data contained in the request.

19. The method of claim 1 wherein generating the response includes:

aggregating the information obtained from the one or more processing nodes to produce the response.

20. A method comprising:

submitting a request to a first node in a network containing multiple nodes, the request containing data relating to a healthcare event associated with a patient;

processing the request at the first node to obtain information from one or more databases associated with the first node, based upon the data contained in the request;

processing the request at one or more additional nodes in the network to obtain information from one or more additional databases associated with the one or more additional nodes, based upon the data contained in the request; and

generating a response to the request based upon an aggregation of information obtained from the first node and the one or more additional nodes.

21. The method of claim 20 further including:

delivering the response to a requester that originates the request.

22. The method of claim 20 wherein the data relating to the healthcare event include an event type and location corresponding to the healthcare event.

23. The method of claim 20 wherein the data relating to the healthcare event include data identifying the requester.

24. The method of claim 20 wherein the data relating to the healthcare event include data about a medical procedure performed for the patient.

25. The method of claim 24 wherein the data about the medical procedure include one or more procedure codes indicating the medical procedure performed for the patient.

26. The method of claim 20 wherein the data relating to the healthcare event include diagnosis information based upon a diagnosis of the patient.

27. The method of claim 26 wherein the diagnosis information include one or more diagnosis codes indicating one or more conditions of the patient based upon the diagnosis.

28. The method of claim 20 wherein the data contained in the request include data corresponding to one or more sets of parameters each being used to control the processing of the respective request.

29. The method of claim 20 wherein processing the request at the first node includes:

determining one or more sets of parameters to be used for processing the request at the first node; and

running one or more search engines associated with the one or more sets of parameters at the first node to retrieve information from the one or more databases associated with the first node.

30. The method of claim 29 wherein the one or more sets of parameters are determined based upon one or more identifiers contained the in the request.

31. The method of claim 29 wherein the one or more sets of parameters are determined based upon the data relating to the healthcare event contained in the request.

32. The method of claim 29 further including:

generating a response based on the information retrieved from the one or more databases associated with the first node.

33. The method of claim 20 wherein processing the request at the one or more additional nodes in the network includes:

sending the request from the first node to a corresponding managing node in the network; and

processing the request at the corresponding managing node to obtain information from one or more databases associated with the managing node.

34. The method of claim 33 wherein processing the request at the corresponding managing node includes:

determining one or more sets of parameters to be used for processing the request at the managing node; and

running one or more search engines associated with the one or more sets of parameters at the managing node to retrieve information from the one or more databases associated with the managing node.

35. The method of claim 34 further including:

identifying, for each set of parameters determined, a corresponding additional node in the network which is configured to handle the processing of the request based on the respective set of parameters; and

for each additional node identified, dispatching a new request to the corresponding additional node, the new request being generated based on the request received at the managing node and including data corresponding to the respective set of parameters.

36. The method of claim 35 further including:

processing the new request at the corresponding additional node in the network to obtain information from one or more databases associated with the corresponding additional node; and

returning the information obtained from the corresponding additional node to the managing node.

37. The method of claim 36 further including:

aggregating information returned from additional nodes at the managing node to generate an aggregated response for the managing node; and

sending the aggregated response to the first node.

38. The method of claim 37 further including:

upon receiving the aggregated response from the managing node, aggregating the response generated at the first node with the aggregated response received from the managing node.

40. The system of claim 39 wherein each request contains a set of data used by the respective processing node to search the one or more associated databases to obtain information in response to the respective request.

41. The system of claim 40 wherein the set of data contained in the respective request includes a first subset of data relating to a healthcare event associated with a patient.

42. The system of claim 41 wherein the first subset of data includes data about a medical procedure performed for the patient.

43. The system of claim 41 wherein the data about the medical procedure include one or more procedure codes corresponding to the medical procedure performed.

44. The system of claim 41 wherein the first subset of data includes the patient'"'"'s diagnosis data.

45. The system of claim 44 wherein the diagnosis data include one or more diagnosis codes corresponding to one or more conditions of the patient.

46. The system of claim 40 wherein the set of data contained in the respective request includes a second subset of data corresponding to one or more sets of parameters used to control the processing of the respective request.

47. The system of claim 46 wherein the data contained in the respective request are used to determine the one or more sets of parameters used to control the processing of the respective request.

48. The system of claim 47 wherein each set of parameters is stored in a corresponding system object.

49. The system of claim 48 wherein the first processing node includes one or more search engines each configured to process requests associated with one or more particular system objects.

50. The system of claim 49 wherein the first processing node includes one or more databases and wherein each search engine is configured to search the one or more databases to obtain information for the respective request, based on the set of parameters associated with the respective request.

51. The system of claim 50 wherein the second processing nodes includes one or more search engines each configured to process requests associated with one or more particular system objects.

52. The system of claim 39 wherein the second processing node is configured to identify and dispatch a new request based upon each request received from the first processing node to a corresponding additional processing node, the corresponding additional processing node being configured to handle the processing of the new request based on one or more particular set of parameters associated with the new request as determined based on data contained in the new request.

53. The system of claim 52 wherein the additional processing node includes one or more search engines and one or more databases, each search engine being configured to search the one or more databases to obtain information for the respective new request received from the second processing node, based upon the set of parameters associated with the respective new request.

54. The system of claim 53 wherein the additional processing node returns a response for the respective new request to the second processing node, the second processing node aggregates the response received from the additional processing node with the response generated by the second processing node and returns the aggregated response to the first processing node.

39. A system comprising:

a first processing node to process requests originated by a first requester to generate a first response for each request based on information obtained from one or more databases associated with the first processing node; and

a second processing node connected to the first processing node, the second processing node to process each request forwarded from the first processing node to generate a second response for each request based on information obtained from one or more databases associated with the second node and to send the second response back to the first processing node,

wherein the first processing node, upon receiving the second response from the second processing node, aggregates the first response and the second response to generate an aggregated response for each respective request.

55. A machine-readable medium comprising instructions which, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations including:

receiving a request from a requester containing data relating to a healthcare event associated with a patient;

processing the request at one or more processing nodes connected via a computer network to obtain information from one or more databases associated with the one or more processing nodes, based upon the data contained in the request; and

generating a response to the request based upon the information obtained from the one or more databases associated with the one or more processing nodes.

56. The machine-readable medium of claim 55 further including:

delivering the response to the requester.

57. The machine-readable medium of claim 56 wherein the data contained in the request include an event type corresponding to the healthcare event.

58. The machine-readable medium of claim 55 wherein the data contained in the request include data identifying the requester.

59. The machine-readable medium of claim 55 wherein the data contained in the request include data about a medical procedure performed for the patient.

60. The machine-readable medium of claim 59 wherein the data about the medical procedure include one or more procedure codes indicating the medical procedure performed for the patient.

61. The machine-readable medium of claim 55 wherein the data contained in the request include data about the patient including diagnosis information based upon a diagnosis of the patient.

62. The machine-readable medium of claim 61 wherein the diagnosis information include one or more diagnosis codes indicating one or more conditions of the patient based upon the diagnosis.

63. The machine-readable medium of claim 55 wherein the data contained in the request include one or more identifiers each corresponding to a set of parameters that are used for processing the respective request.

64. The machine-readable medium of claim 55 wherein processing the request includes:

processing the request at a local processing node which is designated to process requests originated by a particular requesting system associated with the requester.

65. The machine-readable medium of claim 64 further including:

processing the request at one or more remote processing nodes connected to the local processing node via a computer network.

66. The machine-readable medium of claim 65 wherein the processing of the request at the local processing node and the processing of the request at one or more remote processing nodes are performed in parallel.

67. The machine-readable medium of claim 65 wherein processing the request at the one or more processing nodes includes:

searching one or more databases at the one or more processing nodes to retrieve a list of data sources matching a set of search criteria constructed based upon the data contained in the request.

68. The machine-readable medium of claim 55 wherein generating the response includes:

aggregating the information obtained from the one or more processing nodes to produce the response.

70. The machine-readable medium of claim 69 further including:

delivering the response to a requester that originates the request.

71. The machine-readable medium of claim 69 wherein the data relating to the healthcare event include an event type and location corresponding to the healthcare event.

72. The machine-readable medium of claim 69 wherein the data relating to the healthcare event include data about a medical procedure performed for the patient.

73. The machine-readable medium of claim 72 wherein the data about the medical procedure include one or more procedure codes indicating the medical procedure performed for the patient.

74. The machine-readable medium of claim 69 wherein the data relating to the healthcare event include diagnosis information based upon a diagnosis of the patient.

75. The machine-readable medium of claim 74 wherein the diagnosis information include one or more diagnosis codes indicating one or more conditions of the patient based upon the diagnosis.

76. The machine-readable medium of claim 69 wherein the data contained in the request include data corresponding to one or more set of parameters each being used to control the processing of the respective request.

77. The machine-readable medium of claim 76 wherein processing the request at the first node includes:

determining one or more sets of parameters to be used for processing the request at the first node; and

running one or more search engines associated with the one or more sets of parameters at the first node to retrieve information from the one or more databases associated with the first node.

78. The machine-readable medium of claim 77 wherein the one or more sets of parameters are determined based upon one or more identifiers contained the in the request.

79. The machine-readable medium of claim 77 wherein the one or more sets of parameters are determined based upon the data relating to the healthcare event contained in the request.

80. The machine-readable medium of claim 77 further including:

generating a response based on the information retrieved from the one or more databases associated with the first node.

81. The machine-readable medium of claim 69 wherein processing the request at the one or more additional nodes in the network includes:

sending the request from the first node to a corresponding managing node in the network; and

processing the request at the corresponding managing node to obtain information from one or more databases associated with the managing node.

82. The machine-readable medium of claim 81 wherein processing the request at the corresponding managing node includes:

determining one or more sets of parameters to be used for processing the request at the managing node; and

running one or more search engines associated with the one or more sets of parameters at the managing node to retrieve information from the one or more databases associated with the managing node.

83. The machine-readable medium of claim 82 further including:

identifying, for each set of parameters determined, a corresponding additional node in the network which is configured to handle the processing of the request based on the respective set of parameters; and

for each additional node identified, dispatching a new request to the corresponding additional node, the new request being generated based on the request received at the managing node and including data corresponding to the respective set of parameters.

84. The machine-readable medium of claim 83 further including:

processing the new request at the corresponding additional node in the network to obtain information from one or more databases associated with the corresponding additional node; and

returning the information obtained from the corresponding additional node to the managing node.

85. The machine-readable medium of claim 84 further including:

aggregating information returned from additional nodes at the managing node to generate an aggregated response for the managing node; and

sending the aggregated response to the first node.

86. The machine-readable medium of claim 85 further including:

upon receiving the aggregated response from the managing node, aggregating the response generated at the first node with the aggregated response received from the managing node.

69. A machine-readable medium comprising instructions which, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations including:

submitting a request to a first node in a network containing multiple nodes, the request containing data relating to a healthcare event associated with a patient;

processing the request at the first node to obtain information from one or more databases associated with the first node, based upon the data contained in the request;

processing the request at one or more additional nodes in the network to obtain information from one or more additional databases associated with the one or more additional nodes, based upon the data contained in the request; and

generating a response to the request based upon an aggregation of information obtained from the first node and the one or more additional nodes.