Modular analysis and standardization system

• US 6,754,883 B2
• Filed: 12/11/2000
• Issued: 06/22/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 08/24/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: GE Medical Systems Information Technologies Incorporated (General Electric Company)
• Original Assignee: GE Medical Systems Information Technologies Incorporated (General Electric Company)
• Inventors: DeBusk, Brian C., Cofer, Michael C., Lukens, W. Francis, DeBusk, Elizabeth C., Shanks, Mark W.
• Primary Examiner(s): CHAVIS, JOHN Q
• Application Number:
  US09/735,729
• Publication Number:
  US 20020116300A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,289 Days
• Field of Search: 717/107, 717/120, 705/2, 700/29, 700/30, 700/32, 700/36, 700/28, 706/45
• US Class Current: 717/107
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0875 Itemisation or classification of parts, supplies or services, e.g. bill of materials
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• 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: G16H 70/20 relating to practices or guidelines

Abstract

An information management system produces a standard bill of resources based on bills of resources that include a list of resources to be utilized in performing a procedure. The system includes a general purpose computer system with storage means, processing means, display means, and input means. Information management software installed on the general purpose computer includes node software objects providing a health care information management function, including a clinical pathway node software object, a case management node software object, and a standardization review node software object. The clinical pathway node software object creates clinical pathway module software objects, including resource software objects and container software objects. The standardization review node software object selects bills of resources from a known universe of bills of resources, and develops models corresponding to the selected bills of resources, where the models include values which correspond to a number of units of given resources from the selected bills of resources. The standardization review node software object mathematically manipulates the models to highlight similarities and dissimilarities of defined characteristics in the models, expresses the manipulated models in a format in which a relative position of each of the manipulated models may be determined, where the relative position of each of the manipulated models reflects the degree of similarity or dissimilarity to the other manipulated models, analyzes the selected bills of resources based upon the expression of the manipulated models, and produces the standard bill of resources based on the analysis of the selected bills of resources.

Claims

1. An information management system for producing at least one standard bill of resources based on a plurality of bills of resources, where each of the plurality of bills of resources each include a list of resources to be utilized in performing a procedure, the system comprising:

a general purpose computer system, including;

storage means for storing information related to the plurality of bills of resources;

processing means for processing instructions related to producing the at least one standard bill of resources;

display means for presenting the at least one standard bill of resources in a human perceptible format; and

input means for receiving user input related to producing the at least one standard bill of resources;

information management software executed by the general purpose computer system, including;

node software objects, each providing a health-care information management function, including;

a clinical pathway node software object for selectively creating, managing, and maintaining user-defined, user-configurable clinical pathway module software objects adapted to function with the clinical pathway node software object and representing provider-specific procedural templates of the information related to the bills of resources, the clinical pathway module software objects including;

resource software objects, corresponding to resources to be used in providing health care services, the resources listed in the plurality of bills of resources; and

container software objects for containing software objects having at least one common characteristic;

a case management node software object for selectively creating, managing, and maintaining a user-defined, user-configurable case management module software object adapted to function with the case management node software object from the clinical pathway module software object, the case management module software object representing a selected clinical pathway module software object as modified to reflect a prospective patient-specific case, and containing patient-specific information, and adapted to receive additional patient specific information; and

a bill of resources standardization review node software object for selectively creating, managing, and maintaining at least one user-defined, user-configurable model module software object adapted to function with the bill of resources standardization review node software object and the case management module software object, the model module software object representing the case management module software object as modified by at least the patient-specific information to reflect a historical patient-specific case by;

selecting selected bills of resources from the plurality of bills of resources;

developing models corresponding to the selected bills of resources, the models including values which correspond to a number of units of given resources from the selected bills of resources;

manipulating the models mathematically to highlight similarities and dissimilarities of defined characteristics in the models;

expressing the manipulated models in a format in which a relative position of each of the manipulated models may be determined, the relative position of each of the manipulated models reflecting the degree of similarity or dissimilarity to the other manipulated models;

analyzing the selected bills of resources based upon the expression of the manipulated models; and

producing the at least one standard bill of resources based on the analysis of the selected bills of resources.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the bill of resources standardization review node software object manipulates the models mathematically by:

selecting a number of dimensions in which each manipulated model will be expressed; and

manipulating each model in accordance with a mathematical algorithm such that each manipulated model is expressible in the desired number of dimensions.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the bill of resources standardization review node software object manipulates the models mathematically by:

arranging the manipulated models in a matrix in which each manipulated model occupies a column of the matrix and each different resource occupies a row of the matrix, the number of columns equal to the number of models and the number of rows equal to the total number of different resources present in the bills of resources which are represented by the manipulated models;

selecting a desired dimension for expression of the models; and

performing a matrix manipulation on the matrix according to a mathematical algorithm to reduce the number of rows of the matrix to the selected desired dimension for expression, where the mathematical algorithm is selected to highlight similarities or dissimilarities among the models.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein the matrix manipulation comprises matrix factorization and rank reduction.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein the matrix factorization technique is singular value decomposition.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the bill of resources standardization review node software object selects the selected bills of resources from a group of resources representing the same procedure performed by different persons, and analyzes the selected bills of resources by identifying similarities and dissimilarities of resource utilization among the different persons performing the procedures.

7. The system of claim 6 wherein the bill of resources standardization review node software object produces the at least one standard bill of resources by developing a number of standard bills of resources for the procedure analyzed such that each of the different persons performing the procedure is using one of the standard bills of resources in performing the procedure, the number of standard bills of resources being less than the original number of bills of resources analyzed.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the bills of resources to be analyzed reflect multiple performances of a given procedure by the same person, where differences in the bills of resources reflect different resource utilization among the performances of the procedure, and the bill of resources standardization review node software object analyzes the selected bills of resources by consideration of the deviation in resource utilization among the performances of the procedure.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein the bill of resources standardization review node software object analyzes the selected bills of resources by identifying inefficient deviations among the multiple performances of the given procedure by the same person, and produces the at least one standard bill of resources by developing the at least one standard bill of resources to minimize such deviations in future performances of the procedure by the person.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the selected bills of resources include bills of resources from more than one procedure, and wherein the bill of resources standardization review node software object analyzes the expressed models by identifying standardization opportunities across different procedures.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein the selected bills of resources include partial bills of resources which are limited to only certain types or categories of resources in order to identify standardization opportunities among limited types or categories of resources common to the bills of resources.

12. The system of claim 8 wherein the bill of resources standardization review node software object develops the models of the selected bills of resources by filtering the selected bills of resources such that only certain resources from the bills of resources are included in the models.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the bill of resources standardization review node software object filters the selected bills of resources by the selective retention or exclusion of certain resources or categories of resources.

14. The system of claim 1 wherein the container software objects comprise a plurality of container software object types, each type providing a specific container software object functionality.

15. The system of claim 1 wherein the container software objects comprise:

a user-configurable care event container software object representing a specific health care services care event, the care event container software object functional to contain container software objects and resource software objects related to the specific health care services care event represented by the care event container software object; and

a user-configurable bundle container software object functional to contain resource software objects corresponding to specific related health care resources which would be provided in a group or bundle.

16. The system of claim 1 further comprising data software objects selectively associated with a software object selected from the group consisting of the clinical pathway module software object, the case management module software object, and the container software object, the data software objects suitable for collecting and maintaining information related to the software object with which the data software object is selectively associated.

17. The system of claim 1 further comprising a library node software object for selectively creating, collecting, and organizing reusable, user-defined, user-configurable container software objects and resource software objects for use in the clinical pathway node software object and the case management node software object.

18. An information management system for producing at least one standard bill of resources based on a plurality of bills of resources, where each of the plurality of bills of resources each include a list of resources to be utilized in performing a procedure, the system comprising:

a general purpose computer system, including;

storage means for storing information related to the plurality of bills of resources;

processing means for processing instructions related to producing the at least one standard bill of resources;

display means for presenting the at least one standard bill of resources in a human perceptible format; and

input means for receiving user input related to producing the at least one standard bill of resources;

information management software executed by the general purpose computer system, including;

node software objects, each providing a health-care information management function, including;

a clinical pathway node software object for selectively creating, managing, and maintaining user-defined, user-configurable clinical pathway module software objects adapted to function with the clinical pathway node software object and representing provider-specific procedural templates of the information related to the bills of resources, the clinical pathway module software objects including;

resource software objects, corresponding to resources to be used in providing health care services, the resources listed in the plurality of bills of resources; and

container software objects for containing software objects having at least one common characteristic, wherein the container software objects comprise a plurality of container software object types, each type providing a specific container software object functionality, the container software objects including;

a user-configurable care event container software object representing a specific health care services care event, the care event container software object functional to contain container software objects and resource software objects related to the specific health care services care event represented by the care event container software object; and

a user-configurable bundle container software object functional to contain resource software objects corresponding to specific related health care resources which would be provided in a group or bundle;

a case management node software object for selectively creating, managing, and maintaining a user-defined, user-configurable case management module software object adapted to function with the case management node software object from the clinical pathway module software object, the case management module software object representing a selected clinical pathway module software object as modified to reflect a prospective patient-specific case, and containing patient-specific information, and adapted to receive additional patient specific information;

data software objects selectively associated with a software object selected from the group consisting of the clinical pathway module software object, the case management module software object, and the container software object, the data software objects suitable for collecting and maintaining information related to the software object with which the data software object is selectively associated; and

a bill of resources standardization review node software object for selectively creating, managing, and maintaining at least one user-defined, user-configurable model module software object adapted to function with the bill of resources standardization review node software object and the case management module software object, the model module software object representing the case management module software object as modified by at least the patient-specific information to reflect a historical patient-specific case by;

selecting selected bills of resources from the plurality of bills of resources;

developing models corresponding to the selected bills of resources, the models including values which correspond to a number of units of given resources from the selected bills of resources;

manipulating the models mathematically to highlight similarities and dissimilarities of defined characteristics in the models;

expressing the manipulated models in a format in which a relative position of each of the manipulated models may be determined, the relative position of each of the manipulated models reflecting the degree of similarity or dissimilarity to the other manipulated models;

analyzing the selected bills of resources based upon the expression of the manipulated models; and

producing the at least one standard bill of resources based on the analysis of the selected bills of resources; and

a library node software object for selectively creating, collecting, and organizing reusable, user-defined, user-configurable container software objects and resource software objects for use in the clinical pathway node software object and the case management node software object.