Systems and methods for manipulating medical data via a decision support system

• US 7,213,009 B2
• Filed: 09/09/2003
• Issued: 05/01/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/21/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: TheraDoc, Inc. (Premier Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: TheraDoc, Inc. (Premier Incorporated)
• Inventors: Lu, Bo, Pestotnik, Stanley L., Harty, William F. III, Boekweg, Richard J., Skolnick, Mark H., Olson, Jonathan B., Sande, Merle A., Baza, Michael E., Rubin, Michael A., Samore, Matthew H., Tettelbach, William H., Eardley, David D., Stults, Barry M., Evans, R. Scott
• Primary Examiner(s): Starks, Jr.; Wilbert
• Application Number:
  US10/658,998
• Publication Number:
  US 20040260666A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,330 Days
• Field of Search: 706/46, 434/363, 600/483
• US Class Current: 706/46
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/20 for electronic clinical trials or questionnaires
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 20/00 ICT specially adapted for therapies or health-improving plans, e.g. for handling prescriptions, for steering therapy or for monitoring patient compliance
• 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: G16H 80/00 ICT specially adapted for facilitating communication between medical practitioners or patients, e.g. for collaborative diagnosis, therapy or health monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: Y02A 90/10 Information and communication technologies [ICT] supporting adaptation to climate change, e.g. for weather forecasting or climate simulation

Abstract

Disclosed is a method for delivering decision-supported patient data to a clinician to aid the clinician with the diagnosis and treatment of a medical condition. The method including presenting a patient with questions generated by a decision-support module and gathering patient data indicative of the responses to the questions. Each question presented to the patient is based upon the prior questions presented to and the patient data gathered from the patient. Upon receiving the patient data from the client module, evaluating the patient data at the module to generate decision-supported patient data, this supported patient data includes medical condition diagnoses, pertinent medical parameters for the medical condition, and medical care recommendations for the medical condition. At the client module or a clinician'"'"'s client module, presenting the clinician with this patient data in either a standardized format associated with a progress note or a format selected by the clinician.

Claims

1. In a decision-support system having a decision-support module, having a knowledge base of medical conditions, diagnostic criteria, and treatments, that communicates with at least one client module adapted to aid with collecting patient data from a patient, a method for delivering decision-supported patient data to a clinician to aid the clinician with the diagnosis and treatment of a medical condition, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) at a client module remote from a decision-support module, presenting a patient with a plurality of questions generated by the decision-support module and gathering patient data indicative of a plurality of responses to the plurality of questions from the patient, wherein each question presented to the patient is based upon the prior questions presented to and the patient data gathered from the patient;

(b) upon receiving the patient data from the client module, evaluating the patient data at the decision-support module to generate decision-supported patient data, the decision-supported patient data comprising a medical condition diagnosis of the patient, pertinent medical parameters associated with the medical condition, and one or more medical care recommendations for the medical condition; and

(c) at either the client module or another client module specific to the clinician, presenting the clinician with the decision-supported patient data specific to the patient in either a standardized format associated with a progress note or a format selected by the clinician that assists the clinician in treating the patient.

2. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising the step of transmitting the decision-supported patient data to a user module.

3. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the format of the decision-supported patient data is a decision-supported progress note.

4. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising the step of tracking the success of the one or more medical care recommendations in treating the patient'"'"'s medical condition identified through the decision-supported patient data.

5. A method as recited in claim 4, further comprising the step of delivering data indicating the success of the one or more medical care recommendations to a third party.

6. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising the step of requesting patient data by querying one or more ancillary modules.

7. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising the step of broadcasting the patient data to the clinician.

8. A method as recited in claim 7, wherein the step of broadcasting patient data comprises broadcasting patient data containing at least one alert to the clinician upon the occurrence of an alert event.

9. A method as recited in claim 7, wherein the step of broadcasting patient data comprises broadcasting patient data following a defined schedule.

10. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the evaluating step comprises evaluating the patient data against patient data stored in a patient module.

11. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the gathering step comprising the step of gathering patient data via a user interface, the user interface comprising at least one of a graphical user interface, an interactive user interface, a voice recognition user interface or a textual user interface.

12. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the step of presenting the patient with a question comprises the steps of:

(a) asking a question, of the plurality of questions, related to the patient'"'"'s health;

(b) following receiving at least one answer to the question and generating at least one additional question based upon the at least one answer, presenting the at least one additional question to the patient.

13. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the format of the decision-supported patient data is either summarized decision-supported patient data or a decision-supported progress note.

14. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing the steps recited in claim 1.

15. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the evaluating step comprises:

(a) collecting medical condition information;

(b) collecting a clinical classification of the medical condition;

(c) collecting data representative of one or more causes of the medical condition;

(d) collecting susceptibilities of the medical condition if the one or more causes of the medical condition is organism specific;

(e) collecting mitigating factors based on the one or more causes of the medical condition; and

(f) evaluating the medical condition, the clinical classification, the one or more causes, the susceptibilities, and the mitigating factors to generate decision-supported patient data.

16. A method as recited in claim 15, wherein the generating step comprising generating at least one additional question based upon the at least one answer and the data stored in the knowledge base.

17. A method as recited in claim 15, further comprising:

(a) collecting a patient'"'"'s genetic and/or environmental susceptibility to disease; and

(b) collecting genetic variations of the patient to the patient'"'"'s drug metabolizing enzymes.

18. A method as recited in claim 15, further comprising the step of collecting the patient'"'"'s susceptibilities and predispositions for long term risk based upon the patient'"'"'s family history and patient data associated with one or more relatives of the patient.

19. A method as recited in claim 15, further comprising the step of collecting patient data from genetic tests to evaluate the medical condition to generate the at least one medical recommendation.

20. A method as recited in claim 19, wherein at least one recommendation comprises at least one of (i) drug selection, (ii) drug duration, (iii) drug route, (iv) drug interval, (v) drug usage, and (vi) daily cost.

21. A method as recited in claim 15, further comprising the step of collecting patient data from pharmacogenomics data to generate at least one medical recommendation.

22. In a decision-support system having a decision-support module, having a knowledge base of medical conditions, diagnostic criteria, and treatments, that communicates with at least one client module adapted to aid with collecting patient data from a patient, a method for delivering a decision-supported progress note to a clinician to aid the clinician with the diagnosis and treatment of a medical condition, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) upon delivering patient data to the decision-support module following a question/answer interaction between the patient and the client module, where the patient data is indicative of the responses to the question presented to the patient, evaluating the received patient data with the data stored in the knowledge base to generate data indicative of a decision-supported progress note having either a standardized format associated with a progress note or a format selected by the clinician that assists the clinician in treating the patient; and

(b) delivering the data indicative of a decision-supported progress note to at least one client module to present at least one of the clinician and the patient with the decision-supported progress note in a format that assists the clinician in treating the patient.

23. A method as recited in claim 22, further comprising the step of transmitting the decision-supported progress note to a mobile client module.

24. A method as recited in claim 22, further comprising the step of displaying at least one referral to at least one another clinician in the decision-supported progress note.

25. A method as recited in claim 22, wherein the question/answer interaction comprises the steps of:

(a) asking at least one question related to the patient'"'"'s health;

(b) receiving at least one answer to the at least one question;

(c) generating at least one additional question based upon the at least one answer.

26. A method as recited in claim 22, further comprising a step of authorizing at least one medical care recommendation based upon the decision-supported progress note.

27. A method as recited in claim 26, further comprising a step of generating at least one billing code and at least one authorization documentation for at least one medical care recommendation associated with the decision-supported progress note.

28. A method as recited in claim 22, further comprising collecting at least one of (i) genetic data and family history from the patient and (ii) pharmacogenomic data related to the patient.

29. A method as recited in claim 22, further comprising a step of using one or more rules to generate decision-supported patient data, associated with the decision-supported progress note, based upon the patient data stored at the decision-support module and patient data newly gathered from the client module.

30. A method as recited in claim 22, further comprising a step of authorizing at least one referral based upon evaluating the patient data.

31. A method as recited in claim 30, further comprising the step of delivering the at least one referral to a third party insurance provider.

32. A method as recited in claim 22, wherein the step of delivering comprises delivering the decision-supported progress note to at least one of:

(i) a mobile information device;

(ii) a third party; and

(iii) a clinician'"'"'s assistant.

33. A method as recited in claim 32, wherein the decision-supported progress note comprises at least one of:

(i) a medical condition diagnosis;

(ii) at least one medical care recommendation; and

(iii) at least one alert.

34. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing the steps recited in claim 22.

35. In a decision-support system having a decision-support module, having a knowledge base of medical conditions, diagnostic criteria, and treatments, that communicates with at least one client module, a method for delivering decision-supported patient data to a clinician to aid the clinician with the diagnosis and treatment of a medical condition, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving patient data from the at least one client module remote from the decision-support module, the patient data being gathered from a patient in response to a decision-supported questionnaire generated by the decision-support module based upon questions presented to the patient, responses to the presented questions, and the knowledge base;

(b) evaluating the patient data with the knowledge base of the decision-support module to generate decision-supported patient data for the patient, the decision-supported patient data comprising a medical condition diagnosis of the patient, pertinent medical parameters associated with the medical condition, and one or more medical care recommendations; and

(c) delivering the decision-supported patient data to a user module for presenting the clinician with the decision-supported patient data specific to the patient in either a standardized format associated with a progress note or a format selected by the clinician that assists the clinician in treating the patient.

36. A decision-support system, comprising:

(a) a decision-support module configured to generate decision-supported patient data specific to each patient that a clinician is to examine in a defined period, the decision-support module comprising;

(i) a knowledge module storing data representative of expert knowledge within at least one medical field;

(ii) a patient module configured to store patient data; and

(iii) an inference module communicating with the knowledge module and the patient module, the inference module being configured to generate a decision-supported progress note; and

(b) a client module in communication with the decision-support module and adapted to present the decision-supported progress note to the clinician in a configuration that assists the clinician in treating each patient.