Enhanced diagnostics for a telepresence robot

• US 9,974,612 B2
• Filed: 02/13/2014
• Issued: 05/22/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 05/19/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Teladoc Health, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Touch Technologies Incorporated
• Inventors: Pinter, Marco, Wright, Timothy C., Reynolds, H. Neal, Lai, Fuji, Wang, Yulun
• Primary Examiner(s): Wong, Yuen H
• Application Number:
  US14/091,292
• Publication Number:
  US 20140155755A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,559 Days
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 34/10 Computer-aided planning, simulation or modelling of surgical operations
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 34/30 Surgical robots
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0008 Temperature signals
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0013 Medical image data A61B1/00011, A61B6/56, A61B8/56 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0022 Monitoring a patient using a global network, e.g. telephone networks, internet
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0075 by spectroscopy, i.e. measuring spectra, e.g. Raman spectroscopy, infrared absorption spectroscopy A61B5/0071 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0077 Devices for viewing the surface of the body, e.g. camera, magnifying lens
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/015 By temperature mapping of body part
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/02055 Simultaneously evaluating both cardiovascular condition and temperature
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/024 Detecting, measuring or recording pulse rate or heart rate A61B5/0205, A61B5/021 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1128 using image analysis A61B5/1127 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/165 Evaluating the state of mind, e.g. depression, anxiety
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4064 Evaluating the brain A61B5/031, A61B5/369, A61B5/14553 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4809 Sleep detection, i.e. determining whether a subject is asleep or not
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7264 Classification of physiological signals or data, e.g. using neural networks, statistical classifiers, expert systems or fuzzy systems neural networks per se G06N3/00; expert systems per se G06N5/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7275 Determining trends in physiological measurement data; Predicting development of a medical condition based on physiological measurements, e.g. determining a risk factor
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/741 using synthesised speech
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/742 using visual displays A61B5/339 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/746 Alarms related to a physiological condition, e.g. details of setting alarm thresholds or avoiding false alarms alarms per se G08B
• CPC Class Codes: B25J 11/009 Nursing, e.g. carrying sick persons, pushing wheelchairs, distributing drugs
• CPC Class Codes: B25J 9/1689 : Teleoperation
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0038 : by providing the operator with simple or augmented images from one or more cameras located onboard the vehicle, e.g. tele-operation images analyzed by a computer and used for automatic navigation G05D1/0246
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 : for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 : for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 : for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/148 : Interfacing a video terminal to a particular transmission medium, e.g. ISDN

Abstract

A telepresence device may autonomously check patients. The telepresence device may determine the frequency of checking based on whether the patient has a risk factor. The telepresence device may include an image sensor, a thermal camera, a depth sensor, one or more systems for interacting with patients, or the like. The telepresence device may be configured to evaluate the patient'"'"'s condition using the one or more sensors. The telepresence device may measure physiological characteristics using Eulerian video magnification, may detect pallor, fluid level, or fluid color, may detect thermal asymmetry, may determine a psychological state from body position or movement, or the like. The telepresence device may determine whether the patient is experiencing a potentially harmful condition, such as sepsis or stroke, and may trigger an alarm if so. To overcome alarm fatigue, the telepresence device may annoy a care provider until the care provider responds to an alarm.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium including computer-readable instruction code that, when executed, causes a telepresence device to perform operations for autonomously checking a plurality of patients, the operations comprising:

receiving, by a processor, indications of each of the plurality of patients;

receiving, by the processor, medical data, via a communications network, for at least one of the plurality of patients;

determining, by the processor, a frequency of checking each of the plurality of patients with the telepresence device based on the received medical data, wherein checking each of the plurality of patients with the telepresence device includes autonomously moving a camera of the telepresence device to capture a series of images of each of the plurality of patients;

responsive to an instruction from the processor, autonomously moving the camera of the telepresence device to capture a first series of images of at least one of the plurality of patients at a first time;

determining, by the processor, a heart rate of the at least one of the plurality of patients by analyzing the first series of images to detect changes in skin color of the at least one patient captured in the first series of image; and

autonomously moving the camera of the telepresence device to capture at least a second series of images of the at least one of the plurality of patients at a second time after a period of time defined by the determined frequency of checking has elapsed.

2. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises detecting one or more risk factors in the received medical data, and wherein determining the frequency comprises determining the frequency based on the one or more risk factors.

3. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 2, wherein detecting one or more risk factors comprises receiving an indication of a diagnosis requiring more frequent checking.

4. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the medical data includes an indication of the frequency.