Methods, systems and computer program products for aggregating medical information

• US 9,984,214 B2
• Filed: 02/07/2014
• Issued: 05/29/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 10/17/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Craine, Ari, Reeves, Jonathan, Tischer, Steven
• Primary Examiner(s): Eastwood, David C
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hough, Jessandra
• Application Number:
  US14/175,060
• Publication Number:
  US 20140156301A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,572 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/63 for local operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/80 for detecting, monitoring or modelling epidemics or pandemics, e.g. flu

Abstract

A method of aggregating medical information can include receiving, at a remote aggregation system, individual syndromes collected by mobile personal medical devices associated with respective bodies as the mobile personal medical devices move within an environment, aggregating the individual syndromes at the remote aggregation system, and determining whether an environmental syndrome exists for at least some of the individual syndromes. Related systems and computer program products are also disclosed.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a remote aggregation system including a processing system including a processor, individual syndromes collected by mobile personal medical devices associated with bodies, respectively, wherein the individual syndromes comprise medical information measured within the respective bodies by the mobile personal medical devices, respectively;

aggregating, by the remote aggregation system, the individual syndromes by comparing the individual syndromes to determine whether a similarity exists between the individual syndromes;

receiving, by the remote aggregation system, movement information from the mobile personal medical devices;

receiving, by the remote aggregation system, proximity information from the mobile personal medical devices, wherein the proximity information identifies groups of the mobile personal medical devices that have been in proximity to each other;

determining whether an environmental syndrome exists for a plurality of the individual syndromes based on the movement information, the proximity information and a determination that the similarity exists between the individual syndromes;

transmitting an alert to the mobile personal medical devices; and

transmitting the alert to a target mobile personal medical device that did not collect one of the individual syndromes.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the mobile personal medical devices are implanted within the respective bodies and configured to measure parameters within the respective bodies to provide the medical information.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving of the individual syndromes comprises receiving the individual syndromes with identifiers, respectively, that each identify one of the mobile personal medical devices from which the one of the individual syndromes was received, respectively.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

accessing a persistent long-term storage device to retrieve historical medical information associated with one of the bodies using one of the identifiers that identifies the one of the mobile personal medical devices associated with the one of the bodies.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

transmitting a broadcast message including respective keys obtained from the persistent long-term storage device to other mobile personal medical devices to enable transmission of the medical information from the other mobile personal medical devices to the remote aggregation system.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the environmental syndrome comprises one of a plurality of hierarchically related environments, and further comprising:

forwarding selected ones of the individual syndromes to a higher level aggregation system responsive to determining that the selected ones of the individual syndromes match a predetermined criteria.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

transmitting a broadcast message to other mobile personal medical devices to enable transmission of the medical information to the remote aggregation system.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the other mobile personal medical devices are identified based on the proximity information relative to the mobile personal medical devices.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the mobile personal medical devices comprise cell phones.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining of whether an environmental syndrome exists comprises:

determining a number of the individual syndromes that match a predetermined environmental threshold, wherein the mobile personal medical devices comprise cellular telephones, and wherein the medical information measured within the respective bodies is measured by sensors implanted in the respective bodies that wirelessly transmit the medical information to the mobile personal medical devices.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising transmitting an update message to other mobile personal medical devices to record a syndrome event.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving environmental information at the remote aggregation system from a source other than by the mobile personal medical devices.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the medical information measured within the respective bodies is transmitted amongst the mobile personal medical devices.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the individual syndromes collected by the mobile personal medical devices are collected by sensors configured to communicate with the mobile personal medical devices as the mobile personal medical devices become proximate to the sensors.

15. A system comprising:

a memory comprising machine-readable program code; and

a processing system including a processor circuit coupled to the memory and configured to execute the machine-readable program code to facilitate performance of operations the operations comprising;

receiving individual syndromes collected by mobile personal medical devices associated with bodies, respectively, to aggregate the individual syndromes, wherein the individual syndromes collected by the mobile personal medical devices are collected by sensors configured to communicate with the mobile personal medical devices as the mobile personal medical devices become proximate to the sensors;

receiving movement information from the mobile personal medical devices;

receiving proximity information from the mobile personal medical devices, wherein the proximity information identifies groups of the mobile personal medical devices that have been in proximity to each other;

comparing the individual syndromes to determine whether a similarity exists between the individual syndromes;

determining whether an environmental syndrome exists for a plurality of the individual syndromes based on the movement information, the proximity information and a determination that the similarity exists between the individual syndromes, wherein the individual syndromes comprise medical information measured within the respective bodies by the mobile personal medical device devices, respectively; and

transmitting a broadcast message to other mobile personal medical devices to enable transmission of the medical information to the processor circuit.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the environmental syndrome comprises one of a plurality of hierarchically related environments, wherein the processor circuit forwards selected ones of the individual syndromes to a higher level aggregation system responsive to determining that the selected ones of the individual syndromes match at least one predetermined criteria.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving the individual syndromes with identifiers, respectively, that each identify one of the mobile personal medical devices from which the one of the individual syndromes was received, respectively;

accessing a persistent long-term storage device to retrieve historical medical information associated with one of the bodies using one of the identifiers that identifies the one of the mobile personal medical devices associated with the one of the bodies; and

transmitting a broadcast message including respective keys obtained from the persistent long-term storage device to other mobile personal medical devices to enable transmission of the medical information from the other mobile personal medical devices to the processor circuit.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the other mobile personal medical devices are identified based on the proximity information relative to one of the mobile personal medical devices from which the individual syndromes have been collected.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving the individual syndromes with identifiers, respectively, that each identify one of the mobile personal medical devices from which the one of the individual syndromes was received, respectively; and

accessing a persistent long-term storage device to retrieve historical medical information associated with one of the bodies using one of the identifiers that identifies the one of the mobile personal medical devices associated with the one of the bodies.

20. A computer program product for aggregating medical information, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory, machine-readable medium comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processing system including a processor, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising:

computer readable program code configured to receive individual syndromes collected by mobile personal medical devices associated with bodies, respectively, wherein the individual syndromes comprise medical information measured within the respective bodies by the mobile personal medical devices, respectively;

computer readable program code configured to receive movement information from the mobile personal medical devices;

computer readable program code configured to receive proximity information from the mobile personal medical devices, wherein the proximity information identifies groups of the mobile personal medical devices that have been in proximity to each other;

computer readable program code configured to access a persistent long-term storage device to retrieve historical medical information associated with one of the bodies using an identifier that is received with the individual syndromes, wherein the identifier identifies one of the mobile personal medical devices associated with the one of the bodies;

computer readable program code configured to aggregate the individual syndromes by comparing the individual syndromes to determine whether a similarity exists between the individual syndromes; and

computer readable program code configured to determine whether an environmental syndrome exists for a plurality of the individual syndromes based on the movement information, the proximity information and a determination that the similarity exists between the individual syndromes.