Patent Application
20100241453
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to techniques for prescribing medication and, more particularly, to techniques for displaying and permitting revision of a potential interaction with a medication under consideration for prescription to a patient.
Various medications may be prescribed to a patient by a physician or other clinician. However, medications may have an unintended adverse impact upon a patient depending upon the interaction of the medication under consideration for prescription to a patient with other medications that are being taken by the patient, with allergies of the patient and/or with other patient conditions, such as the sex, race or gender of the patient or other medically relevant conditions such as obesity, diabetes, etc. In order to avoid complications that may arise due to these interactions, or at least to be aware of the potential interactions in advance of their occurrence such that the patient and the clinician may be appropriately forewarned, it is generally useful to know of potential interactions that may arise as a result of the prescription of a medication to the patient.
The number and variety of potential interactions makes manual identification of all potential interactions quite difficult. As such, electronic systems including, for example, computer applications, have been developed in order to identify potential interactions with respect to a medication that is under consideration for prescription to a patient. Such computer applications generally flag a potential interaction with the clinician being left to ascertain the relevance of the potential interaction since clinicians may not desire to respond in the same fashion to all potential interactions. For example, a clinician may wish to respond to a potential interaction between two medications differently than the clinician would respond to an interaction between a medication and an allergy or other patient condition. Further, the clinical significance of the various potential interactions may vary, thereby further evidencing that a clinician may wish to treat the various potential interactions in different manners. However, computer applications for identifying potential interactions do not generally provide information regarding the type of interaction and/or the clinical significance of a potential interaction in a summary form that is readily available to a clinician. Instead, a clinician may be required to analyze the generally voluminous data that underlies the computer application's identification of one or more potential interactions and to determine from the voluminous data the type of interaction and/or the clinical significance of the potential interaction. This analysis of the underlying data may be relatively extensive and, as such, may dissuade at least some clinicians from attempting to determine further information regarding a potential interaction and, instead, to simply select another medication for prescription to the patient in order to avoid the potential interaction that was previously identified.
In some instances, the underlying data that is analyzed by the computer application to identify one or more potential interactions may be outdated or otherwise incorrect. In this regard, a computer application configured to identify potential interactions with a medication that may be prescribed to a patient may access the patient's record to determine the medications that the patient currently takes, as well as any allergies or other medically relevant conditions of the patient. The computer application may then identify any potential interactions that exist between the medication that may be prescribed to the patient and the patient's other medications, allergies and/or other medically relevant conditions. In some instances, the information accessed by the computer application relating to the patient's other medications, allergies and/or medically relevant conditions may be outdated or otherwise incorrect. As noted above, however, it may be difficult or at least laborious for a clinician to locate and review the data, such as the patient's prior medications, allergies or other medically relevant conditions, that is relied upon by the computer application in order to identify potential interactions. Moreover, in the instance in which the underlying patient data is outdated or otherwise incorrect, it may also be difficult or at least laborious to attempt to correct the patient data to obtain a more accurate reflection of any potential interactions.
As such, it would be desirable to provide an improved technique for identifying potential interactions with a medication under consideration for prescription to a patient. In this regard, it would be desirable to provide an improved technique for identifying potential interactions with a medication under consideration for prescription to a patient with sufficient information for a clinician to readily determine the clinical significance of any potential interaction and to facilitate correction of any outdated or otherwise incorrect patient data underlying the identification of potential interactions.
A method, apparatus and computer program product are therefore provided according to embodiments of the present invention for displaying and permitting revision of a potential interaction with a medication under consideration for prescription to a patient. In this regard, an embodiment of the method, apparatus and computer program product not only indicates a potential interaction, but also indicates the type of potential interaction and the severity of the potential interaction such that the clinical significance of a potential interaction may be readily determined. Further, embodiments of the method, apparatus and computer program product may be particularly configured to permit changes in the underlying patient data, such as changes in other medications, allergies or other medically relevant conditions of the patient, to be entered such that the potential interactions may be appropriately revised.
According to one embodiment, a method of displaying and permitting revision of a potential interaction is provided. In this regard, the method includes identifying one or more potential interactions between a medication and one or more of a different medication, an allergy or a patient condition. The method may then display the potential interactions including an indication of the type of potential interaction and the severity of the potential interaction. As such, a clinician can readily determine information regarding a potential interaction including its type and its severity in order to correspondingly determine the clinical significance of the potential interaction. Along with the display of the potential interactions, the method may provide, via a processor, an input mechanism associated with the display of each potential interaction to receive user input indicative of a change in one or more of the different medication, the allergy or the patient condition. Based upon this change, the potential interactions may be revised. As such, the underlying patient data may be readily updated or otherwise corrected such that the potential interactions that have been identified may be correspondingly revised based upon any change in the underlying patient data.
In one embodiment, the provision of the input mechanism may include providing an input mechanism associated with the display of the potential interaction between the medication and the different medications with the input mechanism being configured, upon selection, to indicate that the different medication has been discontinued. The provision of the input mechanism may also alternatively include providing an input mechanism associated with the display of the potential interaction between the medication and the allergy with the input mechanism being configured, upon selection, to indicate that the allergy is no longer active. The provision of the input mechanism may also or alternatively include providing an input mechanism associated with the display of the potential interaction between the medication and the patient condition with the input mechanism being configured, upon selection, to indicate that the patient condition is no longer active.
In displaying the potential interactions in accordance with one embodiment, the method may separately display the potential interactions between the medication and one or more different medications, between the medication and one or more allergies and between the medication and one or more patient conditions. Further, the method of this embodiment may separately indicate the severity of each different type of potential interaction. In addition to displaying the potential interactions, the medication under consideration for prescription to the patient may also be displayed along with an associated input mechanism to receive user input indicative of a change in the medication, such as in response to one or more clinically significant potential interactions.
Prior to identifying potential interactions with a medication under consideration for prescription to patient, the method of one embodiment receives an identification of a patient and of the medication that is under consideration. Based upon the identification of the patient, the method of this embodiment may determine any different medication, allergy or other patient condition associated with the patient such that any potential interactions may thereafter be identified.
An apparatus and a computer program product are also provided according to other embodiments of the present invention for displaying and permitting revision of a potential interaction. In this regard, the apparatus may include a processor configured to identify one or more potential interactions, provide for a display of the potential interactions including indications of the type and severity of the potential interactions, provide an input mechanism associated with the display of each potential interaction to receive user input indicative of a change in the underlying patient data, and revise the potential interactions based upon the change in the underlying patient data. In another embodiment, a computer program product is provided for displaying and permitting revision of a potential interaction with the computer program product. The computer program product includes at least one computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable program instructions stored therein. The computer-executable program instructions include program instructions configured to identify one or more potential interactions, program instructions configured to provide for a display of the potential interactions including indications of the type and severity of the potential interaction, program instructions configured to provide an input mechanism associated with a display of each potential interaction to receive user input indicative of a change in the underlying patient data and program instructions configured to revise the potential interaction based upon the change in the underlying patient data.
Having thus described the invention in general terms, reference will now be made to the accompanying drawings, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, and wherein:
The present invention now will be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which some, but not all embodiments of the inventions are shown. Indeed, these inventions may be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will satisfy applicable legal requirements. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout.
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to a method, apparatus and computer program product for displaying and permitting revision of a potential interaction between a medication under consideration for prescription to a patient (referenced herein as the “medication under consideration”) and a different medication, an allergy and/or a patient condition. In this regard, potential interactions may exist between two or more drugs, one being the medication under consideration and the other having been previously prescribed to or is otherwise being taken by the patient. Additionally, potential interactions may exist between a medication under consideration and an allergy of the patient, such as an allergy to penicillin or the like. Still further, potential interactions may exist between a medication under consideration and one or more conditions of the patient, such as the patient's age, race, or gender, as well as medically relevant conditions, such as obesity, diabetes or other prior and ongoing medical conditions.
In accordance with one embodiment, the display and permissive revision of potential interactions is implemented by means of a computing device 10. The computing device may be implemented in various fashions including a dedicated processor, a personal computer, a workstation or any other type of appropriately configured processor. For purposes of example, however, the computing device in one embodiment is depicted in
The processor 14 may be embodied in a number of different ways. For example, the processor may be embodied as a processing element, a coprocessor, a controller or various other processing means or devices including integrated circuits such as, for example, an ASIC (application specific integrated circuit) or FPGA (field-programmable gate array) or combinations thereof. In an exemplary embodiment, the processor may be specifically configured to execute instructions stored in the memory device 20 or otherwise accessible to the processor. As such, whether configured by hardware or software methods, or by a combination thereof, the processor may represent an entity capable of performing operations according to embodiments of the present invention while configured accordingly. Thus, for example, when the processor is embodied as an ASIC, FPGA or the like, the processor may be specifically configured hardware for conducting the operations described herein. Alternatively, as another example, when the processor is embodied as an executor of software instructions, the instructions specifically configure the processor to perform the algorithms and operations described herein.
The user interface 16 may be in communication with the processor 14 to receive an indication of a user input at the user interface and/or to provide an audible, visual, mechanical or other output to the user. As such, the user interface may include, for example, a keyboard, a mouse, a joystick, a trackball, a microphone, a speaker, or other input/output mechanisms. As noted above, the computing device 10 may also include a display 18 to present information to a user and, in some embodiments, to serve as a graphical user interface via which user input is provided to the computing device, such that the display may also comprise at least a portion of the user interface.
In operation, the processor 14 may configure the display 18 to serve as a graphical user interface via which a user can provide input and via which information regarding a potential interaction may be presented. As indicated by operation 30 of
As shown in operation 34 of
In instances in which the processor 14 does not determine any potential interactions of a respective type, the selection element representative of the respective type of potential interaction may still be displayed, albeit with an indication, e.g., not applicable (N/A), that no potential interactions of the respective type have been identified. However, in instances in which the processor does identify a potential interaction of a respective type, the selection element of the respective type is displayed along with an indication of the severity of the potential interaction. While the severity may be indicated in various manners, the severity of each different type of potential interaction may be indicated as either low, medium (med) or high and, in one embodiment, the respective selection elements may be labeled and appropriately color-coded, shaded or otherwise depicted in a manner representative and unique to the severity of the respective type of potential interaction.
In instances in which several potential interactions of the same type are identified relative to the medication in question, the processor 14 may define the severity of the respective type of potential interaction to be equal to the most severe of the potential interactions of the respective type. For example, if three potential interactions of a respective type were identified relative to the medication under consideration with a first one of the potential interactions having a low severity, a second one of the potential interactions having a medium severity and a third one of the potential interactions having a high severity, the severity associated with the selection element representative of the respective type of potential interaction may be defined to be high, that is, equal to the most severe of the potential interactions of the respective type.
In order to obtain further information regarding the different types of potential interactions, a user can actuate the selection element representative of the respective type of potential interaction. As shown in
In accordance with embodiments of the present invention, the processor 14 may direct the display 18 to present a graphical user interface having an input mechanism associated with the display of each potential interaction to receive user input indicative of a change relevant to the potential interaction. See operation 38 of
Based upon this change, the processor 14 can then again determine the potential interactions that may occur in response to the medication under consideration. As shown in
In addition to or instead of discontinuing one or more of the other medications in order to avoid a potential interaction with the medication under consideration, the medication under consideration may be changed, either by changing the medication itself or by changing its dosage, form of administration or the like in an effort to address the potential interactions. As shown in
The processor 14 may also direct the display 18 to present a graphical user interface having a variety of additional or different information depending upon the preferences of, for example, the clinician. As shown in
As illustrated above in
Similarly, as shown in
As such, a user, such as a clinician, is able to readily and intuitively update a patient's record such that the data upon which the processor 14 relies to determine the potential interaction is current and accurate and the resulting potential interactions are therefore reliable and of a high quality. Moreover, embodiments of the method, apparatus and computer program product of the present invention permit the patient data that was relied upon by the processor to identify one or more potential interactions, to be updated or otherwise changed in a straightforward manner, such as by means of a single click in one embodiment.
Accordingly, blocks or steps of the flowchart support combinations of means for performing the specified functions, combinations of steps for performing the specified functions and program instruction means for performing the specified functions. It will also be understood that one or more blocks or steps of the flowchart, and combinations of blocks or steps in the flowchart, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based computer systems which perform the specified functions or steps, or combinations of special purpose hardware and computer instructions.
Many modifications and other embodiments of the inventions set forth herein will come to mind to one skilled in the art to which these inventions pertain having the benefit of the teachings presented in the foregoing descriptions and the associated drawings. Therefore, it is to be understood that the inventions are not to be limited to the specific embodiments disclosed and that modifications and other embodiments are intended to be included within the scope of the appended claims. Although specific terms are employed herein, they are used in a generic and descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation.
