Patent Application
20050114036
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to information sharing and networking, and in particular, to providing centralized management and coordination of the collection, processing and dissemination of sensor-based laboratory specimen data. More particularly, the present invention relates to an improved method and system for managing specimen data reporting, enabling efficient assimilation of and responses to sensor-based data gathered from geographically dispersed laboratories or other specimen collection facilities.
2. Description of the Related Art
The acquisition, management, and utilization of public health information is practiced by an array of private and public healthcare organizations that, in addition to being divided into function-specific entities such as laboratories, infection control clinics, hospitals and other organizations, are deployed from geographically dispersed facilities. As such, a coordinated and secure system for managing public health data is necessary to ensure the level of resource sharing and other cooperation between such facilities that is required to meet public health preparedness objectives such as responding to potential epidemics, bioterrorism, and the like, in a timely and integrated manner.
Current attempts to address the need for health data sharing among geographically dispersed facilities include the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS) and the Health Alert Network (HAN). Both the NEDSS program and the HAN are integrated information management and communications systems providing standardization and uniformity in the distribution of health alerts, dissemination of prevention guidelines and other information, distance learning, national disease surveillance, and electronic laboratory reporting. The HAN, which is being developed as part of the Center for Disease Control's (CDC's) Public Health Emergency Preparedness & Response Program, is designed to facilitate high-speed, secure Internet connections to local health officials; provide access to current recommendations, practice guidelines and disease data from the CDC; provide network capacity for rapid and secure communications with first responder agencies; and provide capacity to securely transmit surveillance, laboratory, and other sensitive public health data. The NEDSS program was initiated as a collaboration of national, state and local agencies, along with allied health profession organizations, as a system to improve public health through enhanced sharing and use of public health information.
As currently implemented, both the NEDSS and HAN programs provide health preparedness data processing and transport functions including standards-based specifications for building a coordinated system for sharing urgent public health care information. To this end, the NEDSS and HAN programs implement information technology specifications relating to “live” networking between public health partners; use of electronic clinical data for event detection and management; and management of specimen and lab result data.
While the: foregoing efforts on the part of NEDSS, HAN and other health information sharing programs have facilitated the development of improved health data sharing network systems, there remains a need for improved processing and network tools including mobile networking means that would provide a reliable and integrated forum for the efficient collection, centralized coordination, and dissemination of sensor-based laboratory specimen data. In the case of natural or man-made chemical or biological threats, for example, an electronic surveillance system that shares sample and specimen data among multiple, geographically dispersed laboratory facilities would be of great benefit to the timely diagnostic assessment and reaction planning to such events. Sharing of data among geographically dispersed laboratory facilities is particularly important in providing lab technicians, researchers and medical personnel extended diagnostic and consultation resources.
From the foregoing, it can be appreciated that a need exists for an improved method, system and computer program product for transportably managing sensor-based specimen data among mutually dispersed specimen collection facilities. The present invention addresses such a need.
A system, method and program product for managing and reporting specimen data among specimen collection facilities are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, a management center receives a specimen report from a client data processing terminal. The report includes a sensor-based specimen description and is processed in accordance with a facility identifier corresponding to the specimen collection facility at which the client terminal is located. The facility-specific processing includes storing the sensor-based specimen description in association with the facility identifier in a network accessible data storage device. In a further aspect, the received specimen report is processed in accordance with a priority level indicator, such that in one embodiment in which the priority level indicator is included with the received report, a user alert signal is triggered in accordance with the level of urgency represented by the priority level indicator.
All objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent in the following detailed written description.
The novel features believed characteristic of the invention are set forth in the appended claims. The invention itself however, as well as a preferred mode of use, further objects and advantages thereof, will best be understood by reference to the following detailed description of an illustrative embodiment when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
The present invention is described in a preferred embodiment in the following description with reference to the figures. While this invention is described in terms of the best mode for achieving this invention's objectives, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that variations may be accomplished in view of these teachings without deviating from the spirit or scope of the present invention.
The present invention is directed to the rapid and secure managed sharing of sensor-based specimen data among geographically dispersed public health facilities, such as laboratories, at which specimen data is collected and maintained. The formulation and processing of sensor-based specimen data reports in accordance with the present invention enable timely and integrated responses by laboratory facilities to public health issues pertaining to specimen analysis images, including patients presenting with symptoms, and particularly relating to analysis of microbiological agents, chemicals, fungi, etc. The present invention provides single point network access to specimen report data, enabling networked specimen collection facilities, such as medical or laboratory research facilities having specimen analysis equipment, to interactively share sensor-based specimen data.
The method and system for managing specimen reporting preferably includes program process means for processing incoming specimen data reports in a manner that correlates the text and sensor-based data contained therein with the capacity and specimen handling capabilities of the networked specimen collection facilities. Laboratory rating standards such as the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) or the like, may be stored within a centralized management center to rate each member specimen collection facility. A specimen report manager employs keyword comparison engines, rule-based algorithms, inference engines, neural networks, and other forms of artificial intelligence or correlation programs to match specimen report content with the collection facility ratings to determine which facilities will receive a given specimen report response.
With reference now to the figures wherein like reference numerals refer to like and corresponding parts throughout, and in particular with reference to
Specimen reporting system 10 further includes a management center 15 comprising hardware, software and firmware processing modules for managing sensor-based specimen data and related alert messages received from client terminals 8a-8c. Management center 15 communicates with client terminals 8a-8c across a wide area network (WAN) 5 using client-server architecture messaging functionality such as that employed by the World Wide Web. Preferred network configurations for WAN 5 include both proprietary or dedicated networks, as well as open networks, such as the Internet. Although depicted separately from specimen collection facilities 2a-2c, management center 15 may be physically deployed from within one or more of specimen collection facilities 2a-2c without departing from the spirit or scope of the present invention.
Client terminals 8a-8c, forming the client side of specimen reporting system 10, are physically deployed from collection facilities 2a-2c, respectively. The specimen collection facilities represented as blocks 2a-2c are individual, geographically dispersed units such as laboratories, hospitals, and other facilities having specimen analysis and image recording devices, and are communicatively connected by known network coupling means to WAN 5. The specimen collection facilities of the present invention may also include one or more mobile data collection units such as a mobile field device 6, which may be a portable radio frequency (RF) interface data entry and processing device carried on a mobile vehicular platform or otherwise. Field device 6 combines data processing and network communication functionality including a hardware and software communication interface for establishing a connection with WAN 5 via a radio area network 13 using any combination of communication technologies including satellite, cellular, private radio network, fiber optic etc., over which specimen data may be transmitted.
In a preferred embodiment, client terminals 8a-8c are interfaced with specimen sensor devices for capturing and recording specimen characteristics such as X-rays, spectrographic images, photographs, etc., and which may be advantageously included in specimen reports delivered to and from the client terminals. The depicted embodiment utilizes digital cameras 4a-4c as the specimen sensors, enabling the capture of video or still images of specimen samples that have been isolated or otherwise suitably prepared using the resident specimen handling equipment.
Messages and data are exchanged between client terminals 8a-8c and management center 15 using any suitable format, such as in accordance with the Internet Protocol (IP), the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), or other known network transmission protocols. Moreover, certain of the data may be transmitted or formatted using markup language files using HyperText Markup Language (HTML), extensible Markup Language (XML), or other standard languages.
Management center 15 preferably includes a network server application 11 (a web server when HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP) is used for messaging) that facilitates client/server messaging and data exchange to and from client terminals 8a-8c, enabling a series of web pages (not depicted) to be viewed via browsers deployed by the client terminals as well as management center 15. In a preferred embodiment, network server 11 and each of client terminals 8a-8c support HTTP and javascript (for client-side modules) and CGI scripts (for server-side modules) applications. Other servers and client side applications, such as browsers, or similar software packages, may be utilized for exchanging data, service requests, messages, and software between the specimen collection and specimen data management processing modules represented as blocks 8a-8c and 15, respectively.
Security over WAN 5 may be implemented using an authentication technique such as Secure Socket Layer (SSL) enabled client/server applications. Firewalls may also be utilized at both the client-side and server-side of specimen reporting system 10 to prevent unauthorized access to data stored at the respective data processing stations. Furthermore, the network connections between client terminals 8a-8c and specimen data manager 15 are preferably established using encryption, encapsulation and other security means to establish a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection across WAN 5. VPN technology is familiar to those skilled in the art as providing end users a means to securely transport information from a terminal or intranet across a public IP network such as the Internet by establishing a secure tunnel using authentication and encryption techniques.
As explained in further detail below, specimen reporting system 10 employs client-side program processing modules within client terminals 8a-8c and complementary server-side processing modules from management center 15 that cooperatively enable the efficient collection, management and dissemination of sensor-based specimen data. Examples of such sensor-based specimen data include digitized photograph or video data providing a visual representation of a laboratory specimen such as pictures of bodily symptoms and microscopically enhanced images of biological agents, colony morphologies, biochemical reactions, etc.
Continuing with
Referring to
Management center 15 further includes program processing means enabling the generation of system-wide responses, referred to herein as “alert reports,” “manager alerts,” or simply “alerts,” to sensor-based and/or text-based specimen data within the specimen reports received from one or more of the collection facilities. The generation and delivery characteristics of “alert reports,” i.e. informational or instructional reports assembled by management center 15 responsive to specimen reports received from collection facilities, are depicted in further detail with reference to
Referring to
In a further aspect of the present invention, user interface 18 and specimen report manager 12 include user interface and program processing means for generating and forwarding manager alerts responsive to data in the received specimen reports. Such manager alerts, alerts_X, alerts_Y and alerts_Z, generated by specimen report manager 12, are delivered by network server 11 to a selected set of recipient facilities and are copied into subdirectories 27a-27c under ALERT HISTORY directory 21 within file system 14. In accordance with the present invention, subdirectories 27a-27c are named in accordance with facility identifiers, FACILITY X, FACILITY Y and FACILITY Z, respectively, identifying the facilities to which the corresponding alerts are delivered. In the manner depicted in
In addition to processing incoming specimen reports in accordance with the sending facility identity, the specimen reporting system of the present further includes data processing and program means for processing incoming specimen reports in accordance with their respective sensor-based and/or text-based content. To this end, and as shown in
Specimen correlation module 23 is used in processing incoming specimen reports to determine relations, particularly epidemiological relations, between different specimen reports. Similar to response prioritization module 16, specimen correlation module 23 may process the sensor-derived and/or text-based specimen report data using keyword-based or rule-based algorithms, inference engines, neural networks, and/or genetic matching algorithms to determine such inter-report relationships which can subsequently be used in formulating and directing responsive report alerts.
Facility correlation module 19 compares specimen report content with pre-stored collection facility data, such as resource descriptions, CLIA ratings, and the like, to determine which facilities will receive a given specimen report response. Similar to modules 16 and 23, facility correlation module 19 may process the sensor-derived and/or text-based specimen report data using keyword-based or rule-based algorithms, inference engines, neural networks, to determine the appropriate recipient facilities.
In addition to the standard devices associated with user I/O, video capture, and network communications, client terminal 8 further includes processing and program instruction modules enabling the processing and delivery of captured specimen images in accordance with the specimen report and alert response procedure detailed herein. Specifically, a specimen manager module 38 includes program instruction means for processing user input entered in strategically formulated associations via user input devices within user interface 35 such that specimen reports may be advantageously generated, delivered to management center 15, and stored locally within permanent storage devices.
Referring now to
Returning to
Referring to
Proceeding as illustrated at step 88, the identity of the specimen collection facility from which the specimen report was received is determined. Determining the identity of the sending facility may be accomplished in a variety of ways. In one embodiment, the specimen report is sent as a network transportable data stream that, in addition to the specimen description data, further includes a facility identifier in the form of a coded data field. In an alternate embodiment, the facility identity is determined by translating network transport information such as the IP address of the sending device. The identification at step 88 is then utilized to select or generate a correct pathname under which the received specimen report will be copied and stored as illustrated at step 90. Although not expressly depicted in the figures herein, the specimen report is preferably stored in association with the priority indicator detected at step 85 such as in the file system structure shown in
Following receipt and processing of the specimen report in accordance with the corresponding facility identifier, a specimen alert may be generated and delivered to selected recipient facilities as illustrated at step 92. Referring to
As part of the alert delivery procedure, and as shown at step 94, the alert message is copied to one or more facility-specific directories such as those depicted in
Referring to
As illustrated at inquiry step 112 and steps 114 and 116, the sending client may optionally engage in a live messaging session with the recipient management center 15 using instant messaging functionality. As part of the instant messaging option of the present invention, the image captured at step 104 may be retrieved and viewed by one or more of the instant messaging participants as shown at step 114. Furthermore, as depicted at step 116, the client may advantageously enable remote control of microscopy/camera equipment via suitable remote interface means and the process concludes as illustrated at step 118. For example, and referring back to
Preferred implementations of the invention include implementations as a computer system programmed to execute the method or methods described herein, and as a program product. According to the computer system implementation, sets of instructions for executing the method and system of the present invention are resident in a storage device such as the ROM or RAM of one or more computer systems. Until required by the computer system, the set of instructions may be stored as a computer-program product in another computer data storage device such as a disk drive which may include a removable storage media such as an optical disk or floppy disk for eventual utilization in the disk drive.
While this invention has been described in terms of several embodiments, it is contemplated that alterations, permutations, and equivalents thereof will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art upon reading this specification in view of the drawings supplied herewith. It is therefore intended that the invention and any claims related thereto include all such alterations, permutations, and equivalents that are encompassed by the spirit and scope of this invention.
