Patent Application
20150193584
Not Applicable
Not Applicable
1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the invention relates to clinical informatics and a clinical informatics platform for health care. Example embodiments of the present invention include receiving real-time updates of the status in medical procedures and creating a timeline of the entire process.
2. Background
Thousands of medical diagnoses and procedures are performed in hospitals and urgent care centers daily. Many of those procedures have a vastly improved success rate when tasks are performed expeditiously. An example of this is a patient that is diagnosed with an ischemic stroke and may be a candidate for tPA treatment; such treatment must be administered generally within 3 hours of the onset of symptoms, therefore speed of completing the required tasks of patient admitting, testing, and diagnosis is critical to the treatment and probable success of patient recovery. Another example of critical timing in patient care is cardiac catheterization. Again, managing and reducing the time from diagnosis to treatment is directly related to increased recovery rates.
Another key component in the timeline of clinical procedures is the end result, or “scoring”, meaning the average time it takes from admission to final task. The faster time, or more efficient total time relates directly to improved patient care, and provides a metric for a healthcare organization to improve, and a metric for insurance companies, government health organizations, and patients.
A variety of computer-based solutions have been developed to assist clinicians in the care of patients. Such solutions provide clinicians diagnostic information and allow clinicians to manage patient activities. However, many of these solutions have not been well constructed. In particular, some solutions present too much information to the clinician, forcing the clinician to sift through the data to find desired information. This can be a time-consuming process for clinicians. As a result, many clinicians resort to a manual process of recording the most vital patient information, for example, on a note card that they carry around with them.
Additionally, above-mentioned systems do not promote real-time communication of the status of medical procedures. Typical systems consist of hand-written notes taken by the medical personnel during the procedure, which are then entered into a computer system later in the day.
To increase the efficiency of multiple step procedures, real-time communication is needed to provide alerts and notifications, and reduce the lag time between tasks in a procedure. Thus, there is a need in the art for a system of intra-clinic communication that would deliver real-time status updates. Specifically, there is a need for a system that is able to inform clinic personnel what steps are in process during a medical procedure. It is to these ends that the present invention has been developed.
Portable Computing Device, Mobile Computing Device, Mobile Communications Device: Mobile computing is a form of human-computer interaction by which a computer is expected to be transported during normal usage. Portable Computing Device, Mobile Computing Device, and Mobile Communications Device shall have the same meaning in the specifications and claims. Mobile computing has three aspects: mobile communication, mobile hardware, and mobile software. The first aspect addresses communication issues in ad-hoc and infrastructure networks as well as communication properties, protocols, data formats and concrete technologies. The second aspect is on the hardware, e.g., mobile devices or device components. The third aspect deals with the characteristics and requirements of mobile applications.
Many types of mobile computers have been introduced since the 1990s including the:
Mobile Computing Device or Mobile Communications Device: For the purposes of this document, “mobile computing device” or “mobile communications device” shall mean any remote device that is portable and has either phone, computing, or internet access capability, including but not limited to: a smartphone, or any mobile, cellular, PDA, or portable device or portable computing device as previously defined.
Augmented Reality Devices: Augmented reality (AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented (or supplemented) by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one's current perception of reality. By contrast, virtual reality replaces the real world with a simulated one. Augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements, such as sports scores on TV during a match. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally manipulable. Artificial information about the environment and its objects can be overlaid on the real world.
Speech Recognition Devices: In computer science, speech recognition (SR) is the translation of spoken words into text. It is also known as “automatic speech recognition”, “ASR”, “computer speech recognition”, “speech to text”, or just “STT”.
Voice Actions are a series of spoken commands that a computing device using voice
Motion Sensing Devices: Motion detection is the process of detecting a change in position of an object relative to its surroundings or the change in the surroundings relative to an object. Motion detection can be achieved by both mechanical and electronic methods. When motion detection is accomplished by natural organisms, it is called motion perception.
Motion can be detected by:
Optical Head-Mounted Display (OHMD): Optical head-mounted display (OHMD) is a wearable display that has the capability of reflecting projected images as well as allowing the user to optically see-through it. Head Mounted Displays have been used in various forms to assist surgeons and other medical personnel to support and improve visualization of the work site. Historically, many of these were of inadequate resolution, bulky, cave-like and heavy and they, deservedly, received limited acceptance. Recent availability of high-resolution displays, lighter structures and the various see-though designs that merge both real world and registered synthetic imagery have significantly increased the benefits of these devices for the medical community.
A Gesture is a touch or movement on a computing or mobile device that operates as commands to the device or to software on the device. On touchscreen displays, multi-touch refers to the ability to simultaneously register three or more distinct positions of input touches. It is often used to describe other, more limited implementations, like Gesture-Enhanced Single-Touch, Dual-Touch or real Multi-Touch. The interaction of touch and movement on surfaces is a function on electronic visual displays and touchpad pointing devices to interact with content. It is an intermediary connection and detection method from hardware to computer software, to enact a user's intention.
Air Gestures: An Air Gesture is similar to a Gesture as defined above, except that there is no contact required on a touch screen display on a mobile device. An Air Gesture is able to use a screen on a mobile device or portable computing device without direct contact, and can perform all of the same functions performed by Gestures.
Voice Actions are a series of spoken commands that lets a user control a computing device using his voice
Java Script: JavaScript (JS) is an interpreted computer programming language. As part of web browsers, implementations allow client-side scripts to interact with the user, control the browser, communicate asynchronously, and alter the document content that is displayed. It has also become common in server-side programming, game development and the creation of desktop applications.
One embodiment of the present invention comprises a system and method adapted to provide intra-clinic communication that delivers real-time status updates to inform clinicians what steps are in process during a medical procedure. The embodiment may be adapted to provide a system and method for the medical personnel to share an application that tracks the steps and timeline of a patient procedure.
Another embodiment of the invention may comprise medical clinicians creating patient timelines using an application user interface on various devices. The application is used by one or more clinicians to track each step in a process, informs users about the progress through the steps, and alerts the next clinicians needed in each step. Users may attach documents to the patient timeline for the purposes of archiving relevant documentation of medical procedures; various file types may be attached, including images, videos, audio files, patient chart files, and any other file type.
Another embodiment of the invention may comprise enabling users to compile and create statistical reports about the medical procedures. Reports can be created from software supplied report templates, or users can create custom reports. Reports are used to analyze the overall timeline of procedures, determine where times or tasks are slow and may be improved, and measure the effectiveness of individual clinicians or administrative staff. Furthermore, users may create custom timeline templates. Medical practices using the system have the flexibility to create custom templates or modify provided templates to customize to their own procedure tasks. Templates are stored either on the practices local server or on the cloud based host server.
Another embodiment of the invention may comprise a cloud based service operating the system, and medical practices that use the system need only to use their own input devices without the need to install any software on their own local network.
Another embodiment of the invention may comprise providing a graphical user interface and method of input for various types of devices used in the medical field. All mobile computing devices may be used, as well as optical head-mounted display (OHMD), motion sensing devices, voice recognition devices, and augmented reality devices. Any input method supported by the individual device may be used, including keyboard, touchscreen, voice commands, air gestures, and other methods that are used by the individual device. Each individual device type or device may allow for attaching video files, audio files, or other files that will be attached to and become a permanent part of the patient medical record.
The above and other objects, features, and advantages of the embodiments of the present invention are further described in the detailed description which follows, with reference to the drawings by way of non-limiting exemplary embodiments of the present invention, wherein like reference numerals represent similar parts of the present invention throughout the several views and wherein:
Although the detailed description herein contains many specifics for the purposes of illustration, anyone of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that many variations and alterations to the following details are within the scope of the embodiments described herein. Thus, the following illustrative embodiments are set forth without any loss of generality to, and without imposing limitations upon, the claimed invention.
In various embodiments, a system, method and non-transitory, tangible, computer readable storage medium are adapted to provide intra-clinic communication that delivers real-time status updates to inform clinicians what steps are in process during a medical procedure is disclosed. The embodiment may be adapted to provide a system and method for the medical personnel to share an application that tracks the steps and timeline of a patient procedure. System components include a server, a database, computing devices, client user interfaces, templates, and a means for computing devices to communicate with the server.
It should be understood that the system 100 may employ a single powerful server to perform the functions of both the host server 104 and database server 105 or any other portion of the system 100. Alternatively, multiple computers may be employed to provide the server functionality and/or the database server functionality. The host server 104 and database server 105 may reside behind a firewall or other forms of security measures. Data backup servers may be used as well as other data storage services such as cloud servers.
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Many mobile computing devices are controlled via a touchscreen interface. Input and use of the device is by the use of touch gestures on the screen. It should be appreciated that the system client user interface accepts input from touch gestures, and further, from air gestures in the case where the mobile device supports the use of air gestures.
It should be appreciated that a user may create custom templates using the system to fit specific procedures or goals, including custom user interfaces. A configuration program is provided for medical practices using the system to have the flexibility to create custom templates or modify provided templates to customize to their own procedure tasks. Templates are stored either on the practices local server or on the cloud based host server.
Reports can be created from software supplied report templates, or users can create custom reports using a supplied configuration program. Reports are used to analyze the overall timeline of procedures, determine where times or tasks are slow and may be improved, and measure the effectiveness of individual clinicians or administrative staff.
