SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR FACILITATING PATIENT SCHEDULING AT A HEALTHCARE FACILITY

Abstract

A system and method for facilitating patient scheduling at a healthcare facility is disclosed. The method includes receiving a request from one or more electronic devices associated with a scheduler to schedule an appointment of a patient, obtaining treatment information, provider information and resource information from an EHR system, and obtaining one or more available slots of provider from the EHR system. Furthermore, the method includes determining one or more optimal treatment times for the treatment date for the treatment profile of the patient and outputting the determined one or more optimal treatment times for the treatment date along with relevant patient information on user interface screen of the one or more electronic devices associated with the scheduler.

Description

FIELD OF INVENTION

Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to patient treatment systems, and more particularly relates to a system and method for facilitating patient scheduling at a healthcare facility.

BACKGROUND

Patient scheduling is a process of assigning individual patients and/or patients' activities to a specific time and/or healthcare resources. Generally, patient scheduling at healthcare facilities is extremely complex. The volume of patients on any specific day in the future is highly variable. There is also the impact of cancellations, add-ons, and no-shows, and a mix of treatment durations for a given day. This becomes a central issue of treatment scheduling that creates a challenge for schedulers. It creates a logistical challenge that is beyond the capacity of a normal human mind to solve, specifically in a short amount of time with limited information that is available at the time of scheduling a patient. Further, sub-optimal scheduling tends to result in long patient wait times, imbalanced treatment chair utilization across a given day, and uneven nurse load resulting in high stress levels.

For example, cancer treatment scheduling can be incredibly complex due to a multitude of services involved in the process and a wide variation in treatment durations. From a healthcare service provider point of view, nothing can be more stressful than caring for sick patients. Peak hours and days when the volume of patients and number of procedures surpass staffing capacities, create a stressful climate for nurses and other treatment facility staff. Suboptimal scheduling and complex treatment schedules can significantly increase the expenditures of cancer treatment facilities by requiring nursing staff to work long shifts, often beyond scheduled operating hours. Overtime and temporary labor expenses are a key concern for most treatment facilities. The effective management of a treatment facility depends mainly on optimizing patient scheduling and efficiently using available resources. With limited and localized information available while scheduling a patient for future treatment(s), it is unreasonable to expect the scheduler to evaluate different possibilities and perform efficient scheduling. As a result, the scheduler selects the future appointment time(s) taking into consideration limited amount of information, such as staff availability and patient preference, resulting in an unoptimized schedule for the day.

Hence, there is a need for an improved system and method for facilitating patient scheduling at a healthcare facility, in order to address the aforementioned issues.

SUMMARY

This summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts, in a simple manner, which is further described in the detailed description of the disclosure. This summary is neither intended to identify key or essential inventive concepts of the subject matter nor to determine the scope of the disclosure.

In accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure, a computing system for facilitating patient scheduling at a healthcare facility is disclosed. The computing system includes one or more hardware processors and a memory coupled to the one or more hardware processors. The memory includes a plurality of modules in the form of programmable instructions executable by the one or more hardware processors. The plurality of modules include a request receiver module configured to receive a request from one or more electronic devices associated with a scheduler to schedule an appointment of a patient. The request includes but not limited to: a patient ID of the patient, a treatment profile of the patient, a treatment date and the like. The plurality of modules also include a data obtaining module configured to obtain at least one of: treatment information, provider information and resource information from an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system based on the received request. The treatment information includes the treatment profile and a treatment duration. The treatment duration is a time duration of the treatment profile. The data obtaining module obtains one or more available provider slots comprising MD or Nurse Practitioner (NP) time slots, from the EHR system based on the received request upon obtaining the at least one of: treatment information, provider information and resource information. Furthermore, the plurality of modules also include a time determination module configured to determine one or more optimal treatment times for the treatment date for the treatment profile of the patient based on the received request, the obtained at least one of: treatment information, provider information and resource information and the obtained one or more available slots. Furthermore, the plurality of modules includes a data output module configured to output the determined one or more optimal treatment times for the treatment date along with relevant patient information on user interface screen of the one or more electronic devices associated with the scheduler. The relevant patient information includes patient name, patient identifier, location of treatment, and date of the treatment.

In accordance with another embodiment of the present disclosure, a method for facilitating patient scheduling at a healthcare facility is disclosed. The method includes receiving a request from one or more electronic devices associated with a scheduler to schedule an appointment of a patient. The request includes but not limited to: a patient ID of the patient, a treatment profile of the patient, a treatment date and the like. The method further includes obtaining at least one of: treatment information, provider information and resource information from an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system based on the received request. The treatment information includes the treatment profile and a treatment duration. The treatment duration is a time duration of the treatment profile. Further, the method includes obtaining one or more available provider slots comprising MD or Nurse Practitioner (NP) time slots, from the EHR system based on the received request upon obtaining the at least one of: treatment information, provider information and resource information. Furthermore, the method includes determining one or more optimal treatment times for the treatment date for the treatment profile of the patient based on the received request, the obtained at least one of: treatment information, provider information and resource information and the obtained one or more available slots. The method includes outputting the determined one or more optimal treatment times for the treatment date along with relevant patient information on user interface screen of the one or more electronic devices associated with the scheduler. The relevant patient information includes patient name, patient identifier, location of treatment, and date of the treatment.

Embodiment of the present disclosure also provide a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored therein that, when executed by a hardware processor, cause the processor to perform method steps as described above.

To further clarify the advantages and features of the present disclosure, a more particular description of the disclosure will follow by reference to specific embodiments thereof, which are illustrated in the appended figures. It is to be appreciated that these figures depict only typical embodiments of the disclosure and are therefore not to be considered limiting in scope. The disclosure will be described and explained with additional specificity and detail with the appended figures.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

The disclosure will be described and explained with additional specificity and detail with the accompanying figures in which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary computing environment for facilitating patient scheduling at a healthcare facility, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary computing system facilitating patient scheduling at the healthcare facility, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3A-3B are graphical user interface screens of the computing system for facilitating patient scheduling at the healthcare facility, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram depicting static optimized Day of Week (DOW) template profiles being disassembled and stored as time stamped service types, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 is a tabular representation depicting disassembled time stamped service types derived from static optimized DOW template, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram depicting combining of dynamically matched profiles with dynamic EHR data, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 7 is an exemplary block diagram depicting suggested optimized times by the computing system, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure; and

FIG. 8 is a process flow diagram illustrating an exemplary method for facilitating patient scheduling at the healthcare facility, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

Further, those skilled in the art will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and may not have necessarily been drawn to scale. Furthermore, in terms of the construction of the device, one or more components of the device may have been represented in the figures by conventional symbols, and the figures may show only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present disclosure so as not to obscure the figures with details that will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art having the benefit of the description herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DISCLOSURE

For the purpose of promoting an understanding of the principles of the disclosure, reference will now be made to the embodiment illustrated in the figures and specific language will be used to describe them. It will nevertheless be understood that no limitation of the scope of the disclosure is thereby intended. Such alterations and further modifications in the illustrated system, and such further applications of the principles of the disclosure as would normally occur to those skilled in the art are to be construed as being within the scope of the present disclosure. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory of the disclosure and are not intended to be restrictive thereof.

In the present document, the word “exemplary” is used herein to mean “serving as an example, instance, or illustration.” Any embodiment or implementation of the present subject matter described herein as “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments.

The terms “comprise,” “comprising,” or any other variations thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that one or more devices or sub-systems or elements or structures or components preceded by “comprises . . . a” does not, without more constraints, preclude the existence of other devices, sub-systems, additional sub-modules. Appearances of the phrase “in an embodiment,” “in another embodiment” and similar language throughout this specification may, but not necessarily do, all refer to the same embodiment.

Unless otherwise defined, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by those skilled in the art to which this disclosure belongs. The system, methods, and examples provided herein are only illustrative and not intended to be limiting.

A computer system (standalone, client or server computer system) configured by an application may constitute a “module” (or “subsystem”) that is configured and operated to perform certain operations. In one embodiment, the “module” or “subsystem” may be implemented mechanically or electronically, so a module include dedicated circuitry or logic that is permanently configured (within a special-purpose processor) to perform certain operations. In another embodiment, a “module” or “subsystem” may also comprise programmable logic or circuitry (as encompassed within a general-purpose processor or other programmable processor) that is temporarily configured by software to perform certain operations.

Accordingly, the term “module” or “subsystem” should be understood to encompass a tangible entity, be that an entity that is physically constructed permanently configured (hardwired) or temporarily configured (programmed) to operate in a certain manner and/or to perform certain operations described herein.

Referring now to the drawings, and more particularly to FIG. 1 through FIG. 8, where similar reference characters denote corresponding features consistently throughout the figures, there are shown preferred embodiments and these embodiments are described in the context of the following exemplary system and/or method.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary computing environment 100 facilitating patient scheduling at a healthcare facility, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure. According to FIG. 1 the computing environment 100 includes an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system 102 communicatively coupled to a computing system 104 via a network 106. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the EHR system 102 is an external database for storing treatment information, provider information, resource information, or any combination thereof. Further, the network 106 may be internet or any other wireless network. The computing system 104 may be hosted on a central server, such as cloud server or a remote server.

Further, the computing environment 100 includes one or more electronic devices 108 associated with a scheduler communicatively coupled to the computing system 104 via the network 106. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the scheduler is a user who schedules appointment of one or more patients at a healthcare facility. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the healthcare facility includes ambulatory surgical centers, blood banks, clinics and medical offices, dialysis centers, hospice homes, hospitals, imaging, and radiology centers, and the like. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the one or more electronic devices 108 are configured to receive the request from the one or more electronic devices 108 associated with the scheduler to schedule an appointment of the patient. The one or more electronic devices 108 also provide one or more optimal treatment times for a treatment date along with relevant patient information to the computing system 104. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the one or more electronic devices 108 may include a laptop computer, desktop computer, tablet computer, smartphone, wearable device, a digital camera and the like.

Furthermore, the one or more electronic devices 108 include a local browser, a mobile application, or a combination thereof. Furthermore, the scheduler may use a web application via the local browser, the mobile application, or a combination thereof to communicate with the computing system 104. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the mobile application may be compatible with any mobile operating system, such as android, iOS, and the like. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the computing system 104 includes a plurality of modules 110. Details on the plurality of modules 110 have been elaborated in subsequent paragraphs of the present description with reference to FIG. 2.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the computing system 104 is configured to receive a request from the one or more electronic devices 108 associated with the scheduler to schedule an appointment of a patient for the treatment profile. Further, the computing system 104 obtains the treatment information, provider information and resource information from the EHR system 102 based on the received request. Furthermore, the computing system 104 obtains the one or more available slots of provider slots comprising MD or Nurse Practitioner (NP) time slots, from the EHR system 102 based on the received request upon obtaining the treatment information, provider information and resource information. The computing system 104 determines one or more optimal treatment times for the treatment date and alternate treatment date for the treatment profile of the patient based on the received request, the treatment information, the provider information, the resource information and the obtained one or more available slots. Further, the computing system 104 outputs the determined one or more optimal treatment times for the treatment date and alternate treatment date along with the relevant patient information on user interface screen of the one or more electronic devices 108 associated with the scheduler.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary computing system 104 facilitating patient scheduling at the healthcare facility, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure. Further, the computing system 104 includes one or more hardware processors 202, a memory 204 and a storage unit 206. The one or more hardware processors 202, the memory 204 and the storage unit 206 are communicatively coupled through a system bus 208 or any similar mechanism. The memory 204 comprises the plurality of modules 110 in the form of programmable instructions executable by the one or more hardware processors 202. Further, the plurality of modules 110 includes a request receiver module 210, a data obtaining module 212, a time determination module 214, a data output module 216 and a treatment profile management module 218.

The one or more hardware processors 202, as used herein, means any type of computational circuit, such as, but not limited to, a microprocessor unit, microcontroller, complex instruction set computing microprocessor unit, reduced instruction set computing microprocessor unit, very long instruction word microprocessor unit, explicitly parallel instruction computing microprocessor unit, graphics processing unit, digital signal processing unit, or any other type of processing circuit. The one or more hardware processors 202 may also include embedded controllers, such as generic or programmable logic devices or arrays, application specific integrated circuits, single-chip computers, and the like.

The memory 204 may be non-transitory volatile memory and non-volatile memory. The memory 204 may be coupled for communication with the one or more hardware processors 202, such as being a computer-readable storage medium. The one or more hardware processors 202 may execute machine-readable instructions and/or source code stored in the memory 204. A variety of machine-readable instructions may be stored in and accessed from the memory 204. The memory 204 may include any suitable elements for storing data and machine-readable instructions, such as read only memory, random access memory, erasable programmable read only memory, electrically erasable programmable read only memory, a hard drive, a removable media drive for handling compact disks, digital video disks, diskettes, magnetic tape cartridges, memory cards, and the like. In the present embodiment, the memory 204 includes the plurality of modules 110 stored in the form of machine-readable instructions on any of the above-mentioned storage media and may be in communication with and executed by the one or more hardware processors 202.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the storage unit 206 may be a cloud storage. The storage unit 206 may store the received request, the treatment information, the provider information, the resource information, the one or more treatment dates, one or more alternate treatment dates, the one or more optimal treatment times for each of the one or more treatment dates, the one or more optimal treatment times for each of the one or more alternate treatment dates, one or more exact matches, a set of static optimized Day of the Week (DOW) templates for each DOW, one or more approximate matches, a set of optimized and prioritized profiles, a set of rank ordered time slots, optimized schedules and the like.

The request receiver module 210 is configured to receive the request from the one or more electronic devices 108 associated with the scheduler to schedule the appointment of the patient for the treatment profile. For example, the request includes but not limited to: a patient ID of the patient, a treatment profile of the patient, a treatment date, alternate treatment date and the like. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the treatment profile includes one or more lab tests, services to be scheduled with a planned duration for each of one or more medical services, an order in which the one or more medical services are required to be scheduled, an appointment with Medical Assistant (MA), Patient Medical Record (MRN) number, one or more different medical services that are part of the treatment profile, appointment with a physician or a nurse practitioner (MD), and the like. For example, the one or more medical services include injection, treatment, lab tests to a patient, and the like.

The data obtaining module 212 obtains the treatment information, the provider information, the resource information, or any combination thereof from the EHR system 102 based on the received request. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the treatment information includes the treatment profile and a treatment duration. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the treatment duration is a time duration of the treatment profile. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the provider information includes provider name, provider location, provider skillset, provider schedule, provider availability, and the like. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the provider is a person or a set of persons performing the one or more medical services. For example, the provider includes a physician, a group of physicians, clinic, facility that is part of a hospital or a health system, and one or more other persons or an entity that provides treatment to patients. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the resource information includes one or more resources where each of one or more medical services are required to be scheduled, current utilization and availability of each of the one or more resources. For example, the one or more resources include lab chair, treatment chair, hospital sketcher, defibrillators used as part of patient treatment procedure, or any combination thereof.

Further, the data obtaining module 212 obtains the one or more available provider slots comprising MD or Nurse Practitioner (NP) time slots, from the EHR system 102 based on the received request upon obtaining the treatment information, the provider information, the resource information, or any combination thereof. For example, the one or more available slots may be from 4:30 PM to 5:00 PM, 6:00 PM to 6:30 PM, and the like. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the treatment information, the provider information, the resource information, and the one or more available slots are obtained in real-time.

The time determination module 214 is configured to determine the one or more optimal treatment times for the treatment date and alternate treatment date for the treatment profile of the patient based on the received request, the obtained treatment information, the obtained provider information, the obtained resource information, or any combination thereof, and the obtained one or more available slots. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the time determination module 214 also determines one or more treatment dates and the one or more optimal treatment times for each of the one or more treatment dates for the treatment profile of the patient based on the received request, the obtained treatment information, the obtained provider information, the obtained resource information, or any combination thereof, and the obtained one or more available slots.

The time determination module 214, determines the one or more treatment times by implementing the following steps. In the first step, the patient visit date and alternate visit date is provided by the physician using the EHR. In the second step, the scheduler utilizes the above visit date and alternate visit date to select specific timings depending on the different services requested for the visit. The services included in the visit can be any combination of Lab, MA, MD, treatment, and/or injection, treatment can be one of several durations ranging from 15 mins to 8 hours or more in increments of 15 mins. In the third step, the present invention assists the scheduler in selecting the specific timings based on available resources for the services included in the visit. For example, in case a patient needs to come in for a 15 min MD visit and 90 min treatment for a day in the future. Then for that specific day, the required MD is available at 11 AM, 11:30 AM, and 2 PM and the treatment room has capacity to treat the patient any time between 11 PM and 4 PM. Further, patient visit date, services included in the visit, MD availability, and treatment room availability are sent to the present invention. Furthermore, based on the aforementioned details and the present inventions static DOW template, the present invention identifies that 2 PM MD visit and 2:15 PM treatment is the optimal time, thereby presenting this output to the scheduler. Additionally, the scheduler utilizes the above time presented by the present invention to schedule the visit in the EHR.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the time determination module 214 is configured to determine one or more exact matches or one or more approximate matches corresponding to the one or more optimal treatment times based on the received request, the obtained treatment information, the obtained provider information, the obtained resource information, or any combination thereof, and the obtained one or more available slots. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the one or more exact matches are the one or more appointment times which exactly correspond to the treatment profile under consideration. Further, the one or more approximate matches are the one or more appointment times which correspond in an approximate manner to the treatment profile under consideration. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the one or more appointment times may be displayed in a specific way to differentiate the one or more exact matches from the one or more approximate matches.

The time determination module 214 determines the one or more exact matches or one or more approximate matches by implementing the following steps. In the first step, the patient visit date is provided by the physician using the EHR. In the second step, the scheduler utilizes the above visit date to select a specific time depending on the different services requested for the visit. The services included in the visit comprises a combination of Lab, MA, MD, treatment, and/or Injection, treatment can be one of several durations ranging from 15 mins to 8 hours or more in increments of 15 mins. In the third step, the present invention assists the scheduler in selecting the time based on available resources for the services included in the visit. For example, in case a patient needs to come in for a 15 min MD visit and 90 min treatment for a day in the future. Then it is noted that for that specific day, the required MD is available at 11 AM, 11:30 AM, and 2 PM and the treatment room has a capacity to treat the patient any time between 11 PM and 4 PM. Further, the patient visit date, services included in the visit, MD availability, and treatment room availability are sent to the present invention. Furthermore, the present invention's DOW template may include 2 PM MD visit and 2:15 PM 90 treatments available in it. The DOW template may also include 11 AM MD visit with 120 min treatment at 11:15 AM. Based on the visit details and the present inventions static DOW template, 2 PM MD visit and 2:15 PM treatment visit will be shown as an exact match and 11 AM MD visit with 11:15 AM treatment will be shown as an approximate match since the treatment duration for this time is 120 mins in the template and not 90 mins but still a treatment can be scheduled. Additionally, the scheduler will use the above presented times by the present invention to schedule the visit in the EHR.

The data output module 216 is configured to output the determined one or more optimal treatment times for the treatment date and alternate treatment date along with the relevant patient information on user interface screen of the one or more electronic devices 108 associated with the scheduler. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the relevant patient information includes patient name, patient identifier, location of treatment, date of the treatment, and the like. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the one or more electronic devices 108 may include a laptop computer, desktop computer, tablet computer, smartphone, wearable device, a digital camera and the like. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the scheduler may use the determined one or more optimal treatment times to schedule the patient's treatment.

In a use-case scenario, a scheduler may want to schedule patient ‘P’ for treatment profile ‘Tx’ on date ‘D’ in the future. In order to obtain optimal treatment times to schedule Tx on date D, the scheduler may use a trigger, such as, but not limited to a button click in a software program. This trigger may then initiate the process of obtaining all the relevant information such as, but not limited to, patient MRN, different services that are part of Tx, staff information, staff schedule, and the like from the EHR system 102. This information is then sent to the computing system 104. Response from the computing system 104 may then be received as a list of optimal appointment times to schedule treatment profile Tx for patient P on date D. This information may then be presented to the end-user in a graphical user interface as part of a software program.

In another use-case scenario, the scheduler may want to schedule patient ‘P’ for treatment profile ‘Tx’ on date ‘D’ in the future. In order to obtain optimal treatment times to schedule Tx on date D, the required information may be obtained from the EHR and sent to the computing system 104 that responds with optimal start times for Tx. The computing system 104 may respond with the one or more exact matches and the one or more approximate matches. The received appointment times may be displayed in a specific way to differentiate exact matches from approximate matches. For examples, exact matches may be displayed in bold font while approximate matches are displayed in normal font.

In yet another use-case scenario, the scheduler may want to schedule patient ‘P’ for treatment profile ‘Tx’ on date ‘D’ in the future. The treatment profile may include additional information that requires special handling. For example, patient P may be a new patient undergoing treatment for the first time and requires 15 minutes MD new patient appointment. In order to obtain optimal treatment times for this treatment profile, Tx on date D, the required information may be obtained from the EHR system 102 and sent to the computing system 104 that responds with optimal start times for Tx. The computing system 104 may respond with exact matches that identify MD availability to see new patients. The computing system 104 may also provide approximate matches where the MD is available, but the available slots may not be specific to new patients. The received appointment times may be displayed in a specific way to differentiate MD new patient slots from MD slots not specific to new patients. For example, MD new patient blocks may be highlighted using options such as, but not limited to, different background color, different font type, different font color, and the like. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the treatment profile management module 218 receives historical patient data associated with a patient from the EHR system 102. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the historical patient data include service date, a breakdown of different services needed required each treatment, staff schedules, operating hours of the provider, and the like. Further, the treatment profile management module 218 generates the set of static optimized Day of the Week (DOW) templates for each DOW based on the received historic patient data by performing a statistical and combinatorial optimization analysis on the received historical patient data. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the set of static optimized DOW templates include forecasted patient profiles assigned to optimized time slots. The forecasted patient profiles correspond to various service type combinations. The DOW template is generated based on historic data by implementing the following steps. In the first step, the historical patient visits provide details including but not limited to the number of visits scheduled for a given day, the types of visits including any combination of Lab, MA, MD, treatment, and/or injection and treatment duration with treatments requiring 15 mins to more than 8 hours in 15 min increments. Further, the historical patient visits also provide details regarding the distribution pattern of different types of visits. For example, the percentage of total visits with injection only requirement, the percentage of total visits with MD and treatment requirement and the like. In the second step, the statistical models are utilized on the above historical data to identify reliable patterns. The patterns seem to show consistency across different days of the week. For example, most Mondays typically seem to have similar number of visits and percentage distribution between different types of visits. Similarly, Tuesday, Wednesdays, and the like. In the third step, predictive modeling techniques are used to project the aforementioned observations into the future to come up with patterns for each day of the week and different visits are accommodated into each DOW template based on these predictions. For example, for Mondays—Lab at 7:30 AM followed by MD visit at 7:45 AM followed by 360 min treatment at 8 AM; Lab starting at 10 AM followed by 240 min treatment at 8:15 AM; MD visit at 10 AM followed by 90 min treatment at 10:15 AM followed by injection at 10:30 AM and the like. The treatment profile management module 218 classifies the generated set of static optimized DOW templates into various service types. FIG. 5 illustrates the approach utilized by the treatment profile management module 218 to classify the generated set of optimized DOW templates into various service types. FIG. 5 depicts a DOW template with four patient profiles assigned to specific time slots. Patient 1 has Lab, MA, MD with Lab starting at 08:00, MA starting at 08:15 and MD starting at 08:30. Patient 2 has Lab, MA, MD, Injection with Lab starting at 08:00, MA starting at 08:15, MD starting at 08:30 and Injection starting at 08:45. The present invention utilizes these two patient profiles in the DOW template to illustrate the method used in the classification of DOW templates into various time-stamped service types. The present invention first creates different service buckets for each service type, namely, Lab, MA, MD, Injection and Treatment. From the profile of patient 1, the present invention determines that there is one lab service starting at 08:00, one MA service starting at 08:15 and one MD service starting at 08:30. The present invention then creates a time stamped entry corresponding to Lab—08:00 and puts it into the Lab service bucket. Similarly, it creates and enters MA—08:15 into the MA service bucket and MD—08:30 into the MD service bucket as illustrated in FIG. 5. Further, it looks at the profile for patient 2 and creates and enters the following four service types into their corresponding buckets: Lab—08:00, MA—08:15, MD—08:30 and Injection—08:45 as shown in FIG. 5. The present invention continues to go down the list and examines other profiles within the DOW template and classifies the constituent service types into time-stamped service types and places the time-stamped service types in the appropriate service bucket, as shown in FIG. 5. The treatment profile management module 218 categorizes the forecasted patient profiles into individual time stamped services upon classifying the generated set of static optimized DOW templates. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the forecasted patient profiles are disassembled. A patient profile corresponds to a combination of one or more services such as lab, MA, MD, treatment, injection and the like. Statistically optimized static DOW template has different profiles assigned to various times of the day. For example, Profile1=90-minute treatment profile starting at 10:30 AM (assigned to 10:30 AM). Profile2=15 min lab+15 min MD+60 min treatment profile assigned to 1 PM. Which means lab starts at 1 PM, MD starts at 1:15 PM and treatment starts at 1:30 PM. Profile3=15 min lab+15 min MD+90 min treatment assigned to 1 PM. implying that the lab starts at 1 PM, MD starts at 1:15 PM and injection starts at 1:30 PM. The profiles from the static DOW template are broken down into their individual services and stored along with their respective timestamps Therefore, based on the aforementioned examples on the profiles being disassembled and timestamped, there exists: a one 90 min treatment at 10:30 AM (from profile1), two labs at 1 PM (from profile2 and profile3), two MD at 1:15 PM (from profile2 and profile3), one 60 min treatment at 1:30 PM (from profile2), one 90 min treatment at 1:30 PM (from profile3) and the like. Furthermore, the treatment profile management module 218 generates a set of optimized and prioritized profiles based on time stamped individual service type, dynamic EHR data, and a profile of the patient to be currently scheduled upon categorizing the forecasted patient profiles. In case a 90-minute treatment is requested for a patient, there are two times available, based on the aforementioned example—10:30 AM from profile1 and 1:30 PM from profile3. Based on the real time data obtained from the EHR, if there is already one treatment starting at 10:30 AM, but there are not treatments starting at 1:30 PM, then the 1:30 PM time is prioritized in order to evenly balance the load across the day. Hence 1:30 PM will be provided as the first option and 10:30 AM as the second option, thereby creating a prioritized list based on the timestamped services obtained from the static DOW template, real time EHR data and requested patient visit.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the EHR data includes specific details about already scheduled assignments. The dynamically assembled matched profiles combines with the EHR data to generate the set of optimized and prioritized profiles. The treatment profile management module 218 determines a set of rank ordered time slots based on the dynamic EHR data, the static optimized DOW template, one or more patient's preferences and one or more different resources required by a specific patient profile by using a patient scheduling-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) model. It is possible that the static DOW template has multiple matching times for a requested patient visit. In order to present the multiple matching times in a list, the multiple matching times are ranked in the order of most optimal time to least optimal time. The ranking is based on the available times from DOW template, already scheduled patients for those time obtained from dynamic EHR data and the like. Therefore, the set of rank ordered slots corresponds to the ranking of the multiple matching times. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the one or more patient's preferences include a preferred date, a preferred time, a preferred medical professional, and the like. Further, the treatment profile management module 218 outputs the determined set of rank ordered time slots and the generated set of optimized and prioritized profiles on user interface screen of the one or more electronic devices 108 associated with the scheduler.

a.

In determining the set of rank ordered time slots based on the dynamic EHR data, the static optimized DOW template and the one or more different resources required by the specific patient profile by using the patient scheduling-based AI model, the treatment profile management module 218 correlates information pertaining to the time slots assigned to various service types derived from the static DOW template with specifics of the dynamic EHR data for a selected clinic for a selected treatment date and alternate treatment date by using the patient scheduling-based AI model. Further, the treatment profile management module 218 determines the set of rank ordered time slots based on result of correlation.

For example, the computing system 104 dynamically assembles profiles to match the selected patient profile in order to identify most optimal future appointment times for patient treatments to be scheduled at healthcare facilities. The computing system 104 stores information derived from a static optimization of forecasted patient profiles for a specific day of a week, known by those familiar with the art as a day of the week (DOW) template, in the form of time stamped service types, and at the time of scheduling, allows the stored information to be retrieved in real time to dynamically assemble a profile matching the selected patient profile. This may further be combined with actual schedule information obtained from the EHR system 102 for a specific future date, in an intelligent fashion to produce prioritized optimized schedules for specific treatment profiles. Staff schedule includes but is not limited to, a detailed listing of the availability of doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses, lab technicians, medical assistants, and the like. Treatment or treatment profile or patient profile refers to any combination of different services such as, but not limited to, lab tests, appointment with medical assistant (MA), appointment with a physician or a nurse practitioner (MD), application of injection, providing treatment and the like. Provider can be, but not limited to a physician, group of physicians, clinic, facility that is part of a hospital or a health system, or any other person(s) or an entity that provides treatment to patients. Staff refers to person or persons performing services such as, but not limited to, injection, treatment, lab tests and the like to a patient. Resource refers to equipment such as, but not limited to, lab chair, treatment chair and the like utilized as part of patient treatment procedure.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the treatment profile management module 218 obtains one or more inputs from the EHR system 102. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the one or more inputs include patient MRN, treatment schedule date, treatment schedule location, one or more resources, availability of the one or more resources, resource duration, provider schedule, number of patients assigned to each time slot, one or more medical services required by each patient, or any combination thereof. Further, the treatment profile management module 218 obtains an input from the statically optimized DOW template. Furthermore, the treatment profile management module 218 determines optimized schedules for specific patient profile under consideration based on the obtained one or more inputs from the EHR system 102 and the obtained input from the statically optimized DOW template. Optimized schedules correspond to one or more specific time slots of the day for the given day of the week when the set of requested services can be scheduled in an efficient way. Further, the treatment profile management module 218 determines optimized schedules by implementing the following steps. In the first step, the historical patient visits provide details including but not limited to the number of visits scheduled for a given day, the types of visits including any combination of Lab, MA, MD, treatment, and/or injection and treatment duration with treatments requiring 15 mins to more than 8 hours in 15 min increments. Further, the historical patient visits also provide details regarding the distribution pattern of different types of visits. For example, the percentage of total visits with injection only requirement, the percentage of total visits with MD and treatment requirement and the like. In the second step, the statistical models are utilized on the above historical data to identify reliable patterns. The patterns seem to show consistency across different days of the week. For example, most Mondays typically seem to have similar number of visits and percentage distribution between different types of visits. Similarly, Tuesday, Wednesdays, and the like. In the third step, predictive modeling techniques are used to project the aforementioned observations into the future to come up with patterns for each day of the week and different visits are accommodated into each DOW template based on these predictions. For example, for Mondays—Lab at 7:30 AM followed by MD visit at 7:45 AM followed by 360 min treatment at 8 AM; Lab starting at 10 AM followed by 240 min treatment at 8:15 AM; MD visit at 10 AM followed by 90 min treatment at 10:15 AM followed by injection at 10:30 AM and the like.

FIG. 3A-3B are graphical user interface screens of the computing system 104 for facilitating patient scheduling at the healthcare facility, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure. The graphical user interface screen 302 of FIG. 3A depicts an example where the optimal treatment times received from the computing system 104 are presented to the end user as part of a computer software program. In this example, exact matches to the user requested treatment profile are highlighted in bold and prioritized along with approximate matches that are displayed in normal font. Further, the graphical user interface screen 304 of FIG. 3B depicts where the treatment times received from the computing system 104 are presented to the end user as part of a computer software program. In this example, exact matches to the user requested treatment profile are highlighted in bold and prioritized along with approximate matches that are displayed in normal font. Furthermore, new patient blocks are also highlighted.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram 400 depicting static optimized DOW template profiles being disassembled and stored as time stamped service types, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure. At step 402, a static optimized DOW template includes forecasted patient profiles assigned to optimized time slots. The static optimized DOW template is classified into various service types. At step 404, profiles are disassembled and grouped into time stamped individual service types. At step 406, profile of patient to be currently scheduled is included. At step 408, the time stamped individual service types are retrieved and dynamically assembled to produce profiles matching a selected profile of patient to be currently scheduled.

FIG. 5 is a tabular representation 500 depicting disassembled time stamped service types derived from static optimized DOW template, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure. Here, the disassembling of the DOW profiles and storage of resulting service types are depicted. A static optimized DOW templates are derived from historic patient data through a variety of statistical and combinatorial optimization analysis. The net result of such a process is DOW template for each DOW. An illustrative DOW template with four patient profiles is depicted in the tabular representation 500. Here, patient 1 has to go to a lab for fifteen minutes, requires Medical Assistant (MA) for fifteen minutes and has an appointment with a physician or a nurse practitioner (MD) for fifteen minutes in sequential order starting at 08:00 and going up to 08:45. Further, patient 2 has to go to the lab for fifteen minutes, requires MA for fifteen minutes, has appointment with a physician or an MD for fifteen minutes and requires application of an injection for fifteen minutes in a sequential order starting at 08:00 and going up to 09:00. Further, patient 3 has appointment with a physician or a MD for fifteen minutes starting at 08:30 followed by a treatment for sixty minutes going up to 09:30. Further, patient 4 has to go to the lab for fifteen minutes starting at 8:30. The present invention disassembles the component service type of each profile in the DOW template, time stamps it to indicate the starting time for that service type and stores it in a unique database for each service type. Here, five databases 502 are depicted, one for each service type, populated with time stamped service types derived from the DOW template. A lab service type database has three-time stamped lab service types two starting at 08:00 derived from the profiles of the patient 1 and the patient 2, and a third lab service type starting at 08:30 derived from the profile of the patient 4. The other service type databases are populated in a similar manner with the starting times of service types derived from the patient profiles in the DOW template. During the scheduling process, at the time when a patient with a specific profile is presented, a matching profile is dynamically assembled in real time by piecing together individual service types stored within service type databases.

In a preferred embodiment, the patient profile may comprise one or more services. The static optimized DOW template for the schedule date corresponding to this patient profile may contain an ordered list of times corresponding to exact matches and approximate matches. The exact matches are those that correspond exactly to the specific patient profile under consideration. Approximate matches are those that correspond in an approximate manner to the specific patient profile under consideration.

In an exemplary embodiment, a patient profile (Tx1) may comprise fifteen minutes lab, fifteen minutes MA requirement and fifteen minutes appointment with a physician or a MD. This patient may need to be scheduled on a day whose template is shown in FIG. 2. For this treatment, the present invention dynamically assembles two matching profiles by piecing together lab starting at 08:00, requirement of MA starting at 08:15 and appointment with a physician or a MD starting at 08:30. This leads to two lab, requirement of MA and appointment with a physician or a MD matching profile both starting at 08:00. A second patient profile (Tx2) may comprise fifteen minutes lab and sixty minutes treatment. For this patient, the present invention assembles a matching profile by piecing together the fifteen-minute lab starting at 08:30 and a sixty-minute treatment starting at 08:45. In both these instances there is an exact match between the patient profile and the profile assembled by the present invention. Consider a third example where patient profile (Tx3) is considered that comprises fifteen minutes lab and thirty minutes treatment. In this case, the present invention assembles a profile with fifteen minutes lab starting at 08:30 and thirty-minute treatment starting at 08:45 resulting in an approximate match. The match is approximate as the duration of the treatment starting at 08:45 within the template is sixty minutes which is different from the treatment duration of the patient profile (Tx3) which is thirty minutes. Additionally, the present invention may allow the scheduler to manually select any desired time slot or time slots for a specific treatment profile. The manual option may be used by the scheduler either when no exact matches or approximate matches are available, or the scheduler wishes to make a selection other than the recommended optimized time slot or time slots.

In another embodiment, it is inferred that, input from an EHR system 102 such as, but not limited to, patient MRN, treatment schedule date, treatment schedule location, resources needed (such as lab chair, treatment chair and the like.), resources available (such as lab chair, treatment chair, and the like), resource duration, staff schedule (such as availability of medical assistant, nurse and the like), the number of patients assigned to each time slot and the services they require, is combined with input from a statically optimized DOW template to derive dynamically optimized schedules for the specific patient profile under consideration.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram 600 depicting combining of dynamically matched profiles with dynamic EHR data, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure. At step 602, a static optimized DOW template comprises forecasted patient profiles assigned to optimized time slots. The static optimized DOW template is classified into various service types. At step 604, profiles are disassembled and grouped into individual time stamped service types. At step 606, the dynamic EHR data comprises specific details about already scheduled assignments. At step 608, profile of patient to be currently scheduled are included. At step 610, the time stamped individual service type, the dynamic EHR and profile of the patient to be currently scheduled may be utilized to generate optimized, prioritized list of profiles. Further, the dynamically assembled matched profiles combines with the dynamic EHR data to generate optimized and prioritized list of profiles. A scheduling algorithm takes different resources into consideration required by the specific patient profile and recommends rank ordered time slots based on the dynamic EHR data and the static optimized DOW template. The scheduling algorithm achieves this by combining information pertaining to the time slots assigned to various service types derived from the static DOW template with the specifics of the EHR data for the chosen clinic for the chosen day.

FIG. 7 is an exemplary block diagram 700 depicting suggested optimized times by the computing system 104, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure. The suggested optimized time by the computing system 104 is presented to an end user as part of a computer software program. In this example, exact matches between user requested treatment profile and DOW template suggested treatment profile are highlighted in bold and prioritized along with approximate matches. A patient profile may comprise one or more services. Static optimized DOW template for this patient profile may provide many possible start times of T1, T2 and the like. This recommended set of start times in conjunction with information obtained from the EHR as described above may result in the algorithm prioritizing the time slots T1, T2 and the like into an ordered list Ti1, Ti2 and the like. This prioritized list is then presented to the end user as part of a computer program.

FIG. 8 is a process flow diagram illustrating an exemplary method for facilitating patient scheduling at the healthcare facility, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure. At step 802, a request is received from one or more electronic devices 108 associated with a scheduler to schedule an appointment of a patient for a treatment profile. For example, the request includes a patient ID of the patient, a treatment profile of the patient, a treatment date, an alternate treatment date and the like. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the treatment profile includes one or more lab tests, services to be scheduled with a planned duration for each of one or more medical services, an order in which the one or more medical services are required to be scheduled, an appointment with Medical Assistant (MA), Patient Medical Record (MRN) number, one or more different medical services that are part of the treatment profile, appointment with a physician or a nurse practitioner (MD), and the like. For example, the one or more medical services include injection, treatment, lab tests to a patient, and the like.

At step 804, treatment information, provider information, resource information, or any combination thereof are received from an EHR system 102 based on the received request. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the treatment information includes the treatment profile and a treatment duration. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the treatment duration is a time duration of the treatment profile. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the provider information includes provider name, provider location, provider skillset, provider schedule, provider availability, and the like. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the provider is a person or a set of persons performing the one or more medical services. For example, the provider includes a physician, a group of physicians, clinic, facility that is part of a hospital or a health system, and one or more other persons or an entity that provides treatment to patients. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the resource information includes one or more resources where each of one or more medical services are required to be scheduled, current utilization and availability of each of the one or more resources. For example, the one or more resources include lab chair, treatment chair, hospital sketcher, defibrillators used as part of patient treatment procedure, or any combination thereof.

At step 806, one or more available provider slots comprising MD or Nurse Practitioner (NP) time slots, are received from the EHR system 102 based on the received request upon obtaining the treatment information, the provider information, the resource information, or any combination thereof. For example, the one or more available slots may be from 4:30 PM to 5:00 PM, 6:00 PM to 6:30 PM, and the like. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the treatment information, the provider information, the resource information, and the one or more available slots are obtained in real-time.

At step 808, one or more optimal treatment times for the treatment date and alternate treatment date for the treatment profile of the patient are determined based on the received request, the obtained treatment information, the obtained provider information, the obtained resource information, or any combination thereof, and the obtained one or more available slots. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the method 800 includes determining one or more treatment dates, alternate treatment dates and the one or more optimal treatment times for each of the one or more treatment dates and alternate treatment dates for the treatment profile of the patient based on the received request, the obtained treatment information, the obtained provider information, the obtained resource information, or any combination thereof, and the obtained one or more available slots.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the method 800 includes determining one or more exact matches or one or more approximate matches corresponding to the one or more optimal treatment times based on the received request, the obtained treatment information, the obtained provider information, the obtained resource information, or any combination thereof, and the obtained one or more available slots. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the one or more exact matches are the one or more appointment times which exactly correspond to the treatment profile under consideration. Further, the one or more approximate matches are the one or more appointment times which correspond in an approximate manner to the treatment profile under consideration. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the one or more appointment times may be displayed in a specific way to differentiate the one or more exact matches from the one or more approximate matches.

At step 810, the determined one or more optimal treatment times for the treatment date and alternate treatment date along with the relevant patient information are outputted on user interface screen of the one or more electronic devices 108 associated with the scheduler. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the relevant patient information includes patient name, patient identifier, location of treatment, date of the treatment, and the like. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the one or more electronic devices 108 may include a laptop computer, desktop computer, tablet computer, smartphone, wearable device, a digital camera and the like. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the scheduler may use the determined one or more optimal treatment times to schedule the patient's treatment.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the method 800 includes receiving historical patient data associated with a patient from the EHR system 102. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the historical patient data include service date, a breakdown of different services needed required each treatment, staff schedules, operating hours of the provider, and the like. Further, the method 800 includes generating the set of static optimized Day of the Week (DOW) templates for each DOW based on the received historic patient data by performing a statistical and combinatorial optimization analysis on the received historical patient data. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the set of static optimized DOW templates include forecasted patient profiles assigned to optimized time slots. The method 800 includes classifying the generated set of static optimized DOW templates into various service types. The method 800 includes categorizing the forecasted patient profiles into individual time stamped services upon classifying the generated set of static optimized DOW templates. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the forecasted patient profiles are disassembled. Furthermore, the method 800 includes generating a set of optimized and prioritized profiles based on time stamped individual service type, dynamic EHR data, and a profile of the patient to be currently scheduled upon categorizing the forecasted patient profiles. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the EHR data includes specific details about already scheduled assignments. The dynamically assembled matched profiles combines with the EHR data to generate the set of optimized and prioritized profiles. The method 800 includes determining a set of rank ordered time slots based on the dynamic EHR data, the static optimized DOW template, one or more patient's preferences and one or more different resources required by a specific patient profile by using a patient scheduling-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) model. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the one or more patient's preferences include a preferred date, a preferred time, a preferred medical professional, and the like. Further, the method 800 includes outputting the determined set of rank ordered time slots and the generated set of optimized and prioritized profiles on user interface screen of the one or more electronic devices 108 associated with the scheduler.

In determining the set of rank ordered time slots based on the dynamic EHR data, the static optimized DOW template and the one or more different resources required by the specific patient profile by using the patient scheduling-based AI model, the method 800 includes correlating information pertaining to the time slots assigned to various service types derived from the static DOW template with specifics of the dynamic EHR data for a selected clinic for a selected treatment date and alternate treatment date by using the patient scheduling-based AI model. Further, the method 800 includes determining the set of rank ordered time slots based on result of correlation.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the method 800 includes obtaining one or more inputs from the EHR system 102. In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the one or more inputs include patient MRN, treatment schedule date, treatment schedule location, one or more resources, availability of the one or more resources, resource duration, provider schedule, number of patients assigned to each time slot, one or more medical services required by each patient, or any combination thereof. Further, the method 800 includes obtaining an input from the statically optimized DOW template. Furthermore, the method 800 includes determining optimized schedules for specific patient profile under consideration based on the obtained one or more inputs from the EHR system 102 and the obtained input from the statically optimized DOW template.

The AI-based method 800 may be implemented in any suitable hardware, software, firmware, or combination thereof.

Thus, various embodiments of the present system provide a solution to facilitate patient scheduling at the healthcare facility. The computing system 104 obtains and displays patient treatment times to schedulers at treatment facilities. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the computing system 104 includes mechanisms to obtain and transmit several pieces of information pertinent to provider, treatment, and staff to a server that computes optimized treatment times; receive the optimized times and display them in a user-friendly manner to the scheduler. Further, the computing system 104 dynamically assembles profiles to match a selected treatment profile. The computing system 104 schedules patient appointments at cancer treatment facilities using EHR or EMR software. This is static scheduling where just the availability of resources for a given day is provided to the scheduler and the scheduler simply selects an appointment time based on the patient's preference and/or the scheduler's perception of best option from available times. The computing system 104 considers several other factors as outlined above, to dynamically put together required service types and selects most optimal time based on that. The present invention includes a novel way of identifying optimal future patient appointment times for cancer treatment, taking into consideration details such as, but not limited to, historical treatment profile data containing the service date and a breakdown of the different services needed by each treatment, staff schedules, operating hours of the provider and the like is presented. The identified optimal appointment times may be presented to an end user using a graphical user interface as part of a computer program. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the computing system 104 stores information derived from a static optimization of forecasted treatment profiles for a specific day of the week, known by those familiar with the art as a DOW template, in the form of time stamped service types, and at the time of scheduling, allows the stored information to be retrieved in real time to dynamically assemble one or more profiles matching the selected patient profile. This may further be combined with actual schedule information obtained from EHR system 102 for a specific future date, in an intelligent fashion to produce prioritized and optimized schedules for specific treatment profiles.

The written description describes the subject matter herein to enable any person skilled in the art to make and use the embodiments. The scope of the subject matter embodiments is defined by the claims and may include other modifications that occur to those skilled in the art. Such other modifications are intended to be within the scope of the claims if they have similar elements that do not differ from the literal language of the claims or if they include equivalent elements with insubstantial differences from the literal language of the claims.

The embodiments herein can comprise hardware and software elements. The embodiments that are implemented in software include but are not limited to, firmware, resident software, microcode, etc. The functions performed by various modules described herein may be implemented in other modules or combinations of other modules. For the purposes of this description, a computer-usable or computer readable medium can be any apparatus that can comprise, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.

The medium can be an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system (or apparatus or device) or a propagation medium. Examples of a computer-readable medium include a semiconductor or solid-state memory, magnetic tape, a removable computer diskette, a random-access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), a rigid magnetic disk and an optical disk. Current examples of optical disks include compact disk-read only memory (CD-ROM), compact disk-read/write (CD-R/W) and DVD.

Input/output (I/O) devices (including but not limited to keyboards, displays, pointing devices, etc.) can be coupled to the system either directly or through intervening I/O. Network adapters may also be coupled to the system to enable the data processing system to become coupled to other data processing systems or remote printers or storage devices through intervening private or public networks. Modems, cable modem and Ethernet cards are just a few of the currently available types of network adapters.

A representative hardware environment for practicing the embodiments may include a hardware configuration of an information handling/computer system in accordance with the embodiments herein. The system herein comprises at least one processor or central processing unit (CPU). The CPUs are interconnected via system bus 308 to various devices such as a random-access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), and an input/output (I/O) adapter. The I/O adapter can connect to peripheral devices, such as disk units and tape drives, or other program storage devices that are readable by the system. The system can read the inventive instructions on the program storage devices and follow these instructions to execute the methodology of the embodiments herein.

The system further includes a user interface adapter that connects a keyboard, mouse, speaker, microphone, and/or other user interface devices such as a touch screen device (not shown) to the bus to gather user input. Additionally, a communication adapter connects the bus to a data processing network, and a display adapter connects the bus to a display device which may be embodied as an output device such as a monitor, printer, or transmitter, for example.

A description of an embodiment with several components in communication with each other does not imply that all such components are required. On the contrary, a variety of optional components are described to illustrate the wide variety of possible embodiments of the invention. When a single device or article is described herein, it will be apparent that more than one device/article (whether or not they cooperate) may be used in place of a single device/article. Similarly, where more than one device or article is described herein (whether or not they cooperate), it will be apparent that a single device/article may be used in place of the more than one device or article, or a different number of devices/articles may be used instead of the shown number of devices or programs. The functionality and/or the features of a device may be alternatively embodied by one or more other devices which are not explicitly described as having such functionality/features. Thus, other embodiments of the invention need not include the device itself.

The illustrated steps are set out to explain the exemplary embodiments shown, and it should be anticipated that ongoing technological development will change the manner in which particular functions are performed. These examples are presented herein for purposes of illustration, and not limitation. Further, the boundaries of the functional building blocks have been arbitrarily defined herein for the convenience of the description. Alternative boundaries can be defined so long as the specified functions and relationships thereof are appropriately performed. Alternatives (including equivalents, extensions, variations, deviations, etc., of those described herein) will be apparent to persons skilled in the relevant art(s) based on the teachings contained herein. Such alternatives fall within the scope and spirit of the disclosed embodiments. Also, the words “comprising,” “having,” “containing,” and “including,” and other similar forms are intended to be equivalent in meaning and be open-ended in that an item or items following any one of these words is not meant to be an exhaustive listing of such item or items or meant to be limited to only the listed item or items. It must also be noted that as used herein and in the appended claims, the singular forms “a,” “an,” and “the” include plural references unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.

Finally, the language used in the specification has been principally selected for readability and instructional purposes, and it may not have been selected to delineate or circumscribe the inventive subject matter. It is therefore intended that the scope of the invention be limited not by this detailed description, but rather by any claims that issue on an application based here on. Accordingly, the embodiments of the present invention are intended to be illustrative, but not limiting, of the scope of the invention, which is set forth in the following claims.

Claims

1. A computing system for facilitating patient scheduling at a healthcare facility, the computing system comprising: one or more hardware processors; anda memory coupled to the one or more hardware processors, wherein the memory comprises a plurality of modules in the form of programmable instructions executable by the one or more hardware processors, and wherein the plurality of modules comprises: a request receiver module configured to receive a request from one or more electronic devices associated with a scheduler to schedule an appointment of a patient, wherein the request comprises: a patient ID of the patient, a treatment profile of the patient, a treatment date and an alternate treatment date;a data obtaining module configured to: obtain at least one of: treatment information, provider information and resource information from an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system based on the received request, wherein the treatment information comprises the treatment profile and a treatment duration, and wherein the treatment duration is a time duration of the treatment profile; andobtain one or more available provider slots from the EHR system based on the received request upon obtaining the at least one of: treatment information, provider information and resource information;a time determination module configured to determine one or more optimal treatment times for the treatment date for the treatment profile of the patient based on the received request, the obtained at least one of: treatment information, provider information and resource information and the obtained one or more available slots; anda data output module configured to output the determined one or more optimal treatment times for the treatment date along with relevant patient information on user interface screen of the one or more electronic devices associated with the scheduler, wherein the relevant patient information comprise patient name, patient identifier, location of treatment, and date of the treatment.

2. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the treatment profile comprises at least one of: one or more lab tests, services to be scheduled with a planned duration for each of one or more medical services, an order in which the one or more medical services are required to be scheduled, an appointment with Medical Assistant (MA), Patient Medical Record (MRN) number, one or more different medical services that are part of the treatment profile, and appointment with one of: a physician and a nurse practitioner (MD), and wherein the one or more medical services comprise injection, treatment, and lab tests to a patient.

3. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the provider information comprises provider name, provider location, provider skillset, provider schedule, and provider availability, wherein a provider is one of: person and a set of persons performing one or more medical services, and wherein a provider comprise at least one of: a physician, a group of physicians, clinic, facility that is part of one of: a hospital and a health system, and one of: one or more other persons and an entity that provides treatment to patients.

4. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the resource information comprises one or more resources where each of one or more medical services are required to be scheduled, current utilization and availability of each of the one or more resources, and wherein the one or more resources comprise at least one of: lab chair, treatment chair, hospital sketcher, and defibrillators used as part of patient treatment procedure.

5. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the time determination module is configured to determine one of: one or more exact matches and one or more approximate matches corresponding to the one or more optimal treatment times based on the received request, the obtained at least one of: treatment information, provider information and resource information and the obtained one or more available slots, wherein the one or more exact matches are the one or more appointment times which exactly correspond to the treatment profile under consideration, wherein the one or more approximate matches are the one or more appointment times which correspond in an approximate manner to the treatment profile under consideration, and wherein the one or more appointment times may be displayed in a specific way to differentiate the one or more exact matches from the one or more approximate matches.

6. The computing system of claim 1, further comprising a treatment profile management module configured to: receive historical patient data associated with a patients from the EHR system, wherein the historical patient data comprise service date, a breakdown of different services needed required each treatment, staff schedules, and operating hours of a provider;generate a set of static optimized Day of the Week (DOW) templates for each DOW based on the received historic patient data by performing a statistical and combinatorial optimization analysis on the received historical patient data, wherein the set of static optimized DOW templates comprise forecasted patient profiles assigned to optimized time slots;classify the generated set of static optimized DOW templates into various service types;categorize the forecasted patient profiles into individual time stamped services upon classifying the generated set of static optimized DOW templates, wherein the forecasted patient profiles are disassembled;generate a set of optimized and prioritized profiles based on time stamped individual service type, dynamic EHR data, and a profile of the patient to be currently scheduled upon categorizing the forecasted patient profiles, wherein the EHR data comprises specific details about already scheduled assignments, and wherein the dynamically assembled matched profiles combines with the EHR data to generate the set of optimized and prioritized profiles;determine a set of rank ordered time slots based on the dynamic EHR data, the static optimized DOW template, one or more patient's preferences and one or more different resources required by a specific patient profile by using a patient scheduling-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) model; andoutput the determined set of rank ordered time slots and the generated set of optimized and prioritized profiles on user interface screen of the one or more electronic devices associated with the scheduler.

7. The computing system of claim 6, wherein in determining the set of rank ordered time slots based on the dynamic EHR data, the static optimized DOW template and the one or more different resources required by the specific patient profile by using the patient scheduling-based AI model, the treatment profile management module is configured to: correlate information pertaining to the time slots assigned to various service types derived from the static DOW template with specifics of the dynamic EHR data for a selected clinic for a selected treatment date by using the patient scheduling-based AI model; anddetermine the set of rank ordered time slots based on result of correlation.

8. The computing system of claim 6, wherein the one or more patient's preferences comprise: a preferred date, a preferred time, and a preferred medical professional.

9. The computing system of claim 6, wherein the treatment profile management module is configured to: obtain one or more inputs from the EHR system, wherein the one or more inputs comprise at least one of: patient MRN, treatment schedule date, treatment schedule location, one or more resources, availability of the one or more resources, resource duration, provider schedule, number of patients assigned to each time slot, and one or more medical services required by each patient;obtain an input from the statically optimized DOW template; anddetermine optimized schedules for specific patient profile under consideration based on the obtained one or more inputs from the EHR system and the obtained input from the statically optimized DOW template.

10. A method for facilitating patient scheduling at a healthcare facility, the method comprising: receiving, by one or more hardware processors, a request from one or more electronic devices associated with a scheduler to schedule an appointment of a patient, wherein the request comprises: a patient ID of the patient, a treatment profile of the patient, a treatment date and an alternate treatment date;obtaining, by the one or more hardware processors, at least one of: treatment information, provider information and resource information from an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system based on the received request, wherein the treatment information comprises the treatment profile and a treatment duration, and wherein the treatment duration is a time duration of the treatment profile;obtaining, by the one or more hardware processors, one or more available s provider slots from the EHR system based on the received request upon obtaining the at least one of: treatment information, provider information and resource information;determining, by the one or more hardware processors, one or more optimal treatment times for the treatment date for the treatment profile of the patient based on the received request, the obtained at least one of: treatment information, provider information and resource information and the obtained one or more available slots; andoutputting, by the one or more hardware processors, the determined one or more optimal treatment times for the treatment date along with relevant patient information on user interface screen of the one or more electronic devices associated with the scheduler, wherein the relevant patient information comprise patient name, patient identifier, location of treatment, and date of the treatment.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the treatment profile comprises at least one of: one or more lab tests, services to be scheduled with a planned duration for each of one or more medical services, an order in which the one or more medical services are required to be scheduled, an appointment with Medical Assistant (MA), Patient Medical Record (MRN) number, one or more different medical services that are part of the treatment profile, and appointment with one of: a physician and a nurse practitioner (MD), and wherein the one or more medical services comprise injection, treatment, and lab tests to a patient.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the provider information comprises provider name, provider location, provider skillset, provider schedule, and provider availability, wherein a provider is one of: person and a set of persons performing one or more medical services, and wherein a provider comprise at least one of: a physician, a group of physicians, clinic, facility that is part of one of: a hospital and a health system, and one of: one or more other persons and an entity that provides treatment to patients.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the resource information comprises one or more resources where each of one or more medical services are required to be scheduled, current utilization and availability of each of the one or more resources, and wherein the one or more resources comprise at least one of: lab chair, treatment chair, hospital sketcher, and defibrillators used as part of patient treatment procedure.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the time determination module is configured to determine one of: one or more exact matches and one or more approximate matches corresponding to the one or more optimal treatment times based on the received request, the obtained at least one of: treatment information, provider information and resource information and the obtained one or more available slots, wherein the one or more exact matches are the one or more appointment times which exactly correspond to the treatment profile under consideration, wherein the one or more approximate matches are the one or more appointment times which correspond in an approximate manner to the treatment profile under consideration, and wherein the one or more appointment times may be displayed in a specific way to differentiate the one or more exact matches from the one or more approximate matches.

15. The method of claim 10, further comprising: receiving historical patient data associated with a patients from the EHR system, wherein the historical patient data comprise service date, a breakdown of different services needed required each treatment, staff schedules, and operating hours of a provider;generating a set of static optimized Day of the Week (DOW) templates for each DOW based on the received historic patient data by performing a statistical and combinatorial optimization analysis on the received historical patient data, wherein the set of static optimized DOW templates comprise forecasted patient profiles assigned to optimized time slots;classifying the generated set of static optimized DOW templates into various service types;categorizing the forecasted patient profiles into individual time stamped services upon classifying the generated set of static optimized DOW templates, wherein the forecasted patient profiles are disassembled;generating a set of optimized and prioritized profiles based on time stamped individual service type, dynamic EHR data, and a profile of the patient to be currently scheduled upon categorizing the forecasted patient profiles, wherein the EHR data comprises specific details about already scheduled assignments, and wherein the dynamically assembled matched profiles combines with the EHR data to generate the set of optimized and prioritized profiles;determining a set of rank ordered time slots based on the dynamic EHR data, the static optimized DOW template, one or more patient's preferences and one or more different resources required by a specific patient profile by using a patient scheduling-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) model; andoutputting the determined set of rank ordered time slots and the generated set of optimized and prioritized profiles on user interface screen of the one or more electronic devices associated with the scheduler.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein determining the set of rank ordered time slots based on the dynamic EHR data, the static optimized DOW template and the one or more different resources required by the specific patient profile by using the patient scheduling-based AI model comprises: correlating information pertaining to the time slots assigned to various service types derived from the static DOW template with specifics of the dynamic EHR data for a selected clinic for a selected treatment date by using the patient scheduling-based AI model; anddetermining the set of rank ordered time slots based on result of correlation.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the one or more patient's preferences comprise: a preferred date, a preferred time, and a preferred medical professional.

18. The method of claim 15, further comprising: obtaining one or more inputs from the EHR system, wherein the one or more inputs comprise at least one of: patient MRN, treatment schedule date, treatment schedule location, one or more resources, availability of the one or more resources, resource duration, provider schedule, number of patients assigned to each time slot, and one or more medical services required by each patient;obtaining an input from the statically optimized DOW template; anddetermining optimized schedules for specific patient profile under consideration based on the obtained one or more inputs from the EHR system and the obtained input from the statically optimized DOW template.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored therein that, when executed by a hardware processor, cause the processor to perform method steps comprising: receiving a request from one or more electronic devices associated with a scheduler to schedule an appointment of a patient, wherein the request comprises: a patient ID of the patient, a treatment profile of the patient and a treatment date;obtaining at least one of: treatment information, provider information and resource information from an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system based on the received request, wherein the treatment information comprises the treatment profile and a treatment duration, and wherein the treatment duration is a time duration of the treatment profile;obtaining one or more available provider slots comprising MD or Nurse Practitioner (NP) time slots, from the EHR system based on the received request upon obtaining the at least one of: treatment information, provider information and resource information;determining one or more optimal treatment times for the treatment date for the treatment profile of the patient based on the received request, the obtained at least one of: treatment information, provider information and resource information and the obtained one or more available slots; andoutputting the determined one or more optimal treatment times for the treatment date, along with relevant patient information on user interface screen of the one or more electronic devices associated with the scheduler, wherein the relevant patient information comprise patient name, patient identifier, location of treatment, and date of the treatment.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 19, wherein the treatment profile comprises at least one of: one or more lab tests, services to be scheduled with a planned duration for each of one or more medical services, an order in which the one or more medical services are required to be scheduled, an appointment with Medical Assistant (MA), Patient Medical Record (MRN) number, one or more different medical services that are part of the treatment profile, and appointment with one of: a physician or a nurse practitioner (MD, and wherein the one or more medical services comprise injection, treatment, and lab tests to a patient.