Apparatus method and for intelligent electronic medical devices

Abstract

An enhanced electronic medical device is provided that combines some of the enhanced electronic features found in other electronic medical devices with software for executing a stochastic process control and evaluating the digital respiratory and other physiological data collected by the electronic medical device. The programmed stochastic process control is capable of selecting and calculating any one of a number of pulmonary function and other physiological parameters including at least one statistical process control variable to determine a pulmonary or other physiological threshold. Information systems linking doctor's offices and patient's electronic medical devices are further provided to transmit warning data in cases where the pulmonary or other physiological threshold is exceeded.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a continuation of and claims priority to pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11 / 378,058 filed Mar. 17, 2006 entitled APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR INTELLIGENT PEAK FLOW METERS, to be issued as U.S. Pat. No. 8,034,002 on Oct. 11, 2011, which in turn claims priority to Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60 / 662,605, filed Mar. 17, 2005 the entire contents of all of which are incorporated herein in their entirety.STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT[0002]Not Applicable.INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE OF MATERIAL[0003]Also informative and useful in understanding and applying the operation of the present invention, the following documents are also incorporated by reference in their entirety herein:[0004]Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA), Global Strategy For Asthma Management And Prevention. National Institutes Of Health, Bethesda Md. USA, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, NIH Publicatio...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

None of these devices have seen widespread clinical use, however, due to the large volume of raw data they provide.

This data overload creates both a treatment dilemma and an associated potential liability for treating physicians.

First, physicians do not have the time to review the large volumes of raw date that the all the electronic peak flow meters from all of their patients provide, whether presented as tabular pulmonary data or automatically charted for the ease of physician review.

Further, health insurers have no current billing paradigm according to which physicians would be paid for their review of this data.

Second, and more significantly, physicians and their insurers are reluctant to assume the risk of collecting patient data that their attending physicians do not have time to review fearing the liability of potential early warning signs within the unreviewed data, early warning signs that, in the worst case scenario, are indicative of a life threatening status.

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