Tissue management system

Abstract

The present invention provides a comprehensive tissue management system for transplantable materials like tissues and organs. The tracking portion of the system prompts and verifies that staff members of a medical establishment like a hospital have handled, stored, transported, reconstituted, and used the tissue or organ materials in a safe and regulatory-compliant manner from the point of receipt to the point of issuance or surgical use throughout the hospital's organization. The tracing portion of the system creates an integral record that documents which hospital staff members have provided which processing steps to the tissue or organ, any associated materials used in conjunction with such tissue or organ, and an identification of the tissue or organ that was transplanted or implanted inside a patient. Such a system will enable adverse reaction investigations for transplant patients, and recalls of transplantable materials.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 11 / 975,525 filed on Oct. 19, 2007, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. Ser. No. 11 / 584,357 filed on Oct. 20, 2006, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. Ser. No. 11 / 540,844 filed on Sep. 29, 2006, which claims the benefit of the U.S. provisional application No. 60 / 826,492 filed on Sep. 21, 2006, all of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]This invention relates generally to transplantable materials including cells, tissues and organ transplants (“TM”), and non-biologic implant materials, such as titanium screws and silicone breast implants (“NBI”), used within the medical field, and more specifically to a computer software-based system for ensuring the safe and appropriate handling of such TM and NBI from receipt to their use in surgical procedures and tracing such TM and NBI later in response to an adverse reaction investigation ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention is a comprehensive system for managing tissues, organs, and non-biologic implants used for transplantation purposes. The system ensures that medical personnel have followed safe and regulatory-compliant procedures in handling, storing, transporting, reconstituting, and using the tissue or organ materials. The system creates an electronic record that documents which hospital staff members have provided which processing steps to the tissue, any associated materials used in conjunction with the tissue, and an identification of the tissue or organ that was transplanted or implanted inside a patient. This record helps to reliably trace back the tissue or organ to its donor or tissue bank source in the event of an adverse reaction by the patient after the surgery. The system can provide prompts to the staff members to record and enter the data at the same time that the processing activity is carried out, and it requires data to be entered from previous critical processing steps before further steps can be taken. This system helps to create accurate, comprehensive, and contemporaneous record-keeping.

Problems solved by technology

Even more preferably, such system will not permit such staff members to carry out a critical step for handling, storing, transporting, reconstituting or using such tissue, non-biologic implant, or organ material unless data has already been entered into the system to verify that a prior critical step has been taken.

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