6554 results about "Family medicine" patented technology

A medical kiosk designed to provide tele-medicine services, check-in services, and / or prescription services for a user. The medical kiosk can include a user video conferencing system that is designed to enable the user to have a real-time or near real-time tele-conference with a medical provider located remotely from the medical kiosk.

An exercise computer monitors the exercises of a user, especially a child, and provides rewards for exercises done well and regularly, thereby motivating the user. Rewards take the form of video games, cartoons, music, and merchant coupons. The exercise computer also provides encouragement and advice as the user progresses in skill level. Exercises may be prescribed. A record of exercise performance can be produced, to track the user's progress over time. The system and method can readily utilize the current install base of handheld computers and video games pre-existing in the marketplace.

A medical information management system and method that stores and manages patient information and that enables a patient and an authorized third party, such as a friend or family member, to access the patient's medical information. The presentation format, substance of the patient's medical information provided, or both are customized depending on whether the patient, a healthcare professional or the third party is accessing the patient's medical information. The present invention also pertains to a method of subsidizing such a medical information system by selling advertising space in the presentation shown to the third party, patient, or the healthcare professional. The present invention further pertains to a patient interface appliance that includes a display containing multiple viewing fields, one of which is a general information field and one of which is an advertising field, to present information and advertisements to a user during a patient interactive session. Patient participation in conducting the survey is fostered by offering a survey completion reward to the patient upon completing the survey.

A medical kiosk designed to provide tele-med services, check-in services, and / or prescription services for a user. The medical kiosk can include a user video conferencing system that is designed to enable the user to have a real-time or near real-time tele-conference with a medical provider located remotely from the medical kiosk.

The invention relates to a method and system of physician economic performance evaluation in which the relative medical difficulty associated with patients admitted by a particular physician is determined and, given that measurement, judgments made concerning the relative amount of inpatient resources that the physician required. Also, one application of the present invention relates to a method for gainsharing of physician services using a surplus allocation methodology for rewarding physicians in relation to their performance. An incentive pool is determined from previous patient claims and payments made to physicians in advance, such as in a base year. Best practice norms are established for a plurality of classified diagnosis groups. In one embodiment of the present invention, the classified diagnosis related groups are adjusted for severity of illness to compensate for actual clinical challenges faced by individual physicians. The best practice norms can be used in the surplus allocation method for determining physician performance. The incentive is established proportional to the relationship between a physician's individual performance and the best practice norm.

A comprehensive healthcare analytic and predicative modeling system that tracks costs for patients on a long term basis (greater than 6 months, one-year, or more) to assess the long-term effectiveness of various treatment options. Based upon the evaluation of the long-term effectiveness of various treatment options, the system then delivers a predictive model, which is based on data extracted and aggregated from dissimilar databases, that analyzes up-to-date economic and clinical outcomes, and then, using this data, can estimate long-term future treatment results from an economic and clinical perspective. Also disclosed herein is a personal electronic medical record on a computer network created by a medical provider on the authorization of the patient and controlled by the patient. Lastly, disclosed herein is a computer system for the consolidation of medical and financial data from disparate databases into a unitary data format.

This invention relates to an Internet or other broadband computer-based networked system, operated by a service provider that enables members of the system provider network, which may be patients, family members, employees or others, to assemble, update, enhance, analyze, correct, broker, securely store and transmit, certify and otherwise manage the medical records and, under appropriate circumstances, the medical records of family, friends, clients or customers and integrates those medical records and their updating around the patient.

A method and apparatus are provided for facilitating compliance with a medication regimen by a user. The method includes the steps of providing the user with a medication dispensing unit for dispensing medication to the user and a wireless transceiver operatively coupled to a controller of the medication dispensing unit, downloading a set of instructions for controlling the medication unit from a server to the controller of the medication dispensing unit through the wireless transceiver and downloading a set of instructions that instruct the user on how to use the dispensed medication through the wireless transceiver to the user.

Embodiments of the invention provide a comprehensive, automated system and method for evaluating the performance of individuals or entities employed by an organization, particularly useful in peer-profiling physician performance in multi-facility environments. Embodiments of the invention can dynamically compose a virtual peer or group of peers and perform peer-profiling on each individual or group of individuals to be evaluated. For example, a composite physician may be generated from system-wide and / or state-wide healthcare data as a benchmark against which a particular physician is profiled according to industry-standard measurements. The composite physician would have equivalent or similar job function(s) as well as patient population. The composite physician enables a comprehensive “apple to apple” comparison with the particular physician, giving meaning to and facilitating the usefulness of performance evaluation results.

A first medical device can acquire a physiological parameter value from a patient and communicate the physiological parameter value to a medical network interface. The medical network interface can link a patient ID associated with the physiological parameter and a device ID associated with the first medical device with the medical network interface's device ID. The medical network interface can pass the physiological parameter value to a second medical device for further processing or routing to another medical device.

Methods, computer systems, and computer readable media for transforming raw healthcare data into relevant healthcare data are provided. Transformation of raw healthcare data into relevant data is accomplished by receiving raw data from a plurality of disparate data sources, indexing the data, and mapping the data. Embodiments transform raw data into relevant data through the use of natural language processing, synonymy and ontology mapping, and adaptive knowledge processing. The relevant data is stored in a one record that includes information necessary to understand and represent that patient.

Current health parameters for a user are monitored at a personal health monitoring system. Current health parameters include multiple monitored physical parameters and multiple monitored environmental parameters. The current health parameters are compared with health allowances for the user. A control signal for transmission to a health control device that controls at least one parameter from among the multiple physical parameters and multiple environmental parameters is determined in response to determining that at least one of the current health parameters exceeds at least one of the health allowances, such that the at least one current health parameter that exceeds the at least one of the health allowances is adjusted by the health control device according to the control signal in order to balance the comprehensive health of the user.

A system and related techniques generate and track clinical supply orders, policies, individual or aggregate consumption and automated billing, ordering and fulfillment functions via an integrated clinical platform. A patient supply record may be generated for individual patients which traces the consumption of surgical, disposable, pharmaceutical and other supplies throughout a medical encounter or series of encounters or treatment. Physician supply preferences may be aggregated and analyzed to derive value leverage, for instance through volume pricing or conforming department supplies to standard practices. In implementations the supply selections of a given doctor or department or for specified categories of procedure may be analyzed in terms of ultimate patient outcomes resulting from use of those clinical supplies to identify best results and optimize other aspects of clinical operation. A supply chain engine may communicate with supply tracking resources to automatically trigger orders for different supplies, for instance through enterprise resource planning (ERP) or other channels. In embodiments the supplies and materials so ordered may be automatically fulfilled or delivered from the vendor side, for instance based on quantity threshold or closest or most efficient delivery points.

An electronic health care management system is provided which collects both subjective and objective information regarding a patient into a clinical patient record, and uses the record to determine evidence-based recommendations. A healthcare provider may decide to implement certain recommendations, and / or provide additional interventions which are collectively implemented using automated support tools. Often, a plan can include follow-up activities which may be automatically scheduled by the electronic health care management system, and may include external scheduling programs and corresponding application-programming interfaces (APIs).

A web-based platform for guiding a user's encounter with a patient and for generating a medical record of the encounter. The web-based platform comprises a processor in communication with an output display device and an input user interface, a knowledge base. The processor outputs information to the output display device, accesses the knowledge base, and receives information from the input user interface. The output display device requests patient information in response to presented successive prompts for patient medical information. The prompts are responsive to the knowledge base and to prior responses to prior prompts as entered through the input user interface. The output display device presents a patient medical condition report based on responses to requests and prompts. ICD codes are included within the knowledge base and included within the patient medical condition report. The codes are determined, as applicable, as each prompt and response is entered.

A personal and / or institutional health and wellness communications system, which may be used for a variety of emergency and non-emergency situations using two-way communication devices and a bi-directional communication network. In one application two-way pagers are adapted for use in the system. In one application cellular devices are adapted for use in the system. In one application an assisted living response center is established using various embodiments of the present personal and / or institutional communications system. The system provides multiple levels of prioritization, authentication of person (task, step, process or order), and confirmation via interrogation of person, device, or related monitor. One embodiment provides a method for receiving, evaluating and responding to calls received from a subscriber, patient, related party, or health care provider or health care system.

A user interface enables a critical care clinician (such as a respiratory therapist, nurse, resident, or attending physician) to quickly ascertain a patient condition as part of a patient care management procedure. A system according to invention principles comprises a user interface display providing a quick and convenient way to display key vital parameters and their acceptable ranges within the immediate eye-span of a clinician. A system provides a user interface presenting patient medical parameter data, and includes an acquisition processor for acquiring, from a patient monitoring device, data representing a patient parameter. The system includes a processor for initiating generation of data representing at least one display image including, (a) a current value of a patient parameter and (b) a sliding bar representation of the patient parameter current value together with a range indicator for graphically indicating whether the current value is outside of a user determined range.

A system and method for collecting and testing data at a patient point of care location via a first device, such as a sample cartridge adapted to engage a first device, such as a personal digital assistant (PDA) incorporating a wireless communication module to communicate collected data to a second device, such as a healthcare workers personal PDA located beyond a contamination radius about a patient. Each device can further include a registration device, such as a bar code reader, to collect additional information at a point of care and tag data, or data analysis information, with an associated patient code.

A system, for interpreting information for a physician user or non-physician user, is described. The system includes a processing module configured to convert numerical data to at least one of a natural-language text and a machine vocalization. The at least one of the natural-language text and the machine vocalization describes a characteristic of the numerical data. The characteristic of the numerical data comprises at least one of a trend, a first derivative, a second derivative, a high value, a low value, and a time period, a pattern of repetition, an extrapolation, an interpolation, and a frequency. The physician user may enter data or receive data by voice alone through the backend database. The physician user may also order tests, labs or check on the same by voice alone.

An automated patient-management system for efficiently reporting patient information to clinicians, and a method of operation thereof is described. The system automatically collects and analyzes historic-physiologic data indicative of a patient's health from a myriad of sources. Based on the historic-physiologic data, the system automatically generates a health-risk score indicative of whether a patient will experience a serious-medical event in the near future (e.g., a predetermined time interval). The system uses a processing model that may rely on Hierarchical-Temporal Memory techniques and other models, for extracting and analyzing patient data. The system also generates an integrated synopsis of a patient's health condition, including the health-risk score. The synopsis is then presented (served) to a clinician in an organized, simplified, and effective manner via a client-side user interface. The synopsis enables a physician to proficiently grasp the patient's most critical health parameters in a short period of time.

A method and system for maintaining medical items is provided. The system includes a medical database structure, a medical database utility configured to maintain medical database contents by organizing medical information into levels, and a user interface component configured to enable a user to access the medical database utility. The medical database utility provides a user with an ability to access the user's collections of settings in the medical database, the user's collection of settings maintained separately from settings accessible by other users. The method stores medical data items in a database configured with multiple levels of organization, establishes a logical relationship between medical data items at each level of organization, presents a user with available medical system choices at each level of organization, and enables the user to select from among the available medical system choices presented at each level of organization.

A method for controlling access to a medical record of a patient hosted by at least one medical record repository, comprising a plurality of sub-records, each sub-record having an associated different patient-controlled access control criteria, comprising: receiving, by an intermediary, a request for a medical record from a requester, said request comprising a medical record identifier, a requester identifier, requester authentication information, and patient-provided access control authorization; automatically processing, by the intermediary, the request for the medical record to authenticate the requester and determine sufficiency of the patient-provided access control authorization to meet the patient-controlled access control criteria for each respective sub-record encompassed by the request; and selectively communicating, from the intermediary to the at least one medical record repository, an identification of each sub-record for which access control criteria are determined to be sufficient for access by the requestor. An electronic payment authorization associated with the request may be generated, for compensation of at least one of the intermediary and a medical record repository.

User-specific medical, genetic, fitness, environmental and nutritional data is collected to develop personalized health and wellness programs for improving a user's health and wellness. The user-specific data may be collected from medical or genetic tests, mobile health devices worn by the user and applications through which the user manually inputs information. The user-specific data is then collected and analyzed together based on knowledge of the interrelationships between medical, genetic, fitness, environmental and nutrition data to develop a comprehensive user profile and personalized health and wellness programs that are targeted to improving specific areas of the user's health by implementing changes in fitness, nutrition, medical treatment, environment, etc. The user is provided with a customizable, interactive dashboard graphical user interface of their current health and wellness data, which, along with notifications, incentives and rewards, helps the user improve their overall health and wellness and significantly reduce their risk of morbidity.

Consent management between a client and a network server. In response to a request for consent, a central server determines if requested user information is included in a user profile associated with a user and if the user has granted consent to share the requested user information. A user interface is provided to the user via a browser of the client to collect the requested user information that is not included in the user profile and the consent to share the requested user information from the user. After receiving the user information provided by the user via the user interface, the service provided by the network server is allowed access to the received user information, and the central server updates the user profile. Other aspects of the invention are directed to computer-readable media for use with profile and consent accrual.

The present invention relates to a healthcare transaction processor for reviewing and processing healthcare charge statements from the healthcare providers and claim payment statements from the healthcare payers, paying for the patient-responsible portion of the healthcare charges, and providing to the patients consolidated healthcare transaction statements that summarize (1) the total healthcare charges, (2) the payments for the payer-responsible portion of such charges by the healthcare payer, and (3) the payments for the patient-responsible portion of such charges by such third-party healthcare transaction processor. The present invention also relates to a health payment system that performs the dual functions of a conventional healthcare payer and of the healthcare transaction processor as described hereinabove.

A personal and / or institutional health and wellness communications system, which may be used for a variety of emergency and non-emergency situations using two-way communication devices and a bi-directional communication network. In one application two-way pagers are adapted for use in the system. In one application cellular devices are adapted for use in the system. In one application an assisted living response center is established using various embodiments of the present personal and / or institutional communications system. The system provides multiple levels of prioritization, authentication of person (task, step, process or order), and confirmation via interrogation of person, device, or related monitor. One embodiment provides a method for receiving, evaluating and responding to calls received from a subscriber, patient, related party, or health care provider or health care system.