Physician Referral Network Matching Engine

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Solution Overview

Problem

Current search engines for healthcare providers rely on user-generated reviews, which are subjective and often incomplete, making it difficult for users to find qualified healthcare providers based on specific criteria like location, specialty, and experience.

Innovation Solution

A matching-engine system that utilizes a performance engine to calculate performance scores and an experience engine to determine experience indices for healthcare providers, allowing users to find recommended physicians based on objective criteria such as efficiency, experience, and geographic location.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Ease of operation

If user-generated reviews are used to evaluate healthcare providers, then the system is easy to operate and requires minimal data collection infrastructure, but the information completeness and objectivity deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveease of operationVSAvoidinformation completeness

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of operationVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces an intermediary evaluation system that mediates between raw healthcare data and user decisions. This intermediary layer processes objective clinical data, performance metrics, and experience information through structured algorithms, transforming unstructured data into reliable, comparable provider evaluations that maintain both objectivity and information completeness.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent replaces the mechanical system of subjective user-generated reviews with an automated computational system. This system uses algorithms to process clinical data, performance metrics, and experience information, substituting human subjective judgment with objective computational evaluation that eliminates bias while maintaining ease of access.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

2Device complexity

If user-generated reviews are used to evaluate healthcare providers, then the system requires minimal infrastructure, but the measurement precision of provider quality deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesystem complexityVSAvoidmeasurement precision

Core Design Contradiction:

Device complexityVSMeasurement precision

Solution Approach 1:

The patent fundamentally changes the parameters used to evaluate healthcare providers, transitioning from subjective user review scores to objective measurable parameters such as clinical performance metrics, experience data, and quality indicators. This parameter transformation enables precise measurement of provider quality while maintaining system accessibility.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #35Parameter changes

Solution Approach 2:

The patent replaces the mechanical system of subjective human review with an automated computational evaluation system that precisely measures provider quality through structured data processing, algorithmic analysis, and standardized metric comparison, achieving high measurement precision without increasing apparent system complexity.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

3Loss of time

If subjective reviews are used to find healthcare providers, then users can quickly access provider information, but the reliability of provider selection deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvetime to find providerVSAvoidreliability

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of timeVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent performs preliminary actions by pre-processing and structuring healthcare provider data before user queries. Clinical performance data, experience information, and quality metrics are collected, validated, and organized in advance into standardized formats, enabling rapid retrieval of reliable provider information without requiring users to wait for data processing during their search.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent replaces the unreliable mechanical system of subjective user reviews with an automated reliability-based evaluation system that quickly retrieves and presents objectively verified provider quality information, maintaining fast access while significantly improving selection reliability through algorithmic assessment of clinical performance and experience data.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

Data Source

PatentUS10861597B2Search engine systems for matching medical providers and patients

Publication Date: 2020.12.08 ACCOLADE INC

AI summary

In one embodiment, a method comprises accessing a physician-referral-network, which comprises a number of nodes and a number of edges connecting the nodes, each of the edges representing a single degree of separation between the nodes. Each node represents a physician, and each edge represents a patient-referral between two physicians corresponding to the connected nodes. One or more references indicating a patient-referral from a first physician to a second physician is received. The physician-referral-network is updated based on the received reference. One or more performance-scores from the second physicians may be received, each performance-score corresponding to a patient-referral. A referral-score is calculated for the first physician based on the performance-scores. The method further comprises determining if a referral-score for a first physician is below a threshold referral-score.