Grid-Based Vital Sign Scoring for Early Patient Risk Identification
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for identifying patients at risk of adverse events such as cardiopulmonary arrest lack effective preemptive measures, as they rely on timely identification and referral to medical emergency teams, which can be delayed due to inefficiencies in existing scoring systems and monitoring technologies.
Innovation Solution
A vital sign evaluation tool and method that uses a grid-based system to assign score values to respiratory rate, heart rate, oxygen therapy, capillary refill time, transcutaneous oxygen saturation, and systolic blood pressure, scaled according to age ranges, to generate a total score indicating the severity of illness, which triggers appropriate care recommendations and medical staffing adjustments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If traditional calling criteria or early warning scores are used to identify patients at risk, then patient identification can be achieved, but the process is delayed due to inefficiencies in existing scoring systems and monitoring technologies
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms multiple vital sign parameters (respiratory rate, heart rate, oxygen saturation, blood pressure, temperature) into a unified early warning score through standardized parameter transformation. This consolidation enables rapid assessment while maintaining comprehensive evaluation accuracy, directly resolving the contradiction between identification precision and time efficiency
Solution Approach 2:
The scoring system is segmented into distinct vital sign categories, each evaluated independently and then aggregated. This segmentation allows parallel processing of multiple parameters, reducing overall assessment time while maintaining the precision of individual parameter evaluation through structured scoring criteria
2Measurement precision
If a comprehensive scoring system combining multiple clinical parameters is implemented, then patient risk assessment accuracy is improved, but the system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple complex clinical parameters into a single integrated early warning score. This consolidation maintains the comprehensive assessment capability by incorporating respiratory rate, heart rate, oxygen saturation, blood pressure, and temperature, while simplifying the output to a unified metric that is easier to interpret and act upon
Solution Approach 2:
Complex clinical parameters are transformed into standardized score values through defined transformation rules. Each vital sign is converted into a discrete score component, and these components are aggregated into a total early warning score, changing the parameter representation from continuous clinical measurements to discrete scored values that reduce system complexity
Data Source
AI summary
A vital sign evaluation tool (100, 200, 300) for evaluating a measure of severity of illness associated with a patient is provided, where the tool comprises a displayed grid (102) divided into a plurality of coded regions (104 to 106, 206, 306) each assigned to a vital sign associated with the patient. Each of the plurality of coded regions are scaled according to one of a plurality of age ranges (136, 202, 302) associated with the patient and adapted to generate a score value corresponding to a measurement of the vital sign. The score value within the plurality of the coded regions is summed to produce a total score (156), where the total score is adapted to provide an indication of the severity of illness of the patient.