“Intelligent Touch Care Corresponding To An Unscheduled Clinician Visit” in Patent Application Approval Process (USPTO 20200111580)

2020 APR 24 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent application by the inventors Brown, Georgia (Kansas City, Ks); Farley, Sheila (Kansas City, Ks); Brown, Stacey (Kansas City, Ks), filed on December 31, 2018, was made available online on April 9, 2020, according to news reporting originating from Washington, D.C., by NewsRx correspondents.

This patent application is assigned to Cerner Innovation Inc. (Kansas City, Kansas, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Early warning systems are often used in the clinical setting (e.g., acute care) to detect patient deterioration and drive clinical decision-making. For example, the early warning system may detect that a particular condition a patient has been diagnosed with or a particular medication the patient is being treated with makes the patient a higher risk for a particular negative outcome. Unfortunately, these systems are limited to the clinical setting and do not account for, for example, a patient in a community care setting (e.g., in person visit in the community, in person visit at a clinic, clinical video visit, telephonic assessment or follow-up, electronic assessment via a patient portal or a voice system, upstream transition to a higher level of care setting, or a referral for an outside service such as transportation, meal service, or behavioral health evaluation). Moreover, these systems fail to consider additional patient information that is particularly relevant outside of a clinical facility (e.g., social determinant of health risk factors such as transportation limitations or food insecurity). This results in overlooked risk factors for the patient that increases the risk of deterioration or an acute event, resulting in an overall increase in health care costs.

“Various touch points may be needed based on the needs of a particular patient in a community care setting. For example, based on demographics corresponding to the patient, a particular condition the patient has been diagnosed with or the particular medication the patient is being treated with, or other factors, the patient may need follow-ups at particular time intervals. However, in the community care setting, in-person follow-ups are not always needed and are over-utilized which results in inefficient workforce management and fewer patient touch points. This results in unnecessary or missed touch points, unnecessary in-person appointments, and an overall increase in health care costs.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent application, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent application: “This summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.

“Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to systems, methods, and user interfaces for providing intelligent touch care. More particularly, embodiments of the present disclosure utilizes contributing data elements in a community early warning score (CEWS) to predict touchpoint discipline and to recommend frequency, modality, and upstream transitions of care and outside service referrals for a patient in a community care setting. In response to a touch point (e.g., a change in condition or medication, a scheduled or unscheduled appointment, or a patient question), the CEWS can be utilized along with data in an EHR of a patient, data from a patient device, or data from a patient portal to initiate a follow-up (e.g., personal health question or encounter).

“Notification tools and scheduling functionality are provided via a user interface of the patient device to improve clinical workforce capacity, increase the number of patient touches, and encourage heightened patient engagement. Moreover, the ability to capture dynamic rising risk provides clinical insight into changing risk outside of the controlled environment of a clinical facility. Overall, outcomes for the patient can be improved, touch points can be increased, and unnecessary in-person appointments and overall health care costs can be reduced.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. One or more computer storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that, when executed by a computer, causes the computer to perform operations, the operations comprising: receiving a touch point corresponding to a new order provided during an unscheduled appointment for a patient in a community care setting; in response to the touch point, communicating data corresponding to the touch point to an electronic health record (EHR) for the patient; crawling data in the EHR for the patient, the data including a community early warning score (CEWS); based on the touch point and the data in the EHR, triggering a follow-up comprising a notification for the patient; and in response to the follow-up, scheduling an encounter or generating a new touch point.

“2. The media of claim 1, where the notification is provided to the patient via a consumer device or via a personal assistant voice service, the notification indicating that a personal health question is available for the patient.

“3. The media of claim 2, further comprising determining whether the personal health question has been communicated to the patient.

“4. The media of claim 3, further comprising, upon determining the personal health question has not been communicated to the patient, prompting the patient with an option to receive the personal health question at another time.

“5. The media of claim 4, further comprising, upon receiving an indication the patient has not provided another time, triggering a second follow-up for the patient.

“6. The media of claim 4, further comprising, upon receiving an indication the patient has provided another time, capturing the time to schedule the encounter.

“7. The media of claim 4, further comprising, upon determining the personal health question has been communicated to the patient, prompting the patient to indicate whether the patient has complied with the new order.

“8. The media of claim 7, further comprising, upon determining the patient has not complied with the new order, initiating a telephone follow-up for the patient.

“9. The media of claim 7, further comprising, upon determining the patient has complied with the new order, prompting the patient to indicate if the patient has questions or concerns.

“10. The media of claim 9, further comprising, upon determining the patient has questions or concerns, initiating a telephone follow-up for the patient.

“11. A computerized method comprising: receiving a touch point corresponding to a new order provided during an unscheduled appointment for a patient in a community care setting; in response to the touch point, communicating data corresponding to the touch point to an electronic health record (EHR) for the patient; crawling data in the EHR for the patient, the data including a community early warning score (CEWS); based on the touch point and the data in the EHR, triggering a follow-up comprising a notification for the patient, the notification provided via a consumer device or via a personal assistant voice service and indicating that a personal health question is available for the patient; and in response to the follow-up, scheduling an encounter or generating a new touch point.

“12. The method of claim 11, further comprising determining whether the personal health question has been communicated to the patient.

“13. The method of claim 12, further comprising, upon determining the personal health question has not been communicated to the patient, prompting the patient with an option to receive the personal health question at another time.

“14. The method of claim 13, further comprising, upon receiving an indication the patient has not provided another time, triggering a second follow-up for the patient.

“15. The method of claim 13, further comprising, upon receiving an indication the patient has provided another time, capturing the time to schedule the encounter.

“16. The method of claim 13, further comprising, upon determining the personal health question has been communicated to the patient, prompting the patient to indicate whether the patient has complied with the new order.

“17. The method of claim 16, further comprising, upon determining the patient has not complied with the new order, initiating a telephone follow-up for the patient.

“18. The method of claim 16, further comprising, upon determining the patient has complied with the new order, prompting the patient to indicate if the patient has questions or concerns.

“19. The method of claim 18, further comprising, upon determining the patient has questions or concerns, initiating a telephone follow-up for the patient.

“20. A system comprising: a processor; and a computer storage medium storing computer-usable instructions that, when used by the processor, cause the processor to: receive a touch point corresponding to a new order provided during an unscheduled appointment for a patient in a community care setting; in response to the touch point, communicate data corresponding to the touch point to an electronic health record (EHR) for the patient; crawl data in the EHR for the patient, the data including a community early warning score (CEWS); based on the touch point and the data in the EHR, trigger a follow-up for the patient; and in response to the follow-up, schedule an encounter or generate a new touch point.”

URL and more information on this patent application, see: Brown, Georgia; Farley, Sheila; Brown, Stacey. Intelligent Touch Care Corresponding To An Unscheduled Clinician Visit. Filed December 31, 2018 and posted April 9, 2020. Patent URL: http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220200111580%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20200111580&RS=DN/20200111580

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