Patent Application Titled “Intelligent Touch Care Corresponding To A Patient Question” Published Online (USPTO 20200111582)

2020 APR 24 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- According to news reporting originating from Washington, D.C., by NewsRx journalists, 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.

The assignee for this patent application is Cerner Innovation Inc. (Kansas City, Kansas, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote 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 obtaining background information on this patent application, NewsRx editors 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 indicating a patient in a community care setting has a question for a clinician; 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); and based on the touch point and the data in the EHR, triggering a follow-up comprising a notification for the patient or initiating a telephone clinical assessment.

“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.

“3. The media of claim 2, wherein the notification indicates that a personal health question is available for the patient.

“4. The media of claim 3, further comprising determining whether an issue corresponding to the question has been resolved.

“5. The media of claim 4, upon determining the issue corresponding to the question has been resolved, generating a second touch point for the patient.

“6. The media of claim 5, wherein the second touch point indicates the issue corresponding to the question has been resolved.

“7. The media of claim 4, further comprising, upon determining the issue corresponding to the question has not been resolved, determining a second follow-up is needed.

“8. The media of claim 7, wherein the second follow-up comprises a video visit, an in-person visit, or a clinician visit.

“9. The media of claim 8, further comprising generating a second touch point for the patient.

“10. The media of claim 9, wherein the second touch point schedules the second follow-up for the patient.

“11. A computerized method comprising: receiving a touch point indicating a patient in a community care setting has a question for a clinician; 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); and based on the touch point and the data in the EHR, triggering a follow-up comprising a notification for the patient or initiating a telephone clinical assessment.

“12. The method of claim 11, where the notification is provided to the patient via a consumer device or via a personal assistant voice service.

“13. The method of claim 12, wherein the notification indicates that a personal health question is available for the patient.

“14. The method of claim 13, further comprising determining whether an issue corresponding to the question has been resolved.

“15. The method of claim 14, upon determining the issue corresponding to the question has been resolved, generating a second touch point for the patient, wherein the second touch point indicates the issue corresponding to the question has been resolved.

“16. The method of claim 14, further comprising, upon determining the issue corresponding to the question has not been resolved, determining a second follow-up is needed.

“17. The method of claim 16, wherein the second follow-up comprises a video visit, an in-person visit, or a clinician visit.

“18. The method of claim 17, further comprising generating a second touch point for the patient.

“19. The method of claim 18, wherein the second touch point schedules the second follow-up.

“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 indicating a patient in a community care setting has a question for a clinician; 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); and based on the touch point and the data in the EHR, trigger a follow-up comprising a notification for the patient or initiating a telephone clinical assessment.”

For more information, see this patent application: Brown, Georgia; Farley, Sheila; Brown, Stacey. Intelligent Touch Care Corresponding To A Patient Question. 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=%2220200111582%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20200111582&RS=DN/20200111582

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