Patent Application Titled “System And Method For Tracking And Tracing Persons With Selected Medical Conditions” Published Online (USPTO 20220037034): Patent Application

2022 FEB 22 (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 inventor Stanescu, Dragos (Savannah, GA, US), filed on July 14, 2021, was made available online on February 3, 2022.

No assignee for this patent application has been made.

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Global pandemics, such as the outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), have substantially changed how people interact with each other, such as practicing social distancing in public and/or private spaces. While social distancing helps combat certain global pandemics, such social distancing is being done with a lack of individualized predictive diagnostics (based on disease algorithms and comprehensive risk analysis), with no real time confirmation of risk status or infection status (including identification of those at risk for infection) and with no accurate data available to calculate geographic risk to optimize distribution and dispersion of resources. Couple these limitations with no common global protocol or consolidated data pool (which contributes to confusion and international tensions) and that current monitoring and predictive models are problematic and prone to errors via relying purely on small sample sizes and the associated statistics therefor, and it becomes clear that a need remains for a comprehensive monitoring solution for epidemiological tracing and monitoring which insures individual privacy.

“Accordingly, with multiple relatively serious pathogens loose and more nearly certain to become active, a need exists for systems which enable an individual to not only protect their own health but also the health of others and which replace general social distancing with targeted social distancing policies focused on those individuals with elevated risks of infection.

“Moreover, with an aging population and a corresponding increase in instances of chronic diseases and illnesses that require long-term and recurrent treatment, a need exists for systems which enable permanent and real-time interaction between an individual and one or more healthcare providers associated with the individual regarding healthcare data associated with that individual to enable the healthcare provider to make real-time decisions regarding a course of treatment for the individual based on the real-time healthcare data of the individual.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent application, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventor’s summary information for this patent application: “The present disclosure generally relates to a system and method that monitors those individuals at risk and tracks those who may be contagious with a relatively simple, informative and educational system. In various embodiments, the system monitors individuals by employing one or more healthcare data gathering devices, such as objective healthcare data collected from a wearable device, objective data collected from a mobile phone and/or healthcare data provided by an individual (e.g., answers to a mobile device application prompted questionnaire regarding an individual’s health history and any symptoms of any conditions experienced by the individual). Utilizing such healthcare data inputted by and/or collected from the individual, the system of the present disclosure determines one or more healthcare scores to convey to the individual regarding their contagion risk level. In certain embodiments, one such healthcare score pertains to a susceptibility of the individual of being infected with one or more identified contagions based on at least the healthcare data inputted by and/or collected from the individual relative one or more defined comorbidities for those identified contagions, wherein the determined susceptibility of the individual is represented to the individual as a relatively easy to understand numerical score and color code. In certain embodiments, another such healthcare score additionally or alternatively pertains to a probability of an individual being infected with (and correspondingly infecting others with) a contagion based on at least the healthcare data inputted by and/or collected from the individual (and any external input by medical professionals) in accordance with current public health standards, wherein the individual’s determined probability of being at risk of infecting others is represented to the individual as a relatively easy to understand numerical score and color code. Accordingly, the present disclosure benefits individuals by providing a positive alternative to isolation strategies (and their accompanying economic devastation) via encouraging best practices for prevention and enabling such individuals to rapidly react to emergency situations which the individual is aware of by changes to their associated numerical score and/or color code.

“In addition to providing various benefits to individuals, in certain embodiments, the system and method of the present disclosure provides various public health system benefits via tracking the location of one or more of such individuals (whom have voluntarily enrolled to participate and are tracked anonymously) to enable public health system authorities the ability to monitor different spaces and the healthcare data (and/or healthcare scores) of the anonymous individuals interacting in those different spaces. Such a system thus provides a comprehensive live monitoring system that permits public health authorities the ability to manage resource deployment, economic measures, mitigation efforts, and other activities in emergency situations tied to virulent contagions, such as the COVID-19 crisis. In other words, providing benefits to various health services providers via tracking the location of one or more of individuals (whom have voluntarily enrolled to participate and are tracked anonymously) to enable such health services providers the opportunity to build predictions associated with the flow of individuals (whom may or may not be infected with a contagion) enables optimal allocation of logistical resources, medical resources and/or human resources when needed most.

“In certain embodiments, in addition to aiding public health system authorities, the system and method utilizes part or all of such tracked locations and healthcare data (and/or healthcare scores) of the anonymous individuals interacting in different spaces, such as various businesses in usually crowded locations (e.g., hotels, restaurants and bars, office buildings, industrial facilities, event venues, airports and train stations), to provide the operator of such spaces with various information regarding the infection risk of anonymous individuals located within or approaching a specific space to enable the operator of such a space the opportunity to modify one or more policies to create a relatively safer environment for such anonymous individuals located within or approaching that specific space.

“In certain embodiments, the system and method of the present disclosure additionally or alternatively tracks certain healthcare data, such as signs and symptoms associated with an individual, and/or location data regarding an individual with a known chronic disease condition (e.g., heart diseases, nutrition and metabolic diseases, oncologic conditions, pulmonary diseases). In these embodiments, the system and method determines, based on the tracked healthcare data and/or the location data, information associated with the individual and transfers, in real time, the determined information to a healthcare provider and/or healthcare facility associated with the individual to aid the healthcare provider and/or healthcare facility in determining a need for medical intervention. That is, the real time monitoring of an individual with a known chronic disease condition that requires long-term and recurrent treatment coupled with the communication, to a healthcare provider and/or healthcare facility associated with that individual, of pertinent monitored information associated with that individual, such as any alarming risk levels currently associated with that individual, provides an improved disease and therapeutic management system with a positive impact on the individual’s monitored health condition. In certain such embodiments, the system and method utilize disease specific built algorithms to facilitate the real time transmission of risk levels and/or alarms associated with an individual to enable the healthcare provider and/or healthcare facility in making a proper, real-time assessment of therapeutic progress and/or intervention as needed.

“These and other embodiments, and various permutations and aspects, will become apparent and be more fully understood from the following detailed description and drawings, which set forth illustrative embodiments that are indicative of the various ways in which the principles of the invention may be employed.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system comprising: a processor; and a memory device that stores a plurality of instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to: receive, from a wearable device, tracked healthcare data associated with an individual, determine, based on the tracked healthcare data associated with the individual, a susceptibility of that individual of being infected with a contagion, and cause a display device to display at least one of: a numerical score associated with the determined susceptibility of that individual of being infected with the contagion, and a color code associated with the determined susceptibility of that individual of being infected with the contagion.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein different numerical scores are associated with different susceptibilities of that individual of being infected with the contagion, and different color codes are associated with different susceptibilities of that individual of being infected with the contagion.

“3. The system of claim 1, wherein the memory device stores a plurality of further instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to determine the susceptibility of that individual of being infected with the contagion based on the tracked healthcare data associated with the individual relative to a medical predictive algorithm.

“4. The system of claim 1, wherein the memory device stores a plurality of further instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to: receive, from the wearable device, additional tracked healthcare data associated with the individual, determine, based on the additional tracked healthcare data associated with the individual, an updated susceptibility of that individual of being infected with the contagion, and cause the display device to display at least one of: an updated numerical score associated with the determined updated susceptibility of that individual of being infected with the contagion, and an updated color code associated with the determined updated susceptibility of that individual of being infected with the contagion.

“5. The system of claim 1, wherein the tracked healthcare data further comprises at least one of data received from a non-wearable device, objective data provided by the individual, subjective data provided by the individual, and data provided by a public health authority.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein the memory device stores a plurality of further instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to: receive, from the wearable device, location data associated with the individual, determine, based on the tracked healthcare data associated with the individual and the location data associated with the individual, the susceptibility of that individual of being infected with the contagion.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein the individual is associated with an anonymous identity code.

“8. The system of claim 1, wherein the display device comprises at least one of: a display device of the wearable device, a display device of a non-wearable device associated with the individual, a display device associated with a healthcare provider associated with the individual, and a display device associated with a public health system authority.

“9. The system of claim 1, wherein the memory device stores a plurality of further instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to cause the display device to display an image of the individual.

“10. A system comprising: a processor; and a memory device that stores a plurality of instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to: for each of a plurality of anonymous individuals, receive: tracked healthcare data associated with that anonymous individual, and location data associated with that anonymous individual, for each of the plurality of anonymous individuals, determine a numerical score associated with a susceptibility of that anonymous individual of being infected with a contagion, determine a potential infection cluster based on the location data associated with the anonymous individuals and the determined numerical scores, and cause a display device to display data associated with the determined potential infection cluster.

“11. The system of claim 10, wherein the data associated with the determined potential infection cluster comprises instructions to avoid a location associated with the determined potential infection cluster.

“12. A method of operating a system, the method comprising: receiving, from a wearable device, tracked healthcare data associated with an individual, determining, by a processor and based on the tracked healthcare data associated with the individual, a susceptibility of that individual of being infected with a contagion, and displaying, by a display device, at least one of: a numerical score associated with the determined susceptibility of that individual of being infected with the contagion, and a color code associated with the determined susceptibility of that individual of being infected with the contagion.

“13. The method of claim 12, wherein different numerical scores are associated with different susceptibilities of that individual of being infected with the contagion, and different color codes are associated with different susceptibilities of that individual of being infected with the contagion.

“14. The method of claim 12, further comprising determining, by the processor, the susceptibility of that individual of being infected with the contagion based on the tracked healthcare data associated with the individual relative to a medical predictive algorithm.

“15. The method of claim 12, further comprising: receiving, from the wearable device, additional tracked healthcare data associated with the individual, determine, by the processor and based on the additional tracked healthcare data associated with the individual, an updated susceptibility of that individual of being infected with the contagion, and displaying, by the display device, at least one of: an updated numerical score associated with the determined updated susceptibility of that individual of being infected with the contagion, and an updated color code associated with the determined updated susceptibility of that individual of being infected with the contagion.

“16. The method of claim 12, wherein the tracked healthcare data further comprises at least one of data received from a non-wearable device, objective data provided by the individual, subjective data provided by the individual, and data provided by a public health authority.

“17. The method of claim 12, further comprising: receiving, from the wearable device, location data associated with the individual, determining, by the processor and based on the tracked healthcare data associated with the individual and the location data associated with the individual, the susceptibility of that individual of being infected with the contagion.

“18. The method of claim 12, wherein the individual is associated with an anonymous identity code.

“19. The method of claim 12, wherein the display device comprises at least one of: a display device of the wearable device, a display device of a non-wearable device associated with the individual, a display device associated with a healthcare provider associated with the individual, and a display device associated with a public health system authority.

“20. The method of claim 12, further comprising displaying, by the display device, an image of the individual.”

For more information, see this patent application: Stanescu, Dragos. System And Method For Tracking And Tracing Persons With Selected Medical Conditions. Filed July 14, 2021 and posted February 3, 2022. Patent URL: https://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=%2220220037034%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20220037034&RS=DN/20220037034

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