Patent Application Titled “Systems And Methods For Computer Vision-Assisted Colorimetric Test Reading” Published Online (USPTO 20230368436): Patent Application

2023 DEC 05 (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 Nienstedt, Zachary Carl (Arden, NC, US); Souslova, Tatiana (Tampa, FL, US), filed on May 13, 2023, was made available online on November 16, 2023.

No assignee for this patent application has been made.

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Use of telehealth to deliver healthcare services has grown consistently over the last several decades and has experienced very rapid growth in the last several years. Telehealth can include the distribution of health-related services and information via electronic information and telecommunication technologies. Telehealth can allow for long distance patient and health provider contact, care, advice, reminders, education, intervention, monitoring, and remote admissions. Often, telehealth can involve the use of a user or patient’s personal user device, such as a smartphone, tablet laptop, personal computer, or other device. For example, a user or patient can interact with a remotely located medical care provider using live video, audio, or text-based chat through the personal user device. Generally, such communication occurs over a network, such as a cellular or internet network.

“Remote or at-home healthcare testing and diagnostics can solve or alleviate some problems associated with in-person testing. For example, health insurance may not be required, travel to a testing site is avoided, and tests can be completed at a testing user’s convenience. However, remote or at-home testing introduces various additional logistical and technical issues, such as guaranteeing timely test delivery to a testing user, providing test delivery from a testing user to an appropriate lab, ensuring adequate user experience, ensuring proper sample collection, ensuring test verification and integrity, providing test result reporting to appropriate authorities and medical providers, and connecting testing users with medical providers who are needed to provide guidance and/or oversight of the testing procedures remotely.

“More specifically, self-administered or at-home medical diagnostic tests often require a patient to compare a color on a test strip against a gradient of colors on a reference card in order to determine whether their test results are within an acceptable range. However, this can be difficult to accurately perform because the patient will often be forced to distinguish between various shades of a similar color. Thus, there is a growing need to improve the experience associated with self-administered or at-home medical diagnostic tests so that patients can quickly and more accurately determine the results of their medical diagnostics tests.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent application, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent application: “A user may administer a medical diagnostic test that may use colorimetry to indicate a presence, amount, or concentration of a substance of interest within a sample. The user may access a computer vision system through a website or application through use of a user device. The user can place a reference card and test strip of the diagnostic test within view of the user device camera to capture an image of the reference card and test strip in a single-frame view to be sent to the system. The test strip will have a test color associated with the result of the self-diagnostic test. The reference card will have a gradient of colors displayed on it. The reference card will also display one or more reference colors.

“The system may receive the image and identify the reference card and test strip. The system can map a gradient of the reference card to a modified high-contrast gradient. The system may then display the modified gradient to the user through the user device. Either the user and/or the system can select a test result number that is associated with the color on the modified gradient that is most similar to the color that appears on the test strip. Based on the test result number selected, the system may direct the user accordingly.

“In some embodiments, a user’s mobile device may be used to capture an image of both the test strip and the reference card in a single-frame view. The test strip will have a test color associated with the result of the self-diagnostic test. The reference card will have a gradient of colors displayed on it. The reference card will also display one or more reference colors. A color correction may be applied to the image based on the one or more reference colors of the reference card that is captured in the image, by comparing those observed reference colors to the known baseline for what those reference colors should be.

“Based on the color correction, a color-corrected gradient is obtained from the gradient of colors and a color-corrected test color is obtained from the test color. A transfer function is then used to remap the color-corrected gradient into a remapped high-visibility color gradient, and also to remap the color-corrected test color into a remapped test color based on the remapped high-visibility color gradient. The resulting remapped gradient and remapped test color will improve a person’s ability to determine where the test color lies within the gradient.

“The remapped test color and remapped gradient can then both be displayed to the patient on his or her mobile device so that the patient can make a comparison. One way to display this information in the display of the mobile device is via augmented reality by directly overlaying the remapped test color over the test color of the test strip and overlaying the remapped gradient over the gradient on the reference card, so that the patient can laterally slide the test strip along the gradient on the reference card while observing and comparing the remapped colors on the mobile device’s display in real time. Another way to display this information in the display of the mobile device is to generate a processed still image that includes the remapped gradient adjacent to an elongated strip of the remapped test color that spans the length of the remapped gradient, which would allow the patient to more easily determine where in the remapped gradient the remapped test color lies.

“For purposes of this summary, certain aspects, advantages, and novel features of the invention are described herein. It is to be understood that not necessarily all such advantages may be achieved in accordance with the particular embodiments of the invention. Thus, for example, those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention may be embodied or carried out in a manner that achieves one advantage or group of advantages as taught herein without necessarily achieving other advantages as may be taught or suggested herein.

“All of these embodiments are intended to be within the scope of the invention herein disclosed. These and other embodiments will become readily apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description having reference to the attached figures, the invention not being limited to any particular disclosed embodiment(s).”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A medical computer-implemented test method for improving self-diagnostic outcomes and color gradient readability during an electronic remote proctoring examination, comprising: obtaining, by a first computing system, an image of a test strip and a reference card in a single-frame view, wherein the test strip comprises a test color associated with a result of a diagnostic test, and wherein the reference card comprises: a gradient of colors; and one or more reference colors; applying, by the first computing system, a color correction to the image based on the one or more reference colors of the reference card and one or more baseline reference colors, in order to obtain a color-corrected gradient from the gradient of colors and a color-corrected test color from the test color; remapping, by the first computing system, the color-corrected gradient into a remapped gradient based on a transfer function; determining, by the first computing system, a remapped test color based on the color-corrected test color and the transfer function; and generating, by the first computing system, a processed image that displays the remapped test color and the remapped gradient.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first computing system is a mobile smartphone.

“3. The method of claim 1, wherein the diagnostic test is a medical diagnostic test.

“4. The method of claim 1, wherein the remapped gradient is a high-visibility color gradient that improves a person’s ability to determine where the test color lies within the gradient.

“5. The method of claim 1, wherein the processed image overlays the remapped test color on the test strip.

“6. The method of claim 1, wherein the processed image overlays the remapped gradient on the reference card.

“7. The method of claim 1, wherein the processed image is an augmented reality image of the test strip and the reference card.

“8. The method of claim 1, wherein the processed image displays the remapped test color along a length of the remapped gradient.

“9. The method of claim 1, wherein the color-corrected test color is associated with a median color of the test strip.

“10. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the remapped test color comprises fitting the color-corrected test color to one of the colors of the color-corrected gradient.

“11. The method of claim 1, wherein the transfer function comprises: dividing the color-corrected gradient into substantially equal partitions; and mapping each partition of the color-corrected gradient into a corresponding partition of the remapped gradient.

“12. A method comprising: receiving, from a user device, an image of a test strip and a reference card in a single-frame view, wherein the test strip comprises a test color associated with a result of a diagnostic test, and wherein the reference card comprises: a gradient of colors; and one or more reference colors; applying a color correction to the image based on the one or more reference colors of the reference card, in order to obtain a color-corrected gradient from the gradient of colors and a color-corrected test color from the test color; remapping the color-corrected gradient into a remapped gradient based on a transfer function; determining a remapped test color based on the color-corrected test color and the transfer function; and transmitting the remapped test color and the remapped gradient to the user device to be displayed in a processed image.

“13. The method of claim 12, wherein the diagnostic test is a medical diagnostic test.

“14. The method of claim 12, wherein the remapped gradient is a high-visibility color gradient that improves a person’s ability to determine where the test color lies within the gradient.

“15. The method of claim 12, wherein the processed image overlays the remapped test color on the test strip.

“16. The method of claim 12, wherein the processed image overlays the remapped gradient on the reference card.

“17. The method of claim 12, wherein the processed image is an augmented reality image of the test strip and the reference card.

“18. The method of claim 12, wherein the processed image displays the remapped test color along a length of the remapped gradient.

“19. The method of claim 12, wherein the color-corrected test color is associated with a median color of the test strip.

“20. The method of claim 12, wherein determining the remapped test color comprises fitting the color-corrected test color to one of the colors of the color-corrected gradient.”

For more information, see this patent application: Nienstedt, Zachary Carl; Souslova, Tatiana. Systems And Methods For Computer Vision-Assisted Colorimetric Test Reading. U.S. Patent Application Number 20230368436, filed May 13, 2023 and posted November 16, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(20230368436)&db=US-PGPUB&type=ids

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