Patent Issued for Electronic prescription delivery system and method (USPTO 11049597)

2021 JUL 21 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- According to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx journalists, a patent by the inventors Hanz, Ezra (New York, NY, US), Stahl, Jeffrey Arthur (New York, NY, US), Stahl, Lewis Arnold (New York, NY, US), filed on August 4, 2011, was published online on June 29, 2021.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 11049597, is NextGen Management LLC (Boca Raton, Florida, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Prescriptions are oral, written, or electronic submissions of medical orders that include the name, address and other identifying information of a patient; the name, dosage, and directions for use of a drug; the date of issue; and are signed by the prescriber, who is a qualified medical practitioner.

“Physicians write approximately 2.5 billion prescriptions each year. Adverse drug events are known to decline when physicians electronically prescribe medication because physician handwriting may be illegible to pharmacists. Moreover, the writing of prescriptions by unauthorized persons continues to be a problem because the current systems are easily duplicated. These shortcomings have contributed to rising health care and drug prescription costs. These challenges have led to an increased use of electronic medical records (EMR) for the management of patient files and increased use of electronic prescription systems.

“Prior to the advent of EMR systems, prescriptions for individual patient medical needs were handwritten by physicians or other qualified health care professionals on pre-printed prescription pads. The pages of a pre-printed prescription pad typically includes text that identifies the document as a prescription, the name and address of the prescribing provider, and any legally require data, such as a Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) registration number, and a signature of the provider. The physician hands the prescription to the patient and the patient delivers the prescription to a pharmacist who will administer the drug as per the specifications on the prescription.

“Prescription pads are used by the pharmaceutical industry for direct-to-physician advertisement to increase brand awareness and improve brand recall. For instance, it is common for a paper pre-printed prescription pads to have an advertisement for a pharmaceutical company or drug listed on every fifth page.

“Electronic prescription dispensing systems typically include the steps of entering patient information electronically into an electronic medical record (EMR) system, such as disclosed by U.S. Published Patent Application No. 2003/0187692, herein incorporated by reference in its entirety. The prescriber enters the patient information and necessary prescription information, such as drug and dosage, into the EMR system via a suitable graphic user interface (GUI) as known in the art.

“Pharmaceutical companies and others are now also able to message medical providers via the electronic interfaces of electronic medical systems.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The invention is a computer-implemented method and apparatus that delivers information to a physician that is prescribing medication via an electronic prescription system. The information is delivered while the prescriber is entering the prescription and prior to completion of the prescription. The information delivered to the prescriber is responsive to information about the prescriber, the patient, and/or other relevant conditions from any or all of a number of sources. The information delivered to the prescriber may include drug interaction information, warnings, legally required statements, potential alternative medications, advertisements, patient-directed coupons, etc. The data to which the specific information delivered to the prescriber is responsive may include prescriber information, such as the location, age, gender, past prescribing habits, medical specialty, practice size, geographic location (e.g., by zip code), socio-economic data about the geographic location of the prescriber’s practice, decile, schooling, years in practice, etc. Information about the patient may include, for instance, age, gender, height, weight, ethnicity, family medical history, allergies, pre-existing medical conditions, patient prescription history, insurance information (e.g., co-pay amount), educational level, home location, previous medical history, socio-economic data, etc. The data also may include information not specific to the prescriber or patient per se, such as local or national laws, current local weather, local pollen counts and other allergen data, etc.

“The data may be collected from various sources, including the prescribing physician’s own medical records database (e.g., the database of the prescriber’s practice management software system), the databases of other physicians treating the same patient, insurance carrier databases, public information available over the internet or from other sources, purchased information such as subscription lists, weather, pollution, and daily allergen information, etc.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method of interfacing with an electronic prescription system to transmit a customized message to a prescriber device responsive to entry of prescription information for one patient of a plurality of patients into said electronic prescription system from said prescriber device, said prescriber device having a display, the method comprising: receiving from said electronic prescription system electronic prescription information pertaining to a prescription for one patient of a plurality of patients, the electronic prescription information including at least patient identity, prescriber identity, and medication being prescribed; parsing, using a digital processing apparatus, the electronic prescription information to extract at least one of the patient identity and the prescriber identity; accessing a database using at least the patient identity to obtain patient information comprising up to 150 different data points, including age, gender, date of birth, and whether the patient is covered by Medicare or Medicaid; accessing a database using at least the prescriber identity to obtain prescriber information, including at least location, past prescribing habits, medical specialty, and years in practice; accessing a database using at least the medication being prescribed, the patient identity, and the prescriber identity including past prescribing habits to obtain medication information; prior to the prescriber completing the prescription for the medication being prescribed, automatically generating a message containing the medical information, and transmitting the message to said electronic prescription system for display on said display; receiving information modifying the prescription from the prescriber following the display of the message; and generating the prescription as modified.

“2. The method of claim 1 further comprising: maintaining an electronic database of personal information about a plurality of physicians and a plurality of patients; wherein the accessing comprises querying the electronic database.

“3. The method of claim 1 wherein the message comprises an advertisement.

“4. The method of claim 1 wherein the message comprises educational content about a medication being prescribed.

“5. The method of claim 1 wherein the personal information comprises a plurality of prescriber location, prescriber age, prescriber gender, prescriber past prescribing habits, the prescriber’s medical specialty, prescriber practice size, socio-economic data about the geographic location of the prescriber’s practice, prescriber decile, the prescriber’s educational background, prescriber years in practice, patient age, patient gender, patient height, patient weight, patient ethnicity, patient family medical history, patient prescription history, patient allergies, patient pre-existing medical conditions, patient insurance information, patient educational level, patient home location, patient previous medical history, and patient socio-economic data.

“6. The method of claim 1 further comprising: collecting the patient personal data and prescriber personal data from a practice management system of the prescriber.

“7. The method of claim 1 wherein the patient personal data comprises data collected from the prescriber and data collected from other prescribers.

“8. The method of claim 1 wherein automatically generating a message comprises selecting message content from a store of messages.

“9. The method of claim 1 further comprising: selecting a second particular message to be transmitted to the patient as a function of the personal data; and transmitting the second particular message to the patient.”

For more information, see this patent: Hanz, Ezra. Electronic prescription delivery system and method. U.S. Patent Number 11049597, filed August 4, 2011, and published online on June 29, 2021. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11049597.PN.&OS=PN/11049597RS=PN/11049597

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