Patent Issued for Method Of Facilitating Imaging Study Interpretations Between Healthcare Facilities And Physicians (USPTO 10,803,985)

2020 OCT 28 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Hospital & Nursing Home Daily -- MDWeb LLC (New York, New York, United States) has been issued patent number 10,803,985, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Averbach, Michael (Forest Hills, NY); Fradkov, Sergey (Edgewater, NJ); Yuz, Michael (Ft Lauderdale, FL); Kantor, Edward (Brooklyn, NY); Krakopolsky, Aleksandr (Warminster, PA).

This patent was filed on October 26, 2018 and was published online on October 26, 2020.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “Diagnostic imaging equipment is widely used for the purpose of diagnosing diseases and proposing treatment. There are over 20,000 CT scanners and MRI scanners in the United States and over 70,000 such scanners globally. It is also estimated that there are 500 healthcare facilities and 5,500 hospitals in the United States where these procedures are performed. In the U.S. alone, more than 700 million radiologic studies were conducted in 2016 that served as the foundation for diagnosing an illness and determining methods of treatment. Globally it is estimated that more than 2 billion radiology studies are performed. The professional radiology industry is a 20 billion dollar global industry and estimates predict that it will be growing 6-12% annually in the foreseeable future.

“Imaging studies can be interpreted by radiologists on-site where images are generated or interpreted via a practice called teleradiology. Teleradiology refers to the practice of a radiologist interpreting medical images while not physically present in the location where the images are generated. Teleradiology can be practiced by internal/in-house radiologists/groups or outsourced to external radiologists/groups or teleradiology companies.

“Performing and interpreting a diagnostic test is a complicated and dynamic process having numerous moving parts and involving multiple parties. A typical prior art process is illustrated in FIG. 1. Initially, the referring doctor issues an order to conduct the test based on an initial visit by the patient. The doctor evaluates numerous factors that will determine the medical necessity to perform the diagnostic test, including the patient’s history, and indications and guidelines issued by the industry bodies. The order is then fulfilled on-site at the ordering physician’s office or is transferred to a diagnostic imaging facility (typically a freestanding imaging center, hospital imaging department or mobile diagnostic company). Once the diagnostic test is performed by the imaging center, the images and accompanying documentation (imaging studies) including Digital Imaging and Communications (DICOM) data are transferred to the imaging center’s local storage, which can be a picture archiving and communication system/radiology information system (PACS/RIS) system, where a radiologist (or cardiologist etc.) reviews the imaging studies and provides an interpretation in the form of a report. The report, which includes findings and diagnoses is saved in the patient’s file and then delivered to the referring physician typically in electronic format, or can be made available online for download, or can be faxed. The referring physician can then validate the diagnosis by ordering additional diagnostic tests, prescribing non-invasive treatment and/or recommending an invasive procedure or surgery. The imaging center bills the insurance company for the performed procedure and the radiologist is paid a commission.

“Several issues define the medical diagnostics field today. The increase in the aging population and broader availability and increased dependence on diagnostic imaging is contributing to the continued growth of imaging and the need for interpretation of these imaging studies. Advances in imaging technology have contributed to image complexity resulting in an increased number of imaging studies, especially for cross-sectional studies (e.g., CT, MRI, PET/CT, Breast Tomosynthesis, etc.). Also, referring doctors are demanding more detailed and specialized reports. These factors have contributed to increased interpretation times, and it has become typical for radiologists to work very long hours resulting in fatigue and burnout.

“To respond to the increased demand for radiologists, costs of hiring a qualified radiologist are rising. Increasing the pressure is a strict turn-around time requirement that healthcare facilities and hospitals impose on the radiology companies, forcing the radiology companies to provide substantial additional capacity thus driving up interpretation costs. Combined with reduced payouts from insurance companies, this places a great deal of pressure on radiologists and leads to the second major issue: lack of quality with regard to study interpretation.

“Errors in the proper application of medical diagnostic technology can lead to a misdiagnosis. Radiology is a complex field and frequently the studies are interpreted by radiologists who do not have appropriate training or experience. Many of these errors, missed-findings, misinterpretations and improper recommendations lead to delayed medical treatment, or no treatment at all, which may even lead to a poor outcome including death.

“Various analytics have found that mistakes in study interpretation range anywhere from 10% to 30% of the studies performed. This staggering number affects the ability of physicians to provide proper treatment and leads to malpractice lawsuits and other financial penalties. To date, the only response from the industry was to perform quality assurance interpretation on exams to control the quality and identify mistakes. For example, the American College of Radiologists recommends that 5% of interpretations should be randomly checked by another radiologist. However, this is an expensive proposition and few companies follow these recommendations due to the prohibitive cost.

“In the U.S. and some other countries, physicians must possess state licenses, be privileged at the facilities and credentialed with insurance plans in order to produce final reports. These requirements, including insurance credentialing, facility privileging and physician licensing, contribute to significant bottlenecks which exacerbate physician shortage. In order to provide interpretations each (tele)radiologist and other specialist must be licensed in the state where the patient is located and where he/she is located. The licensing process is slow and can take between 3 and 12 months or longer depending on the state and physician record. All hospitals and some private healthcare facilities require that physicians are privileged at their facilities, a process which can take between 1 and 12 months. Additionally, in order to provide final interpretations, physicians must be credentialed with numerous private or public insurance plans, a process which can also take up to 6 months depending on the insurance company. Thus, considering licensing, privileging and credentialing requirements, attempts to satisfy these requirements are a slow, manual process.

“Finally, it is important to note that technology has always played an important role in medical diagnostics and helps increase doctor productivity and the accuracy of interpretation. Doctors are able to use advanced image reconstruction programs, computer analytics tools, voice recording and other advances in computers in their daily work. One of these technological advances is to use artificial intelligence (‘AI’) algorithms to help radiologists analyze imaging studies faster and more accurately. Such technology requires large sets of data to ‘train’ AI programs on existing data sets, including interpretations and annotations of studies to ‘teach’ the AI to recognize specific anomalies. However, to date, many of these datasets are difficult and expensive to obtain and are not freely available in the marketplace. Further, a critical shortage of qualified radiologists limits the availability of specialists for annotations. These factors severely limit the progress of AI companies, many of which have raised substantial amounts of money to bring their innovations to market.

“In summary, the diagnostics industry is suffering from a critical shortage of specialists, rising interpretation costs, workflow inefficiencies, quality issues and lack of consolidated diagnostics data to advance AI analytics. What is therefore needed is a platform directed to solve the aforementioned issues and to help the industry to better serve patients at lower costs and with higher quality.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “According to one aspect of the present disclosure, a method for facilitating selection, by a healthcare facility, of a physician from a plurality of physicians to provide interpretation of an imaging study, is provided. The method includes receiving physician credentials from at least one physician, receiving, from the healthcare facility, an imaging study and a request for interpretation of the imaging study, the request including physician selection criteria, providing access to the imaging study and the request for interpretation to qualified physicians whose credentials match the physician selection criteria, receiving an interpretation of the imaging study from those qualified physicians that have accepted the request for interpretation, comparing the physician credentials to the physician selection criteria, and selecting an imaging study interpretation from the received imaging study interpretations based on the comparing of the physician credentials to the physician selection criteria.

“According to another aspect, the present disclosure provides a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored therein instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations including provide access to an imaging study and request for interpretation of the imaging study received from a healthcare facility to qualified physicians whose credentials match physician selection criteria received from the healthcare facility, compare the physician credentials to the physician selection criteria, and select an imaging study interpretation from imaging study interpretations received from those qualified physicians that have accepted the request for interpretation, the selecting based on the comparing of the physician credentials to the physician selection criteria.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“What is claimed is:

“1. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored therein instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising: record in a blockchain database an imaging study received from a healthcare facility and a request for interpretation of the imaging study received from the healthcare facility, the request for interpretation of the imaging study including a request for crowd reading, the crowd reading being an iterative crowd reading where a first qualified physician provides an original interpretation of the imaging study and receives an original interpretation fee, and if edits are required to the original imaging study interpretation, at least one additional qualified physician iteratively edits the original imaging study interpretation, each of the at least one additional qualified physician receiving a corresponding editing fee, the editing fee being deducted from at least the original interpretation fee until no further edits are needed, resulting in an iterative imaging study interpretation, the resulting imaging study interpretation forming the consensus imaging study interpretation; provide access to the imaging study and the request for interpretation of the imaging study received from the healthcare facility to qualified physicians whose credentials match physician selection criteria received from the healthcare facility; compare the physician credentials to the physician selection criteria; select an imaging study interpretation from imaging study interpretations received from those qualified physicians that have accepted the request for interpretation, the selecting based on the comparing of the physician credentials to the physician selection criteria, the selected imaging study interpretation being a consensus imaging study interpretation, the consensus imaging study interpretation formed by calculating a consensus of the multiple physician interpretations of the imaging study; record the selected imaging study interpretation in the blockchain database, the imaging study and the imaging study interpretation being anonymized; manage all electronic payments concerning the imaging study and the imaging study interpretation using a blockchain contract; wherein the processor is further operable to process an electronic payment to be sent to a third party entity that creates algorithms based on use of the algorithms in analyzing the imaging study, and wherein the electronic payment to the third party is based on each use of the algorithms.

“2. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the physician credentials are validated by a third party.

“3. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the physician selection criteria includes at least one of a state the physician is licensed in, an insurance company used by physician, modality of the physician’s report, physician rating, and price for the physician’s services.

“4. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein upon acceptance of the request for interpretation from qualified physicians, the processor is further operable to make the request inaccessible to other physicians.

“5. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the request for interpretation comprises interpretation requirements, the interpretation requirements including at least one of a draft interpretation, a preliminary interpretation, a final interpretation, and a multiple-reading requirement.

“6. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein upon receipt from the healthcare facility of an approval of the selected imaging study interpretation, the processor is further is configured to: deduct fees from an electronic wallet of the healthcare facility; and deposit fees into an electronic wallet of the qualified physician whose imaging study interpretation was approved by the healthcare facility.

“7. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the processor is further operable to process a rejection of the selected imaging study interpretation received from the healthcare facility, an explanation for the reasons of rejecting the imaging study interpretation, and a request from the healthcare facility for resubmittal of a revised imaging study interpretation.

“8. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the processor is further operable to process from at least one of the healthcare facility and the physician that supplied the selected imaging study interpretation, a received dispute resolution request to be performed by an independent dispute resolution panel.

“9. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the blockchain contract governs the dispute resolution.

“10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the processor is further operable to generate a rating for each physician that provides imaging study interpretations.

“11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein upon receipt, from the healthcare facility, of a request that information related to the imaging study is stored in the blockchain database, the information including at least one of the imaging study, the imaging study interpretation and annotations to the imaging study interpretation, the processor is further operable to: provide third party access to the stored information; upon a third party accessing the stored information, process received electronic payment from the third party; and distribute at least a portion of the received electronic payment into respective blockchain wallets of the healthcare facility and the physician that supplied the accessed imaging study interpretation.

“12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the processor is further configured to issue at least one security token to the third party to enable the third party to access the stored information and receiving payment from the third party for the at least one security token.

“13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the stored information is identified in the blockchain database as being owned by the requesting healthcare facility.

“14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the processor is further operable to process a received electronic payment from the healthcare facility via a blockchain transaction for each request for interpretation of the imaging study.

“15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the processor is further operable to process a received electronic payment from the qualified physician that provided the interpretation of the imaging study via a blockchain transaction for each imaging study interpretation.

“16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the processor is further operable to: issue at least one security token to the healthcare facility and to the physician, the issued at least one security token to be placed in the corresponding electronic wallet of the healthcare facility and physician; and process a received payment for the issued at least one security token as a condition for registration.

“17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the incentives include issuing free security tokens upon registration of an healthcare facility or a physician and issuing free security tokens after a predetermined number of requests for interpretations by the healthcare facility or imaging study interpretations by the physicians have been received.

“18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the processor is further operable to comprising provide a mark-up of the payment received from the healthcare facility during at least one predetermined time frame.

“19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the qualified physicians that interpret the imaging study receive payment credits for each interpreted imaging study.

“20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 19, wherein the payment credits are exchangeable for security tokens.

“21. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the qualified physicians outsource the imaging study interpretation to another physician, a digital wallet of the qualified physicians being reduced for each outsourced imaging study interpretation and a digital wallet of the other physician performing the outsourced imaging study interpretation being increased for each imaging study the other physician interprets.

“22. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the processor is further operable to rate each qualified physician that as submitted at least one interpretation, the rating based on predetermined rating criteria.

“23. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the processor is further operable to process a preference indicator received from the healthcare facility, the preference indicator indicating at least one of at least one physician that the healthcare facility prefers to receive interpretations from and at least one physician that the healthcare facility prefers to not to receive interpretations from.

“24. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the received electronic payment is based on each time the third party entity accesses at least one of the imaging study and the imaging study interpretation.

“25. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the received electronic payment is based on each time the third party offers its algorithms for at least one of use and purchase to at least one of the healthcare facility and the physician.

“26. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the request for interpretation comprises interpretation requirements, the interpretation requirements including a multiple-reading requirement.

“27. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the crowd reading is a blind crowd reading where two or more qualified physicians provide independent interpretations of the imaging study, and the consensus imaging study interpretation is based on the provided independent interpretations of the imaging study.

“28. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored therein instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising: record in a blockchain database an imaging study received from a healthcare facility and a request for interpretation of the imaging study received from the healthcare facility, the request for interpretation of the imaging study including a request for crowd reading, the crowd reading being an iterative crowd reading where a first qualified physician provides an original interpretation of the imaging study and receives an original interpretation fee, and if edits are required to the original imaging study interpretation, at least one additional qualified physician iteratively edits the original imaging study interpretation, each of the at least one additional qualified physician receiving a corresponding editing fee, the editing fee being deducted from at least the original interpretation fee until no further edits are needed, resulting in an iterative imaging study interpretation, the resulting imaging study interpretation forming the consensus imaging study interpretation; provide access to the imaging study and the request for interpretation of the imaging study received from the healthcare facility to qualified physicians whose credentials match physician selection criteria received from the healthcare facility; compare the physician credentials to the physician selection criteria; select an imaging study interpretation from imaging study interpretations received from those qualified physicians that have accepted the request for interpretation, the selecting based on the comparing of the physician credentials to the physician selection criteria, the selected imaging study interpretation being a consensus imaging study interpretation, the consensus imaging study interpretation formed by calculating a consensus of the multiple physician interpretations of the imaging study; record the selected imaging study interpretation in the blockchain database, the imaging study and the imaging study interpretation being anonymized; manage all electronic payments concerning the imaging study and the imaging study interpretation using a blockchain contract; wherein upon receipt from the healthcare facility of an approval of the selected imaging study interpretation, the processor is further is configured to: deduct fees from an electronic wallet of the healthcare facility; deposit fees into an electronic wallet of the qualified physician whose imaging study interpretation was approved by the healthcare facility; and process, from at least one of the healthcare facility and the physician that supplied the selected imaging study interpretation, a received dispute resolution request to be performed by an independent dispute resolution panel to evaluate a disputed physician report, wherein upon resolution of the dispute, if the panel determines that the disputed physician report was correct, payment credits frozen on the healthcare facility’s electronic wallet are transferred to the physician and if the panel determines that the disputed physician report was incorrect, the frozen payment credits are returned to the electronic wallet of the healthcare facility.”

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Averbach, Michael; Fradkov, Sergey; Yuz, Michael; Kantor, Edward; Krakopolsky, Aleksandr. Method Of Facilitating Imaging Study Interpretations Between Healthcare Facilities And Physicians. U.S. Patent Number 10,803,985, filed October 26, 2018, and published online on October 26, 2020. 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=10,803,985.PN.&OS=PN/10,803,985RS=PN/10,803,985

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