Patent Issued for Performing analytics on protected health information (USPTO 11710544): 3M Innovative Properties Company

2023 AUG 10 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Wolniewicz, Richard H. (Longmont, CO, US), filed on December 13, 2021, was published online on July 25, 2023, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11710544 is assigned to 3M Innovative Properties Company (St. Paul, Minnesota, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “In the medical field, accurate processing of records relating to patient visits to hospitals and clinics ensures that the records contain reliable and up-to-date information for future reference. Accurate processing may also be useful for medical systems and professionals to receive prompt and precise reimbursements from insurers and other payers. Some medical systems may include electronic health record (EHR) technology that assists in ensuring records of patient visits and files are accurate in identifying information needed for reimbursement purposes. These EHR systems generally have multiple specific interfaces into which medical professionals may input information about the patients and their visits.

“The patient files within the EHR usually include protected health information (PHI). PHI represents personal information to which limited access is desirable and often required by government laws and regulations, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) in the United States. Similar laws to restrict access to PHI exist in many other countries.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In general, this disclosure describes techniques for analytic modeling of PHI in a way that can limit user access to the PHI. In this manner, the PHI can be sheltered from view by the user so as to ensure its protected status. Accordingly, the techniques may improve the ability to ensure privacy of patients, and may be useful for legal or regulatory compliance.

“In one example, this disclosure is directed to a method for analyzing patient data. The method includes accessing, by a computer system, one or more databases comprising health information for a plurality of patients, wherein the health information includes protected health information, randomly selecting, by the computer system, a subset of the health information from the one or more databases, wherein the subset of the health information corresponds to a subset of the plurality of patients, removing, by the computer system, the protected health information from the subset of health information to produce a de-identified analytics subset of patient data suitable for analytical model construction and evaluation, and storing, by the computer system, the de-identified analytics subset of the patient data in the one or more databases.

“In another example, this disclosure is directed to a computer system for storing and analyzing health information for a plurality of patients comprising one or more databases comprising health information for a plurality of patients, wherein the health information includes protected health information, and health information, for a randomly-selected subset of the plurality of patients within the protected health information removed for the randomly-selected subset of the plurality of patients, and a user interface that facilitates user access to health information for a randomly-selected subset of the plurality of patients within the protected health information removed for the randomly-selected subset of the plurality of patients for analytical model construction and evaluation.

“In a further example, this disclosure is directed to a computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed, cause a processor to access one or more databases comprising health information for a plurality of patients, wherein the health information includes protected health information, randomly select health information from the one or more databases corresponding to a subset of the plurality of patients, remove the protected health information from the health information corresponding to the randomly-selected subset of the plurality of patients to produce a de-identified analytics subset of patient data suitable for analytical model construction and evaluation, and store the updated de-identified analytics subset of patient data in the one or more databases.

“In another example, this disclosure is directed to a method for analyzing patient data. The method includes accessing, by a computer system, one or more databases comprising health information, with protected health information, for a plurality of patients, accessing, by the computer system, an analytical model, and receiving, by the computer system via a user interface, instructions to apply the analytical model to health information for each of the plurality of patients. The protected health information is isolated from the user interface to restrict access to the protected health information. The method further includes applying, by the computer system, the analytical model to health information for each of the plurality of patients, and storing a result of the analytical model to the one or more databases.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method for analyzing patient data, the method comprising: accessing, by a computer system, one or more databases comprising health information data, including protected health information, for a plurality of patients; accessing, by the computer system, an analytical model; receiving, by the computer system via a user interface, instructions to apply the analytical model to health information for each of the plurality of patients, de-identifying, by the computer system, the protected health information in the health information data; applying, by the computer system, the analytical model using a machine-learning algorithm to the health information data; updating, by the computer system, the health information data associated with at least some of the plurality of patients according to the result of the applying; and storing a result of the analytical model to the one or more databases.

“2. The method of claim 1, further comprising presenting, by the computer system via the user interface, a summary of the result of the analytical model, wherein the summary of the result of the analytical model excludes any of the protected health information.

“3. The method of claim 2, wherein the summary of the result of the analytical model includes a statistical summary of the health information data resulting from the analytical model to facilitate user evaluation of the analytical model.

“4. The method of claim 1, wherein the health information data, including the protected health information, for the plurality of patients is isolated from the user interface.

“5. The method of claim 1, further comprising updating, by the computer system, within the one or more databases, the health information data associated with at least some of the plurality of patients according to the results of the analytical model.

“6. The method of claim 5, wherein updating, within the one or more databases, the health information data associated with at least some of the plurality of patients according to the results of the analytical model includes updating patient care information for at least some of the plurality of patients.

“7. The method of claim 5, wherein updating, within the one or more databases, the health information data associated with at least some of the plurality of patients according to the results of the analytical model includes updating a patient health event risk assessment for at least some of the plurality of patients.

“8. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, via the user interface, a request to access protected health information within one or more databases; presenting, by the computer system via the user interface, the requested protected health information via the user interface; and storing a record of the request to access the protected health information within the one or more databases.

“9. A computer system for storing and analyzing health information for a plurality of patients comprising: one or more databases comprising health information data, with protected health information, for a plurality of patients; a user interface; and one or more processors configured to de-identify the protected health information in the health information data, apply an analytical model using a machine learning algorithm to patient data for each of the plurality of patients based on instructions received via the user interface, update, by the computer system, the health information data associated with at least some of the plurality of patients according to the result of the applying the analytical model using a machine learning algorithm to patient and store a result of the analytical model to the one or more databases, wherein the protected health information for the plurality of patients is isolated from the user interface.

“10. The computer system of claim 9, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to present, via the user interface, a visual representation of the result of the analytical model, wherein the visual representation of the result of the analytical model excludes any of the protected health information.

“11. The computer system of claim 10, wherein the visual representation of the result of the analytical model includes a statistical summary to facilitate user evaluation of the analytical model.

“12. The computer system of claim 9, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to update, within the one or more databases, the health information data associated with at least some of the plurality of patients according to the results of the analytical model.

“13. The computer system of claim 12, wherein updating, within the one or more databases, the health information data associated with at least some of the plurality of patients according to the results of the analytical model includes updating patient care information for at least some of the plurality of patients.

“14. The computer system of claim 12, wherein updating, within the one or more databases, the health information data associated with at least some of the plurality of patients according to the results of the analytical model includes updating patient health event risk assessments for at least some of the plurality of patients.

“15. The computer system of claim 9, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: receive, via the user interface, a request to access protected health information within one or more databases; present, via the user interface, the requested protected health information via the user interface; and store a record of the request to access the protected health information within the one or more databases.

“16. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors to: access one or more databases comprising health information data, with protected health information, for a plurality of patients; receive, via a user interface, instructions to apply an analytical model to health information for each of the plurality of patients; de-identify the protected health information in the health information data; apply the analytical model using a machine learning algorithm to the health information data for each of the plurality of patients; update the health information data associated with at least some of the plurality of patients according to the result of the applying; and store a result of the analytical model to the one or more databases.

“17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, comprising further instructions that, when executed, cause the one or more processor to present, via the user interface, a summary of the result of the analytical model, wherein the summary excludes any of the protected health information.

“18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, comprising further instructions that, when executed, cause the one or more processor to isolate the protected health information, for the plurality of patients from the user interface.

“19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, comprising further instructions that, when executed, cause the one or more processor to update, within the one or more databases, the health information data associated with at least some of the plurality of patients according to the results of the analytical model.

“20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, comprising further instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to: receive, via the user interface, a request to access protected health information within one or more databases; present, via the user interface, the requested protected health information via the user interface; and store a record of the request to access the protected health information within the one or more databases.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Wolniewicz, Richard H. Performing analytics on protected health information. U.S. Patent Number 11710544, filed December 13, 2021, and published online on July 25, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11710544)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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