Patent Issued for System, Methods, And Apparatuses For Medication Records Tracking (USPTO 10,847,258)

2020 DEC 08 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventor Clark, David (Littleton, CO), filed on May 17, 2019, was published online on December 7, 2020.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 10,847,258 is 4DA Inc. (Littleton, Colorado, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “In our current healthcare system, patients, healthcare providers, and other stakeholders face many challenges related to the provision of prescription drugs. Patients often struggle to remember the names of medications they currently take or have taken in the past, let alone their dosages, indications, or interactions. Some patients struggle with compliance with dosing regimens, while others struggle with addiction to opioids and other painkillers.

“Healthcare providers face challenges in knowing the prescription drug history of new patients, primarily because transferring electronic medical records (EMR) from one provider to another is often deterred by incompatibility between EMR systems. Though all healthcare providers have been encouraged to transition from paper to EMR in recent years, the market for EMR systems has been made up of numerous competing entities with proprietary systems that are extremely difficult to integrate or transfer between. As a result, when providers see new patients whose prescription histories are unknown, providers may waste time trying medications that have previously not worked for patients.

“Pharmacies usually have accurate lists of patients’ information for patients whose prescriptions the pharmacy has filled before or who are otherwise in the pharmacy’s system. However, new or transferring patients may not have all their current or past medications listed in a particular pharmacy’s database. Some systems are currently in place for some level of monitoring of controlled prescription drugs (which may also be referred to as ‘controlled substances’ or ‘scheduled’ medications). Currently, every state has a prescription drug monitoring program through which controlled prescription drugs are tracked. Though pharmacies may be able to see whether a new patient has been prescribed controlled prescription drugs, other drugs may not be associated with a particular patient’s record. Pharmacies are often the primary checker for harmful drug interactions, so any missed records of a patient’s current or past prescriptions can potentially be dangerous.

“Emergency department and urgent care providers face additional unique challenges when they don’t have access to accurate patient prescription drug information. In emergency situations, having accurate and quick ways to access a patient’s medication list can assist emergency department physicians in making correct diagnoses of patients’ conditions. Quick and accurate diagnoses can be the difference between life and death in some situations. In emergency departments, patients or their caretakers ideally have a list of medications or prescription vials. However, in situations in which these options are not available, a hospital employee (doctor, pharmacist, pharmacy technician, or nurse) will have to do medication reconciliation, which is a tedious and time consuming process where one either has to call a patient’s pharmacy or family member. In emergencies, medication reconciliation can be the time limiting step in making an appropriate diagnosis.

“A number of other obstacles have prevented universal, secure, fully integrated prescription records systems from being implemented; namely, high legal requirements for protecting confidential patient information (i.e., the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ‘HIPAA’), competition between existing medical records providers, and incompatibility between systems of various stakeholders, to name just a few. Therefore, a need exists for systems, methods, and apparatuses that can remedy current problems.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventor’s summary information for this patent: “An aspect of the present disclosure provides a system for managing patient medical records. The system may comprise a medical records services and database platform, one or more patient physical tracking devices, and one or more healthcare provider scanning devices. The healthcare provider scanning devices may be configured to enroll new patients into a medical records services and database platform by creating one or more enrolled patient physical tracking devices and scan one or more enrolled patient physical tracking devices. The system may further comprise one or more pharmacist scanning devices configured to scan the one or more enrolled patient physical tracking devices; scan information associated with a medication prescribed to an enrolled patient; and associate the enrolled patient with the medication via the medical records services and database platform.

“Another aspect of the present disclosure provides a method for managing patient medical records, the method may comprise enrolling new patients into a medical records services and database platform by creating one or more enrolled patient physical tracking devices. Then, the method may comprise scanning, with one or more pharmacist scanning devices, the one or more enrolled patient physical tracking devices and information associated with a medication prescribed to an enrolled patient. The method may then comprise associating the enrolled patient with the medication via the medical records services and database platform.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“What is claimed is:

“1. A system for managing patient medical records, the system comprising: a medical records services and database platform, wherein the medical records services and database platform comprises a plurality of separate databases; one or more patient physical tracking devices configured to provide a readable scanned identification (scanned ID); one or more healthcare provider scanning devices configured to: enroll new patients into a medical records services and database platform by: entering personally identifying information into an interface of the medical records services and database platform and subsequently scanning the one or more patient physical tracking devices to receive the one or more patient physical tracking device’s scanned ID; send both the personally identifying information and the scanned ID to a patient database; receive an internal ID generated by the patient database of the medical records services and database platform, and scan the one or more enrolled patient physical tracking devices; and one or more pharmacist scanning devices configured to: scan the one or more enrolled patient physical tracking devices; scan information associated with a medication prescribed to the one or more enrolled patients; and associate the internal ID of the one or more enrolled patients with the medication via a prescription service of the medical records services and database platform; wherein each of: the personally identifying information of the one or more enrolled patients, the information associated with a medication prescribed to the one or more enrolled patients, and the scanned IDs of the one or more enrolled patient physical tracking devices are each stored in separate databases, wherein: at least two of the separate databases are located in different remote cloud servers of the medical records services and database platform, thereby creating two or more remote databases; and wherein the scanned IDs and the personally identifying information are associated using the internal ID via an authentication sequence conducted via an identity service that is separate from and between the two or more of the remote databases.

“2. The system of claim 1, further comprising: one or more read-only emergency healthcare provider scanning devices configured to: scan one or more of the enrolled patient physical tracking devices to receive the scanned ID, and authenticate an identity of the enrolled patient using the scanned ID via the medical records services and database platform; and receive personally identifying information and prescription medication information of the enrolled patient from the medical records services and database platform.

“3. The system of claim 1, wherein the medical records services and database platform comprises: one or more secure servers configured to: store one or more records of patient health information; authenticate requests from any of: the one or more physician scanning devices or the one or more pharmacist scanning devices; and transmit at least one of the one or more records of patient health information to a graphical user interface.

“4. The system of claim 1, further comprising: one or more interfaces configured to: display one or more records of patient health information.

“5. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more patient physical tracking devices are read-only devices and the scanned IDs comprise electronically transmittable unique identifiers.

“6. The system of claim 5, wherein the one or more patient physical tracking devices comprises a smartphone or tablet configured to be scanned to provide the scanned ID.

“7. The system of claim 5, wherein the one or more patient physical tracking devices comprises hardware having embedded software programmed into the hardware.

“8. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more patient physical tracking devices does not comprise any of: a patient name; and the patient health information of the one or more enrolled patients.

“9. The system of claim 1, wherein the system is compatible with any electronic medical records system.

“10. The system of claim 1, further comprising: one or more healthcare provider physical tracking devices; and one or more pharmacist physical tracking devices, wherein each of the one or more pharmacist physical tracking device is associated with an individual pharmacist at a particular pharmacy.

“11. The system of claim 1, further comprising: one or more administrator scanning devices, and one or more administrator physical tracking devices.

“12. The system of claim 1, wherein the medical records services and database platform is configured to authenticate authorized access to one or more patient medical records of an enrolled patient by scanning: one of the one or more enrolled patient physical tracking devices, and one of: one or the one or more healthcare provider physical tracking devices, or one of the one or more pharmacist physical tracking devices.

“13. The system of claim 12, wherein the medical records services and database platform is configured to authenticate authorized access to one or more patient medical records of an enrolled patient by scanning: a patient biometric identifier.

“14. A method for managing patient medical records, the method comprising: enrolling new patients into a medical records services and database platform, wherein the medical records services and database platform comprises a plurality of separate databases, by: entering personally identifying information into an interface of the medical records services and database platform and subsequently scanning the one or more patient physical tracking devices to receive the one or more patient physical tracking device’s scanned ID; send both the personally identifying information and the scanned ID to a patient database; receive an internal ID generated by the patient database of the medical records services and database platform, and scanning, with one or more pharmacist scanning devices: the one or more enrolled patient physical tracking devices, and information associated with a medication prescribed to the one or more enrolled patients; and associating the internal ID of the one or more enrolled patients with the medication via a prescription service of the medical records services and database platform; wherein each of: the personally identifying information of the one or more enrolled patients, the information associated with a medication prescribed to the one or more enrolled patients, and a scanned ID of the one or more enrolled patient physical tracking devices are each stored in separate databases, wherein: at least two of the separate databases are located in different remote cloud servers of the medical records services and database platform, thereby creating two or more remote databases; and wherein the scanned IDs and the personally identifying information are associated via using the internal ID an authentication sequence conducted via an identity service that is separate from and between the two or more of the remote databases.

“15. The method of claim 14, further comprising: storing one or more records of patient health information; authenticating, at a secure server, requests from any of: one or more physician scanning devices or the one or more pharmacist scanning devices; and transmitting at least one of the one or more records of patient health information to a graphical user interface.

“16. The method of claim 14, further comprising: authenticating authorized access to one or more patient medical records of an enrolled patient by scanning: one of the one or more enrolled patient physical tracking devices, and one of: one or the one or more healthcare provider physical tracking devices, or one of the one or more pharmacist physical tracking devices.

“17. The method of claim 16, further comprising: authenticating authorized access to one or more patient medical records of an enrolled patient by scanning a patient biometric identifier.

“18. The method of claim 16, further comprising: displaying, based on the authentication, one or more patient medical records on a user interface.

“19. The method of claim 14, further comprising: storing the personally identifying information about the enrolled patient in a first database, the prescribed medication of the enrolled patient in a second database, and an internal ID and scanned ID associated with the enrolled patient in a third database within the medical records services and database platform.

“20. The method of claim 14, further comprising: providing a portal to each of a healthcare provider and a pharmacist, the portal configured temporarily display a prescription drug history of one or more of the enrolled patients.”

For additional information on this patent, see: Clark, David. System, Methods, And Apparatuses For Medication Records Tracking. U.S. Patent Number 10,847,258, filed May 17, 2019, and published online on December 7, 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=10,847,258.PN.&OS=PN/10,847,258RS=PN/10,847,258

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