Patent Issued for Systems and methods for determining and using health conditions based on machine learning algorithms and a smart vital device (USPTO 11742086): Aetna Inc.

2023 SEP 20 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Kurfirst, Dwayne (Hartford, CT, US), filed on May 28, 2020, was published online on August 29, 2023, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11742086 is assigned to Aetna Inc. (Hartford, Connecticut, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “The impact of viruses and other diseases is significant even during a typical flu season and the prevention of another global pandemic is a desire shared by many enterprise organizations. Even in a global pandemic, some enterprise organizations have physical storefronts and retail stores that need to remain open. For instance, individuals may require necessities such as food or medication regardless of the situation. Further, these individuals might not even realize they are sick and by visiting these stores, may inadvertently spread diseases to other individuals or employees. Because of the current pandemic, enterprise organizations with physical storefronts and retail stores have implemented many solutions in an attempt to curb the spread of these diseases. However, many of these solutions are not automated and might not be as effective at widespread prevention. For instance, even if employees were able to notice an individual displayed health symptoms, which would be extremely difficult considering the employee has other priorities, the employee would still have to interact with that individual, which may cause the disease to spread to the employee. Accordingly, there remains a technical need for monitoring symptoms of individuals within a storefront and for alerting individuals of their symptoms in an attempt to prevent the spread of diseases.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In some instances, the disclosure a system comprising a first smart vital device and an enterprise computing system. The first smart vital device comprises one or more first processors and a first non-transitory computer-readable medium having first processor-executable instructions stored thereon. The first processor-executable instructions, when executed, facilitate obtaining sensor information indicating one or more health characteristics associated with an individual, determining one or more health conditions of the individual based on inputting the sensor information into one or more health condition machine learning datasets, outputting one or more notifications indicating the one or more health conditions of the individual, and providing, to an enterprise computing system, the one or more health conditions of the individual. The enterprise computing system comprises one or more second processors and a second non-transitory computer-readable medium having second processor-executable instructions stored thereon. The second processor-executable instructions, when executed, facilitate aggregating a plurality of health conditions from a plurality of smart vital devices, wherein the plurality of smart vital devices comprises the first smart vital device, determining one or more health trends based on inputting the plurality of health conditions from the plurality of smart vital devices into one or more health trend machine learning datasets, updating the one or more health trend machine learning datasets based on the one or more health trends, and outputting information indicating the one or more health trends.

“In other instances, the disclosure provides a method performed by a smart vital device. The method comprises receiving, by a smart vital device, sensor information indicating one or more health characteristics associated with an individual, wherein the sensor information comprises audio information indicating audio signals from a surrounding environment and temperature information indicating temperature readings from the surrounding environment, determining, by the smart vital device, one or more health audio characteristics of the individual based on inputting the audio signals into one or more health condition machine learning datasets, determining, by the smart vital device, one or more health temperature characteristics of the individual based on the temperature readings from the surrounding environment, determining, by the smart vital device, one or more health conditions of the individual based on the one or more health audio characteristics and the one or more health temperature characteristics, and outputting, by the smart vital device, the one or more health conditions of the individual.

“In yet other instances, the disclosure provides a non-transitory computer-readable medium having processor-executable instructions stored thereon. The processor-executable instructions, when executed, facilitate receiving sensor information indicating one or more health characteristics associated with an individual, wherein the sensor information comprises audio information indicating audio signals from a surrounding environment and temperature information indicating temperature readings from the surrounding environment, determining one or more health audio characteristics of the individual based on inputting the audio signals into one or more health condition machine learning datasets, determining one or more health temperature characteristics of the individual based on the temperature readings from the surrounding environment, determining one or more health conditions of the individual based on the one or more health audio characteristics and the one or more health temperature characteristics, and outputting the one or more health conditions of the individual.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system, comprising: a first smart vital device, comprising: one or more first processors; and memory, wherein the memory stores one or more health condition machine learning models, and wherein the one or more first processors are configured to: obtain sensor information indicating one or more health characteristics associated with an individual; retrieve the one or more health condition machine learning models from the memory of the first smart vital device; input the sensor information into the one or more health condition machine learning models to determine one or more health conditions of the individual; output one or more notifications indicating the one or more health conditions of the individual; and provide, to an enterprise computing system, the one or more health conditions of the individual; and the enterprise computing system, wherein the enterprise computing system is configured to: aggregate a plurality of health conditions from a plurality of smart vital devices, wherein the plurality of smart vital devices comprises the first smart vital device; determine one or more health trends based on inputting the plurality of health conditions from the plurality of smart vital devices into one or more health trend machine learning models, wherein the one or more health trends indicate an expected time frame for an expected peak of an affliction; receive actual information indicating an actual time frame for an actual peak of the affliction; update the one or more health trend machine learning models based on the expected time frame and the actual time frame; and output information indicating the one or more health trends.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the first smart vital device comprises an audio sensor configured to provide audio information indicating audio signals from a surrounding environment and a temperature sensor configured to provide temperature information indicating temperature readings from the surrounding environment, and wherein obtaining the sensor information comprises obtaining the audio information and the temperature information.

“3. The system of claim 2, the one or more first processors are further configured to: determine, based on the temperature information, whether the temperature readings indicate a temperature of the individual, wherein determining the one or more health conditions is further based on the temperature of the individual, and wherein the one or more health conditions indicate one or more symptoms of the individual.

“4. The system of claim 2, wherein determining the one or more health conditions is based on inputting the audio signals into the one or more health condition machine learning models to generate the one or more health conditions, wherein the one or more health conditions indicate one or more symptoms of the individual.

“5. The system of claim 2, wherein the first smart vital device further comprises a humidity sensor configured to provide humidity information indicating a humidity reading of the surrounding environment and an image sensor configured to capture an image of the individual, and wherein obtaining the sensor information comprises obtaining the humidity information and the captured image of the individual.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more first processors are further configured to: receive, from a user device, user information indicating an identity of the individual, and wherein outputting the one or more notifications indicating the one or more health conditions of the individual is based on the identity of the individual.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein the enterprise computing system is further configured to: determine a network element associated with a location of the first smart vital device, and wherein outputting the information associated with the one or more health trends comprises outputting an alert to the network element associated with the location of the first smart vital device.

“8. The system of claim 7, wherein the network element and the first smart vital device are located within a same geographical location and are separate devices.

“9. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more first processors are further configured to: receive a plurality of audio files indicating coughs and/or sneezes; receive a plurality of infrared images indicating elevated temperature readings of a plurality of individuals; and train the one or more health condition machine learning models based on the plurality of received audio files and the plurality of received infrared images.

“10. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more first processors are further configured to: determine, based on the sensor information indicating the one or more health characteristics, a medical condition of the individual and a degree of accuracy associated with the medical condition, wherein the medical condition indicates whether the individual has the affliction.

“11. The system of claim 10, wherein determining the medical condition of the individual and the degree of accuracy is based on inputting the sensor information and the one or more health conditions into the one or more health condition machine learning models.

“12. The system of claim 1, further comprising a user device, wherein the one or more first processors are further configured to: determine whether the user device is within a proximity of the first smart vital device; and provide the one or more health conditions of the individual to the user device based on determining the user device is within the proximity of the first smart vital device, and wherein the user device is configured to: receive the one or more health conditions of the individual from the first smart vital device; and display a notification indicating the one or more health conditions of the individual.

“13. The system of claim 1, wherein determining the one or more health trends comprises: classifying, based on location information associated with the plurality of health conditions, the plurality of health conditions from the plurality of smart vital devices to determine classification information, wherein the location information indicates a particular geographic location; and determining the one or more health trends based on the one or more health trend machine learning models, the classification information, and the plurality of health conditions, wherein the one or more health trends further indicate the expected peak for the affliction at the particular geographic location.

“14. A method, comprising: receiving, by a smart vital device, sensor information indicating one or more health characteristics associated with an individual, wherein the sensor information comprises audio information indicating audio signals from a surrounding environment and temperature information indicating temperature readings from the surrounding environment; determining, by the smart vital device, one or more health audio characteristics of the individual based on inputting the audio signals into one or more health condition machine learning models; determining, by the smart vital device, one or more health temperature characteristics of the individual based on the temperature readings from the surrounding environment; determining, by the smart vital device, a plurality of first health conditions of the individual based on the one or more health audio characteristics and the one or more health temperature characteristics; based on the plurality of first health conditions and one or more weights associated with the plurality of health conditions, determining, by the smart vital device, a medical condition of the individual; providing, by the smart vital device and to an enterprise computing system, the plurality of first health conditions and the medical condition of the individual; determining, by the enterprise computing system, one or more health trends based on inputting a plurality of second health conditions from a plurality of smart vital devices into one or more health trend machine learning models, wherein the one or more health trends indicate an expected time frame for an expected peak of an affliction, and wherein the plurality of second health conditions comprise the plurality of first health conditions from the smart vital device; receiving, by the enterprise computing system, actual information indicating an actual time frame for an actual peak of the affliction; and updating, by the enterprise computing system, the one or more health trend machine learning models based on the expected time frame and the actual time frame.

“15. The method of claim 14, wherein the sensor information further comprises humidity information indicating a humidity reading of the surrounding environment, and wherein determining the plurality of first health conditions of the individual is further based on the humidity information.

“16. The method of claim 14, wherein the sensor information further comprises a captured image of the individual, wherein the method further comprises: determining, by the smart vital device, one or more image characteristics of the individual based on inputting the captured image into the one or more health condition machine learning models, and wherein determining the plurality of first health conditions is further based on the one or more image characteristics.

“17. The method of claim 14, further comprising: determining, by the smart vital device and based on the sensor information and the medical condition, a degree of accuracy associated with the medical condition; and outputting, by the smart vital device, the degree of accuracy.”

There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.

URL and more information on this patent, see: Kurfirst, Dwayne. Systems and methods for determining and using health conditions based on machine learning algorithms and a smart vital device. U.S. Patent Number 11742086, filed May 28, 2020, and published online on August 29, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11742086)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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