Patent Issued for Telemedicine platform including virtual assistance (USPTO 11908577): Health Science Partners LLC

2024 MAR 12 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Corlett, Scott (San Diego, CA, US), filed on July 22, 2022, was published online on February 20, 2024.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11908577 is Health Science Partners LLC (San Diego, California, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors:

“1. Field of the Invention

“The present invention relates to a telemedicine platform, and more specifically to telemedicine platforms including virtual physicians.

“2. Description of the Prior Art

“It is generally known in the prior art to provide platforms for facilitating remote communication between patients and physicians, in a field known as telemedicine. Telemedicine platforms such as CHIRON HEALTH and DOXY.ME focus on providing HIPAA-compliant platforms for video conferencing with physicians and managing schedules, including providing automatic appointment reminders. These platforms also commonly facilitate the sharing of electronic health records and provide systems for managing billing.

“Important to some existing platforms, such as EVISIT, is the ability to customize and automate workflow processes to match individual physicians’ organizational practices. For other applications, such as MEDICI, the systems divide operations into cases associated with specific patients assigned to particular physicians, allowing additional physicians to be brought in to provide second opinions. Platforms such as SIMPLEPRACTICE have attempted to provide other features in addition to traditional telemedicine features, such as systems for submitting and reconciling insurance claims.

“Some telemedicine platforms focus on providing communication means for existing patient-physician relationships, while others, such as THERA-LINK focus on providing means for patients to search for new providers, or group therapy sessions.

“Prior art patent documents include the following:

“U.S. Pat. No. 7,098,788 for Remote surveillance and assisted care using a mobile communication device by inventors Giraldo et al., filed Jul. 12, 2004 and issued Aug. 29, 2006, describes a method of remote surveillance and assisted care using a mobile communication device including determining a location of a user. The method can also include adjusting at least one camera according to the location, and capturing an image of an area around the location. Further, the method can include transmitting the image to a remote information processing system.

“U.S. Pat. No. 11,289,189 for Systems and methods for auto-generation of telemedicine clinics by inventor Eberting, filed Aug. 8, 2019 and issued Mar. 29, 2022, describes systems and methods for automatically generating telemedicine platforms for providers. A marketplace of healthcare services and associated pricing and other terms is made available to employers, individuals, and/or health insurance companies. Employers and/or health insurance companies can select a subset of options from the marketplace to create a customizable sub-marketplace of healthcare services to offer to their employees or insureds. Providers may modify their offerings in the marketplace to fit within guidelines established by the employers or health insurance companies to be automatically included in the sub-marketplace of healthcare services.

“U.S. Pat. No. 8,352,245 for Adjusting language models by inventor Lloyd, filed Mar. 31, 2011 and issued Jan. 8, 2013, describes methods, systems, and apparatuses, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for adjusting language models. In one aspect, a method includes accessing audio data. Information that indicates a first context is accessed, the first context being associated with the audio data. At least one term is accessed. Information that indicates a second context is accessed, the second context being associated with the term. A similarity score is determined that indicates a degree of similarity between the second context and the first context. A language model is adjusted based on the accessed term and the determined similarity score to generate an adjusted language model. Speech recognition is performed on the audio data using the adjusted language model to select one or more candidate transcriptions for a portion of the audio data.

“U.S. Pat. No. 11,205,510 for Systems and methods for visualizing and managing telepresence devices in healthcare networks by inventors Ross et al., filed Feb. 1, 2016 and issued Dec. 21, 2021, describes systems and methods for visualizing, analyzing, and managing telepresence devices operating in a telepresence network of healthcare facilities. The visualization and management system for telepresence devices may display a first viewing level that includes a geographical representation of the location of various telepresence devices. A user may selectively view a global view of all telepresence devices, telepresence devices within a particular region, and/or the details of a particular telepresence device. A user may also access a viewing level of a network of healthcare facilities. The user may view, analyze, and/or manage the healthcare network, telepresence device network, individual telepresence devices, connection rules, and/or other aspects of the healthcare network using the geographical visualization and management tool.

“U.S. Pat. No. 11,023,990 for Programmatically providing information in connection with location-based services to service providers by inventors Choksi et al., filed Apr. 15, 2016 and issued Jun. 1, 2021, describes a system and method of providing information in connection with one or more services on a computing device. The system can receive data in connection with a location-based service from a remote system and can programmatically display information about the service on or as part of a user interface of the service application. A system can dynamically display content to instruct a user of the computing device to go to a particular location and to perform a particular task associated with the service based on the user’s current condition.

“U.S. Pat. No. 11,195,617 for Intelligent triaging engine by inventors Singh et al., filed Nov. 10, 2016 and issued Dec. 7, 2021, describes a method for intelligently triaging patients. The computer-implemented may diagnose a patient based up a received set of medical symptoms. In response, to the diagnosis, a filterable and/sortable list of healthcare service recommendations may be generated. The list of healthcare services may be generated based upon an analysis of a plurality of user data. Each recommendation on the list of healthcare service recommendations may correspond to a plurality of metadata describing the associated healthcare service. When a user selects a particular healthcare service from the list of healthcare service recommendations, the method may include interconnecting a client device with a computing system associated with the particular healthcare service.

“U.S. Pat. No. 7,937,275 for Identifying clinical trial candidates by inventor Schoenberg, filed May 8, 2008 and issued May 3, 2011, describes identifying one or more clinical study candidates by consolidating health care information for a consumer, applying the consumer’s health care information to a rules engine, identifying a consumer as eligible to participate in one or more clinical studies, and presenting an opportunity to participate in the study to the consumer.

“U.S. Pat. No. 8,515,776 for Medical listener by inventor Schoenberg, filed Apr. 15, 2011 and issued Aug. 20, 2013, describes an engagement brokered between a consumer and a medical service provider; electronic text of a real-time, text-based communication between the medical service provider and the consumer is monitored during the engagement; the electronic text is analyzed for a triggering event related to at least one of medical diagnosis and medical treatment; the triggering event is detected in the electronic text; and medical information is provided to the medical service provider via a user interface in response to the triggering event.

“U.S. Pat. No. 9,971,873 for Connecting consumers with service providers by inventor Schoenberg, filed Aug. 9, 2017 and issued May 15, 2018, describes a request received from a consumer of services to consult with a service provider having a service provider profile that satisfies at least some attributes in a set of attributes that define a suitable service provider; an available service provider satisfying at least some of the attributes in the set of attributes is identified; and a communication channel to establish a communication between the consumer of services and the identified service provider.

“U.S. Pat. No. 7,895,061 for Auctioning Provider Prices by inventor Schoenberg, filed Mar. 31, 2008 and issued Feb. 22, 2011, describes a computer-implemented method including receiving, at a computer-based system for connecting consumers with providers in real time over the Internet, requested compensation amounts from a plurality of providers. The method also includes displaying a price associated with consulting with a particular provider to a consumer on a user interface, the price being based at least in part on the requested compensation amount received from the provider.

“U.S. Pat. No. 8,600,773 for Tracking The Availability Of Service Providers Across Multiple Platforms by inventor Schoenberg, filed Oct. 27, 2010 and issued Dec. 3, 2013, describes tracking the availability of service providers across one or more service provider networks. A status change of the service provider is identified on one or more of the service provider networks and the other service provider networks associated with the service provider is sent data indicating the changed status of the service provider.”

There is additional summary information. Please visit full patent to read further.

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The present invention relates to a telemedicine platform, and more specifically to telemedicine platforms including virtual physicians

“It is an object of this invention to provide a telemedicine platform having a virtual practitioner for interfacing with patients.

“In one embodiment, the present invention is directed to a telemedicine system, including at least one server, including a processor and a memory, and at least one database, wherein the at least one server is in network communication with at least one patient user device, wherein the at least one server includes an artificial intelligence module, wherein the artificial intelligence module receives messages from the at least one patient user device and automatically detects described symptoms and/or provides a list of suggested healthcare providers to the at least one patient user device based on natural language processing of the messages, wherein the artificial intelligence module automatically generates responses to the messages from the at least one patient user device to prompt for further information, and wherein the artificial intelligence module generates an animated human face and animates the animated human face to synchronize lip movements to audio of the automatically generated responses.

“In another embodiment, the present invention is directed to a telemedicine system, including at least one server, including a processor and a memory, and at least one database, wherein the at least one server is in network communication with at least one patient user device, wherein the at least one server includes an artificial intelligence module, wherein the artificial intelligence module receives messages from the at least one patient user device and automatically detects described symptoms and/or provides a list of suggested healthcare providers to the at least one patient user device based on natural language processing of the messages, wherein the artificial intelligence module automatically generates responses to the messages from the at least one patient user device to prompt for further information, wherein the artificial intelligence module generates audio of the automatically generated responses and transmits the audio to the at least one patient user device, and wherein the list of suggested healthcare providers is based on a geolocation of the at least one patient user device, consultation prices for different healthcare providers, estimated time until an available consultation, and/or average ratings of healthcare providers.

“In yet another embodiment, the present invention is directed to a telemedicine system, including at least one server, including a processor and a memory, and at least one database, wherein the at least one server is in network communication with at least one patient user device and at least one practitioner device, wherein the at least one server receives a selection of available consultation times from the at least one practitioner device, wherein the at least one server automatically updates the selection of available consultation times when appointments are made, wherein the at least one server includes an artificial intelligence module, wherein the artificial intelligence module receives messages from the at least one patient user device and automatically detects described symptoms and/or provides a list of suggested healthcare providers to the at least one patient user device based on natural language processing of the messages, wherein the artificial intelligence module automatically generates responses to the messages from the at least one patient user device to prompt for further information, and wherein the artificial intelligence module generates audio of the automatically generated responses and transmits the audio to the at least one patient user device.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A telemedicine system, comprising: at least one server, including a processor and a memory, and at least one database; wherein the at least one server is in network communication with at least one patient user device and at least one practitioner device; wherein the at least one server generates at least one patient profile corresponding to the at least one patient user device; wherein one or more of the at least one patient profile includes a plurality of members, and wherein the at least one patient profile manages scheduling for appointments of each of the plurality of members; wherein at least one contact method associated with at least one member of a plurality of members and an indication of a relationship between the at least one member and the at least one patient profile are input to the at least one patient profile; wherein a confirmation message is transmitted to the at least one member via the at least one contact method associated with the at least one member; wherein the confirmation message includes a request for additional documentation for completion of the addition of the at least one member to the at least one patient profile; wherein the at least one practitioner device is operable to manage availability of at least one practitioner profile by receiving a time range selection by click selection of a circle at a start point representing a start time of the time range and drag selection of the circle to an end point representing an end time of the time range; wherein an area covered by the time range selection represents availability of the at least one practitioner profile; wherein the at least one server includes an artificial intelligence module; wherein the artificial intelligence module receives messages from the at least one patient user device and automatically detects described symptoms and provides a list of suggested healthcare providers to the at least one patient user device based on natural language processing of the messages and a predictive diagnosis of a medical concern based on the described symptoms, wherein the list of suggested healthcare providers specialize in treatment of the medical concern; wherein the artificial intelligence module automatically uses natural language processing to analyze the messages received from the at least one user device and generates a list of International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-10 diagnosis codes based on the messages; wherein the list of suggested healthcare providers includes a profile picture and a quantification of experience associated with a practitioner associated with the at least one practitioner profile; wherein the artificial intelligence module automatically generates responses to the messages from the at least one patient user device to prompt for further information; wherein the system is operable to receive a selection by the at least one patient user device for at least one real physician or at least one artificial intelligence generated physician to solely host a consultation; and wherein the artificial intelligence module generates an animated human face and animates the animated human face to synchronize lip movements to audio of the automatically generated responses, wherein the server receives a selection of a gender and/or ethnicity for the animated human face and an accent and/or dialect for the audio of the automatically generated response, wherein the gender and/or ethnicity of the animated human face and the accent and/or dialect of the audio of the automatically generated response corresponds to the selected gender and/or ethnicity and accent and/or dialect.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one server receives a selection to filter the list of suggested healthcare providers to only display one or more specific types of healthcare providers.

“3. The system of claim 1, wherein the list of suggested healthcare providers is based on a geolocation of the at least one patient user device, consultation prices for different healthcare providers, estimated time until an available consultation with each healthcare provider, and/or average ratings of healthcare providers.

“4. The system of claim 1, wherein the artificial intelligence module automatically diagnoses a patient based on at least one description of symptoms, patient demographic data, at least one test result, and/or at least one scan.

“5. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one server receives prescription instructions from the at least one practitioner device and transmits the prescription instructions to at least one pharmacy.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one server automatically updates an electronic medical record corresponding to the at least one patient profile based on results of each consultation.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one server includes an integrated billing module, wherein the integrated billing module displays at least one cost associated with a patient profile before and after insurance.

“8. The system of claim 1, wherein the artificial intelligence module receives at least one image from the at least one patient user device and generates a diagnosis based on analysis of the at least one image.

“9. A telemedicine system, comprising: at least one server, including a processor and a memory, and at least one database; wherein the at least one server is in network communication with at least one patient user device and at least one practitioner device; wherein the at least one server includes an artificial intelligence module; wherein the artificial intelligence module receives messages from the at least one patient user device and automatically detects described symptoms and/or provides a list of suggested healthcare providers to the at least one patient user device based on natural language processing of the messages; wherein the artificial intelligence module automatically uses natural language processing to analyze the messages received from the at least one user device and generates a list of International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-10 diagnosis codes based on the messages; wherein the artificial intelligence module automatically generates responses to the messages from the at least one patient user device to prompt for further information; wherein the artificial intelligence module generates audio of the automatically generated responses and transmits the audio to the at least one patient user device; wherein the list of suggested healthcare providers is based on a geolocation of the at least one patient user device, consultation prices for different healthcare providers, estimated time until an available consultation, and/or average ratings of healthcare providers; wherein the at least one server generates at least one patient profile corresponding to the at least one patient user device and at least one practitioner profile corresponding to the at least one practitioner device; wherein the at least one server generates a chat portal between the at least one patient profile and the at least one practitioner profile, wherein the chat portal includes search functionality to search for keywords in messages sent between the at least one patient profile and the at least one practitioner profile; wherein the at least one practitioner profile includes at least one practitioner pager number and at least one patient details page, wherein the at least one patient details page includes an indication of a patient type, wherein the patient type includes an indication of a minor patient; wherein the at least one practitioner profile is operable to deactivate the at least one patient profile, wherein deactivation of the at least one patient profile removes the at least one patient profile from association with the at least one practitioner profile; wherein the at least one server tracks an amount of time spent in consultation by the at least one practitioner device; wherein the at least one practitioner device is operable to manage availability of the at least one practitioner profile by receiving a time range selection by click selection of a circle at a start point representing a start time of the time range and drag selection of the circle to an end point representing an end time of the time range; wherein an area covered by the time range selection represents availability of the at least one practitioner profile; wherein the at least one server creates a log of the amount of time spent in consultation by the at least one practitioner device; and wherein the at least one server is operable to offer a non-monetary incentive to the at least one practitioner profile based on the amount of time spent in consultation.

“10. The system of claim 9, wherein the at least one server receives a selection to filter the list of suggested healthcare providers to one or more specific types of healthcare providers.

“11. The system of claim 9, wherein the artificial intelligence module receives at least one image from the at least one patient user device and generates a diagnosis based on analysis of the at least one image.

“12. The system of claim 9, wherein the at least one server receives a selection from the at least one patient user device of a language for the audio of the automatically generated responses.

“13. The system of claim 9, wherein the at least one server receives prescription instructions from the at least one practitioner device and transmits the prescription instructions to at least one pharmacy.

“14. The system of claim 9, wherein the at least one server automatically updates an electronic medical record corresponding to the at least one patient profile based on results of each consultation.

“15. The system of claim 9, wherein one or more of the at least one patient profile includes a plurality of members, and wherein the at least one patient profile manages scheduling for appointments of each of the plurality of members.”

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

For additional information on this patent, see: Corlett, Scott. Telemedicine platform including virtual assistance. U.S. Patent Number 11908577, filed July 22, 2022, and published online on February 20, 2024. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11908577)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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