Researchers Submit Patent Application, “Systems and Methods for Performing Health Risk Assessments and Risk Stratification on a Patient Population”,…

Obesity, Fitness & Wellness Week

Researchers Submit Patent Application, "Systems and Methods for Performing Health Risk Assessments and Risk Stratification on a Patient Population", for Approval (USPTO 20180075207)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Obesity, Fitness & Wellness Week -- From Washington, D.C., NewsRx journalists report that a patent application by the inventor Schmidt, Brenda (Phoenix, AZ), filed on October 13, 2017, was made available online on March 22, 2018 (see also Patent Application).

No assignee for this patent application has been made.

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: "The evolving U.S. health care system presents opportunities for improving population health. For example, a relatively small percentage of the population (e.g., 20-25%) consumes a disproportionate percentage of total health care costs (e.g., 70-80%), largely as a result of the treatment of chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension. Preventive measures to reverse the epidemic of chronic diseases would improve the health and life style of individual patients, improve aggregate population health, and lower overall healthcare costs.

"A key component of population health involves linking clinical care with community-based prevention programs and related social services. Traditional medical education, research, and practice have focused on curing diseases for individual patients. Shifting the emphasis to embracing population-based principles can have a greater effect on long term health and wellness, particularly in the prevention of chronic disease.

"At present, healthcare providers supply their eligible patients with a list of (typically non-medical) organizations offering a disease prevention program ('DPP'), relying on the patient to follow up directly with a community-based organization ('CBO'). Unfortunately, this this type of 'opt-in' approach tends to result in significantly lower enrollment, in part because prevention programs offered by CBOs are not typically covered by health insurance plans.

"However, when an employer offers coverage for DPPs and encourages employees to participate in such programs, the influx of a new candidate population can overwhelm enrollment resources. If a healthcare provider offers benefits which include preventive programs determining which members of the group should participate in a DPP can be cumbersome.

"Systems and methods are thus needed which overcome these limitations. Various desirable features and characteristics will also become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background section."

As a supplement to the background information on this patent application, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventor's summary information for this patent application: "The present invention provides a risk stratification system to prioritize chronic disease and lifestyle interventions for patients with multiple risk factors. The stratification system provides insight into what disease states and lifestyle interventions (as well a behavioral health and social determinants) that DPP providers should focus on for maximum impact. In addition, wellness scores generated by the stratification system can be used to prioritize patient referrals to various DPPs using a predictive analytics to select a best-fit DPP and an optimal DPP provider.

"Various embodiments provide a method performed by a computer system for the automated processing of risk stratification for a patient population, calculating respective wellness scores for individual patents, assigning a risk level to each patient, and enrolling high risk patients in an appropriate DPP.

"Other embodiments provide systems and methods to triage an influx of new candidates, which gives priority for preventive programs to candidates in a high health risk level over candidates in a low health risk level.

"Various embodiments provide a method for performing automated triage and patient risk stratification for a population of patients, and for enrolling a high-risk patient into a disease prevention program.

"Various embodiments provide systems and methods for applying predictive analytics to data from a health risk assessment, a wellness score generated by a patient risk stratification system, and individual patient preferences, to determine the best-fit DPP and the optimal DPP provider a patient. The systems and methods can be configured to enroll the patient in the best-fit DPP with the optimal DPP provider. The systems and methods may also be configured to track meaningful engagement between the patient and the optimal DPP provider.

"Various other embodiments, aspects and features are described in greater detail below."

For additional information on this patent application, see: Schmidt, Brenda. Systems and Methods for Performing Health Risk Assessments and Risk Stratification on a Patient Population. Filed October 13, 2017 and posted March 22, 2018. Patent URL: http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220180075207%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20180075207&RS=DN/20180075207

Keywords for this news article include: Wellness, Epidemiology, Chronic Disease, Machine Learning, Disease Attributes, Patent Application, Health and Medicine, Risk and Prevention, Predictive Analytics, Emerging Technologies.