| CPC G16H 10/20 (2018.01) [G16H 10/60 (2018.01); G16H 50/30 (2018.01); G16H 20/10 (2018.01); G16H 80/00 (2018.01)] | 16 Claims |
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1. A method, comprising:
storing a library of electronic pathways for treatment of patients, each pathway being a standardized sets of tasks, medications, and/or interventions for an identified population of patients and including orders, each pathway and its orders being neutral as to patient and schedule;
automatically, as part of pre-surgical evaluation by a hospital, in response to receiving a referral of a patient to a physician for a multi-encounter medical procedure, retrieving EMR information from a patient's electronic medical record (EMR) stored in an electronic medical record system, the patient's EMR storing patient encounters as separate patient encounter records in which no patient encounter record is linked with any other patient encounter record;
evaluating the EMR information to identify an at risk condition for the patient;
assembling a database record reflecting patient encounters of the patient and assembling the patient encounters into a plurality of medical episode records for the patient, the medical episode records relating to corresponding medical conditions of the patient, each medical episode record storing information relating to patient encounters relating to treatment of the corresponding medical condition;
storing the database record in a database of medical episode records, designed to permit longitudinal retrieval of patient encounters of a medical episode record;
in response to the EMR evaluation determining that the patient is possibly at risk, posing a questionnaire to all patients for specified classes of procedures, the patients meeting specified criteria for possible risk, the questionnaire being specifically diagnostic for the at risk condition and/or appropriateness of care preferences of the patient, and obtaining answers from the patient to questions of the questionnaire;
evaluating the information from the patient's EMR and the answers from the patient to the questions of the questionnaire together to evaluate risk characteristics of the patient and/or appropriateness of care preferences of the patient;
if the evaluating of the information from the patient's EMR and the answers from the patient to the questions of the questionnaire together indicates the at risk condition for the patient, recommending to medical staff a pathway chosen from among the library:
determining, based on the evaluating of the information from the patient's EMR and the answers from the patient to the questions of the questionnaire together, whether the patient is eligible for a telephone preoperative evaluation;
based on the evaluating of the EMR information and questionnaire answers together, recommending to medical staff at least one pathway template to be implemented by the medical staff in the patient's care, from among a library of pathway templates, the pathway templates being standardized sets of tasks, medications, and/or interventions for an identified population of patients, each pathway template being neutral as to patient and schedule and including orders;
instantiating the recommended pathway template to create at least one pathway to be implemented for the patient by populating the orders of the recommended pathway template with the EMR information to create instantiated orders for the patient, the instantiating of at least one pathway to be implemented further including determining, based on the evaluating of the EMR information and questionnaire answers together, whether the patient is eligible for a telephone preoperative evaluation or an in-person preoperative evaluation wherein an adverse answer to any of the questions that are specifically diagnostic for the at risk condition indicates the patient must have an in-person preoperative evaluation;
performing a multi-encounter medical procedure on the patient utilizing the at least one pathway to be implemented and storing patient encounter records of the multi-encounter medical procedure in the patient's EMR;
linking the patient encounter records of the multi-encounter medical procedure stored in the patient's EMR into a longitudinally-linked episode; and
storing the longitudinally-linked episode in the patient's EMR as a connective record that links to the patient encounter records of the multi-encounter medical procedure.
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