Patent ID: 7822622
Filing Date: 2010-10-26
Classification: G06Q,G16H,G16Z

Abstract:
1. A computerized, automated method for scheduling medical facility procedures that medically treat or examine respective patients, said medical facility procedures being available in a medical facility that interacts with said patients, said medical facility being comprised of a plurality of facility departments and having a plurality of different types of medical equipment respectively for implementing different ones of said medical facility procedures, said method comprising the steps of: creating an electronic database by entering data through an input unit into an electronic storage unit that represent sets of attributes that influence each of said medical facility procedures that are available at said medical facility, said data comprising a set of facility attributes that describe said medical facility, a set of department attributes that describe the respective facility departments, a set of equipment attributes that describe said medical equipment, a set of personnel attributes that describe personnel at said medical facility who operate said medical equipment at said medical facility, a set of patient generic attributes that describe common characteristics of said patients who interact with said medical facility, a set of patient-specific attributes describing a specific patient to be scheduled for interaction with said medical facility, and a set of facility procedures attributes that describe the respective medical facility procedures that are available at said medical facility; in a processor having access to said electronic database in said electronic storage unit, automatically creating an electronic rules table that is independent of date and time availability of said medical facility procedures at said medical facility, from at least two of said sets of attributes, that impose requirements and constraints for implementing said medical facility procedures at said medical facility on said specific patient, said requirements and constraints defining at least one of an order in which at least two of said medical facility procedures must take place relative to each other, and a time duration that must exist between any two of said medical facility procedures; entering, into said processor, an electronic description of a plurality of prescribed medical procedures, selected from among said medical facility procedures, to be performed on said specific patient at said medical facility and, in said processor, formulating a planned patient procedure list comprising said plurality of prescribed medical procedures for said specific patient; in an electronic sequencing module supplied with said planned procedure list by said processor, automatically conducting a calendar date and time of day search for data and time availability for each of the prescribed medical procedures in said planned procedure list and organizing the prescribed medical procedures in said planned patient procedure list into an initial optimized schedule comprising a date and time sequence for the prescribed medical procedures in the planned patient procedure list; in a testing module communicating with said sequencing module, automatically checking whether said initial optimized schedule conforms to said rules table by determining whether said initial optimized schedule satisfies all requirements and avoids all constraints imposed by said rules table; when said initial optimized schedule is determined by said testing module to conform to said rules table, making said initial optimized n schedule available as a humanly perceptible output from said sequencing module as a final examination schedule to be implemented; and when said initial optimized schedule does not conform to said rules table, automatically, in said electronic sequencing module, conducting a further calendar date and time of day search for date and time availability of each of the prescribed medical procedures in said planned procedure list and organizing the prescribed medical procedures in said planned patient procedure list into a revised optimized schedule comprising a revised date and time sequence for the prescribed medical procedures in the planned patient procedure list until a revised optimized schedule is organized that, as determined by said testing module, conforms to the rules table, and emitting the revised optimized schedule that conforms to the rules table as a humanly perceptible output from said sequencing module as a final examination schedule to be implemented, and if no revised optimized schedule can be found that conforms to said rules table, emitting a humanly perceptible error indication from said testing module.