Abstract:
Systems and methods for correlating biometric trends with a related temporal event are disclosed. A preferred embodiment utilizes an implantable medical device comprising at least one sensor in electronic communication with a patient management system adapted to temporally analyze and correlate biometric data. Some embodiments of a system disclosed herein also can be configured as an Advanced Patient Management system that helps better monitor, predict and manage chronic diseases.

Description:
TECHNICAL FIELD  
         [0001]    The present device relates generally to a Patient Management System and particularly, but not by way of limitation, to such a system that is adapted to correlate biometric information or trends to a specific temporal event to provide a snapshot of patient health.  
         BACKGROUND  
         [0002]    Management of patients with chronic disease consumes a significant proportion of the total health care expenditure in the United States. Many of these diseases are widely prevalent and have significant annual incidences as well. Heart failure prevalence alone is estimated at over 5.5 million patients in 2000 with incidence rates of over half a million additional patients annually, resulting in a total health care burden in excess of $20 billion. Heart failure, like many other chronic diseases such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (“COPD”), chronic pain, and epilepsy is event driven, where acute episodes of disease result in hospitalization. In addition to causing considerable physical and emotional trauma to the patient and family, event driven hospitalizations consume a majority of the total health care expenditure allocated to the treatment of heart failure.  
           [0003]    An interesting fact about the treatment of acute episodes of disease is that hospitalization and treatment occurs after the acute event has happened. However, most Heart Failure patients exhibit prior non-traumatic symptoms, such as steady weight gain, in the weeks or days prior to the acute episode. If the physician is made aware of these symptoms, it is possible to intervene before the event, at substantially less cost to the patient and the health care system.  
           [0004]    Intervention before the event is usually in the form of a re-titration the patient&#39;s drug cocktail, reinforcement of the patient&#39;s compliance with the prescribed drug regimen, or acute changes to the patient&#39;s diet and exercise. Such intervention is usually effective in preventing the acute episode and thus avoiding hospitalization. NYHA Class III and late Class II HF patients often have acute episodes three or four times annually, each episode resulting in hospital stays of three or four days.  
           [0005]    However, many acute episodes of disease can be predicted by analyzing biometric trends. Predictive accuracy may be improved by analyzing such biometric trends in view of clinically derived algorithms. In practice, the algorithmic analysis of contemporaneous biometric information or data in reference to a temporal event can report and assist in the identification of a state of patient health or disease progression. Yet, data collection and rapid analysis is a limiting factor in effectively using clinical algorithms to report such states of patient health.  
           [0006]    Thus, for these and other reasons, there is a need for a system and method for efficiently and effectively reporting a state of patient health or disease progression by correlating biometric information or trends with a related temporal event and alerting the patient or physician of the state of patient health or disease progression.  
         SUMMARY  
         [0007]    According to one aspect of the invention, there is provided a system and method for correlating sensed biometric information or trends using clinically derived algorithms to report a state of patient health. The report of patient health enables a patient or clinician to examine and further analyze a state of health or disease progression in view of a temporal event that may confer additional clinical meaning to or understanding of the reported state of health. The system also may deliver therapy when configured as an implantable medical device.  
           [0008]    In one embodiment, the system comprises at least one sensor to sense biometric data, an interactive database, an analysis module to analyze the biometric data, a correlation module to correlate the biometric data with a temporal event, an electronic transmission module to transmit the output to an interactive communications network, a transformation module to transform transmitted output to a recognizable clinical result, and a display module to display the transformed output. By way of non-limiting example only, a temporal event may comprise a change in patient medication, a heart attack, physical injury, dates of personal interest, or other events.  
           [0009]    In another embodiment, the interactive communications network comprises a sensor implanted within a patient, a host in communication with the sensor comprising means to input biometric and/or environmental data to an interactive database, an analysis module to analyze biometric data, and a delivery module that communicates the analyzed data in the form of an identified state of patient health via the communications network.  
           [0010]    In yet another embodiment, the system comprises a plurality of interactive databases adapted to store historical and patient population data. In this embodiment, the system is adapted to provide therapy to a patient through a specially adapted implantable medical device based on the identified state of patient health. The implantable medical device may also comprise a sensor. The sensor can be internal or external. External sensors may be adapted to record environmental data. The system also may comprise a diagnostic module for diagnosing the performance of the sensor and the interactive communications network.  
           [0011]    In a preferred embodiment of the system and method for correlating biometric trends with a related temporal event, the identified state of patient health is made by analyzing biometric data in view of clinically derived algorithms and monitoring the success of previous identifications of a state of patient health. If warranted by the identified state of patient health, the display module displays a configurable alert for action in the form of a clinically relevant graphic or an audible signal.  
           [0012]    The various embodiments described above are provided by way of illustration only and should not be construed to limit the invention. Those skilled in the art will readily recognize various modifications and changes that may be made to the present invention without following the example embodiments and applications illustrated and described herein, and without departing from the true spirit and scope of the present invention, which is set forth in the following claims. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0013]    In the drawings, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, like numerals describe substantially similar components throughout the several views. Like numerals having different letter suffixes represent different instances of substantially similar components. The drawings illustrate generally, by way of example, but not by way of limitation, various embodiments discussed in the present document.  
         [0014]    [0014]FIG. 1 is a schematic/block diagram illustrating generally, among other things, one embodiment of the system and method for correlating biometric trends with a related temporal event.  
         [0015]    [0015]FIG. 2 is a schematic/block diagram illustrating generally, among other things, another embodiment of the system and method for correlating biometric trends with a related temporal event comprising an interactive database and analysis module.  
         [0016]    [0016]FIG. 3 is a schematic/block diagram illustrating generally, among other things, another embodiment of the system and method for correlating biometric trends with a related temporal event of the present invention comprising a correlation module as a component of an analysis module in electronic communication with an interactive database to report a state of patient health.  
         [0017]    [0017]FIG. 4 is a schematic/block diagram illustrating generally, among other things, another embodiment of the system and method for correlating biometric trends with a related temporal event comprising an Advanced Patient Management system in electronic communication with the components of the system.  
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0018]    In the following detailed description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration specific embodiments or examples. These embodiments may be combined, other embodiments may be utilized, and structural, logical, and electrical changes may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the present invention is defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.  
         [0019]    The present system and method are described with respect to a system and method that is adapted to report a state of patient health by correlating biometric data or trends with a related temporal event. In this way, the system can provide appropriate therapy to a patient in its embodiment as an implantable medical device or provide a clinician with retrospective environmental and/or perceptual data in time coincidence with objective implanted sensor data. The term “biometric” generally refers to the measurement of a living, human characteristic. The term “Advanced Patient Management” refers to the process of creating and collecting patient specific information, storing and collating the information, and generating actionable recommendations to enable the predictive management of patients with chronic disease. The term “temporal event” refers to events in a patient&#39;s environment that may or may not cause a health state change. The term “correlation” refers to time coincident events that have been analyzed for causation and health consequence outcome.  
         [0020]    [0020]FIG. 1 is a schematic/block diagram illustrating generally one embodiment of a system and method for correlating biometric trends with a related temporal event to report a state of patient health. The system  100  further comprises at least one sensor  101  in electronic communication  103  with a patient management system  102  to allow automatic transmission of sensed biometric data to the patient management system  102 . Such electronic communication may include wired and/or wireless communication technologies.  
         [0021]    [0021]FIG. 2 is a schematic/block diagram illustrating generally another embodiment of the system and method for correlating biometric trends with a related temporal event comprising external means  200  to enter biometric  201   a  and/or environmental data  202 ,  201   c  into at least one interactive database  201  for analysis by an analysis module  203 . Environmental data may include temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, stress, drug change, diet change, emotional state and/or other objective or subjective data. The database  201  stores data from internal and/or external sensors  204 , medical records  201   b  of a patient, and environmental data  202 ,  201   c . The analysis module  203  identifies a state of patient health based on the information stored in the database  201 .  
         [0022]    [0022]FIG. 3 is a schematic/block diagram illustrating generally an embodiment of a correlation module  300  of the system and method for correlating biometric trends with a related temporal event. In addition to at least one internal sensor  204  to sense biometric data and at least one interactive database  201 , the system further comprises a correlation module  300  to correlate the biometric data  201   a  against reference data to create a biometric data set. The reference data may include historical/stored patient data  201   b , environmental data  201   c  and patient population data  201   d . Historical patient data may comprise the patient&#39;s medical history as manually or electronically entered into the historical/stored patient database  201   b . Correlation module  300  may comprise a component of analysis module  203 . Biometric  201   a  and reference data sets  201   b ,  201   c  and  201   d  are transmitted to correlation module  300 . Correlation module  300  then correlates the biometric data set with a temporal event to create an output that identifies a state of patient health  301 .  
         [0023]    [0023]FIG. 4 is a schematic/block diagram illustrating generally an embodiment of sensors  204  implanted within a patient  400  of the system and method for correlating biometric trends with a related temporal event. The system further comprises an electronic transmission module  401  and an interactive communications network  402 . In this embodiment, the correlated output  301  is transmitted via the electronic transmission module  401  to an interactive communications network  402 . The output  301  may be transformed by a transformation module  403  and displayed to a clinician or patient  405  via a display module  404  in a human-recognizable format.  
         [0024]    In another embodiment as illustrated in FIG. 4, the interactive communications network  402  is in electronic communication with an Advanced Patient Management System (“APM”)  408 . APM is a system that helps patients, their physicians and their families to better monitor, predict and manage chronic diseases. In the embodiment shown in FIG. 4, the APM system  408  consists of three primary components: 1) an implantable medical device  204  with sensors adapted to monitor temporal biometric data, 2) a Data Management System (“DMS”), which in this embodiment is shown as interactive database  201  and 3) an analytical component  203  adapted to analyze and correlate data from the DMS. APM is designed to support physicians and other clinicians in using a variety of different devices, patient-specific and non-specific data, along with medication therapy, to provide the best possible care to patients. Currently, implanted devices often provide only limited sensing, analysis and therapy to patients. APM moves the device from a reactive mode into a predictive one that allows a clinician to use APM to predict patient health.  
         [0025]    In a further embodiment as illustrated in FIG. 4, the interactive database  201  comprises a plurality of interactive databases  201   a ,  201   b ,  201   c ,  201   d  and  201   e . The plurality of interactive databases are adapted to process and store biometric data  201   a  collected from the sensors, store patient data  201   b , environmental data  201   c , patient population data  201   d  and medical practice data  201   e . In this embodiment, therapy is provided to a patient via a specially adapted implantable medical device  204  in response to the identified state of patient health  301 . A sensor  204   a  also may be external to a patient  400  to record biometric and environmental data in the database  201 .  
         [0026]    In a yet another embodiment as illustrated in FIG. 4, the identified state of patient health  301  is based on rules of practicing medicine  201   e  and revised based on monitoring the success of previous identifications. In this embodiment, the medical practice database  201   e  comprises clinically derived algorithms of biometric data for automatically reporting a state of patient health  301 . The algorithms can be the result of the extraction, codification and use of collected expert knowledge for the analysis or diagnosis of medical conditions. For example, the algorithms can comprise institutional analytical or diagnostic techniques used in specific clinical settings. By reducing the analytical or diagnostic methodologies of institutions like the Cleveland Clinic, the Mayo Clinic or the Kaiser Permanente system to algorithmic expression, a patient will enjoy the benefit of the medical expertise of a leading medical institution without having to visit the institution. The display module  403  is adapted to display a configurable alert for action in the form of a graphical representation  406  of the correlated biometric data and temporal event or an audible signal  407 .  
         [0027]    It is to be understood that the above description is intended to be illustrative, and not restrictive. For example, the above-described embodiments may be used in combination with each other. Many other embodiments will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewing the above description. The scope of the invention should, therefore, be determined with reference to the appended claims, along with the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled. In the appended claims, the terms “including,” “includes” and “in which” are used as the plain-English equivalents of the respective terms “comprising,” “comprises” and “wherein.”