Patent ID: 8712509

Claim:
A virtual physician system comprising: a medical device implantable in a patient and configured to monitor at least one physiological parameter from sensed physiological signals for deviations from desired characteristics; the implantable medical device configured to: determine whether sufficient deviations are present in the monitored physiological parameter(s) that indicate with a desired level of certainty that the patient is experiencing a certain medical condition; generate an alert when the desired level of certainty that the patient is experiencing the medical condition is determined to exist; determine whether minor deviations are present in the monitored physiological parameter that potentially indicate that the patient is experiencing the medical condition without reaching with the desired level of certainty that the patient is experiencing the medical condition, wherein the minor deviations are not sufficient to indicate with the desired level of certainty that the patient is experiencing the certain medical condition; cause additional holistic diagnostic procedures to be performed for diagnosing whether the patient is experiencing the medical condition when minor deviations are determined; cause, as at least part of the additional holistic diagnostic procedures, an external device to query the patient regarding symptom-related questions and collect responses to the symptom-related questions from the patient; and cause, when the minor deviations are determined to be present, a determination of whether the patient is experiencing the medical condition based on the presence of the minor deviations and the collected responses to the symptom-related questions from the patient.