Patent ID: 7761311

Claim:
A method for computerized monitoring of effectiveness of pharmaceutical treatments under evaluation in patients in conjunction with computerized electronic medical records stored in a computer memory of a computer, each electronic medical record containing information about a different one of a plurality of patients each having a same target medical condition and receiving a pharmaceutical treatment under evaluation, information about the respective patient's medical history, and a prescription compliance record containing cumulative information about a frequency in which the respective patient actually complied with prescription instructions for the pharmaceutical treatment under evaluation, the method comprising the steps of: receiving by the computer for each medication administration event for each of the plurality of patients, a separate data entry comprising an indication of whether the respective patient self-administered the pharmaceutical treatment under evaluation as prescribed to thereby document in the respective prescription compliance record of the respective patient, information about a frequency with which the respective patient actually complied with prescription instructions for the pharmaceutical treatment under evaluation to define compliance frequency data, the indication of whether the respective patient self-administered the pharmaceutical treatment under evaluation as prescribed comprising an indication of an actual physical verification by a human observer that the patient consumed the pharmaceutical treatment under evaluation as prescribed; storing by the computer, each data entry in the respective prescription compliance record of the respective patient; presenting by the computer, the respective electronic medical record of each of plurality of patients to a provider to enable the provider to identify trends related to a target medical parameter; analyzing a trend related to the target medical parameter at a plurality of different compliance levels at a constant prescription level for the pharmaceutical treatment under evaluation for the plurality of patients; and determining a potential effectiveness of the pharmaceutical treatment under evaluation on the target medical parameter based upon results of the analysis at the plurality of different compliance levels for the plurality of patients, the step of determining a potential effectiveness of the pharmaceutical treatment under evaluation on the target medical parameter including the following steps: determining a minimum level of compliance necessary to have a positive effect on the target medical parameter exceeding that of not receiving the pharmaceutical treatment under evaluation, and determining a threshold level of compliance below which receiving the pharmaceutical treatment under evaluation results in an effect on the target medical parameter that is less desirable than an effect of not receiving the pharmaceutical treatment under evaluation.