Patent ID: 7778847

Claim:
A system for generating a surveillance schedule for monitoring a recurrence of a condition, the system comprising a computer having a non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions which, when executed by a processor of the computer, causes the processor to perform the steps of: (a) scheduling an initial testing date to test for the recurrence of the condition; (b) establishing a threshold, wherein the threshold is the cost associated with a subsequent testing date over the cost per recurrence detected; (c) determining that a cumulative risk of recurrence of the condition since the previous testing date exceeds the threshold by: (i) defining a cumulative probability of a recurrence of the condition from the test at time segment m to the test at time segment n as CumProb(m,n) by determining a solution for the equation: CumProb ⁡ ( m , n ) = ∑ i = m + 1 n ⁢ ⁢ P ⁡ ( i ) wherein P(i) is the probability that a recurrence will be detected in time segment i; wherein m is the time segment of the previous testing date; and wherein n is the time segment of the subsequent testing date; and (ii) comparing CumProb(m,n) to the threshold established in step (b); and (d) scheduling each subsequent testing date to test for the recurrence of the condition based on step (c).