Patent ID: 8478605

Claim:
A non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions stored in a memory for implementing a method of determining the appropriateness of a medication and intervention, the computer executable instructions comprising instructions for: receiving medication data relating to a medication for a chronic medical condition associated with a person, wherein the medication comprises at least part of an actual medical treatment received by the person to treat the chronic medical condition; receiving treatment guidelines data relating to one or more treatment guidelines for treating the chronic medical condition, wherein the treatment guidelines pertain to established standards of care for the chronic medical condition including particular medication treatment for the chronic medical condition; evaluating the medication data and the treatment guidelines data to determine a level of compliance between the actual medical treatment being received by the patient and the one or more treatment guidelines, wherein the level of compliance is representative of the appropriateness of the medication treatment being received by the patient for the chronic medical condition; identifying an adverse health outcome for the person and determining a level of risk of the adverse health outcome associated with continuing the patient's actual medical treatment when the medication treatment does not comply with the one or more treatment guidelines; evaluating a likelihood of the identified health adverse health outcome occurring and the level of risk of the identified adverse health outcome to determine an intervention severity index representative of the urgency involved in intervening in the medical treatment of the person; and intervening in the medical treatment of the person in response to the risk of the identified adverse health outcome accordance with the intervention severity index, wherein an identified adverse health outcome having an intervention severity index greater than a predetermined threshold receives a different type of intervention than an identified adverse health outcome having an intervention severity index less than the predetermined threshold.