System and method for collection of community health and administrative data

Abstract

A health care patient document system and method which enable patients to enter clinical, administrative, and financial information normally completed on a clipboard in a medical office into a computerized system that stores the information. The patient is then enabled to direct the stored information to any health care provider whether the provider is enabled to receive the data electronically nor not. For those provider clinicians and organizations not enabled to receive the information electronically, the system completes the paper-based forms already in use within the organization and sends the completed form by facsimile or mail delivery.

What is claimed: 
     
         1 . A computerized method for collecting medical information from patients, the method comprising the steps of:
 storing the following in a database: (1) a plurality of digitized images of substantially blank clipboard forms for collecting patient information from a plurality of health care providers, wherein at least a portion of the clipboard forms have distinct predefined layouts with predefined locations associated with answer spaces; (2) a plurality of answers of a patient to a series of common questions from at least a portion of the clipboard forms; (3) positional coordinates of the predefined locations associated with the answer spaces for respective clipboard forms; (4) data matching answers of the patient with the positional coordinates for answer spaces associated with respective clipboard forms; and (5) a location where respective clipboard forms should be sent when completed;   providing a web-based system for allowing patient information to be distributed in a respective clipboard form of a selected health care provider, wherein the web-based system is configured to:
 allow selection of a healthcare provider from a plurality of healthcare providers to whom the patient's answers should be sent; 
 populate a clipboard form associated with the selected healthcare provider with the patient's answers in the database so that the patient's answers appear in the respective answer spaces corresponding to the predefined layout for the selected healthcare provider's clipboard form; and 
 send the populated clipboard form to the selected healthcare provider based on the location associated with the clipboard form in the database.