Method and System for Extracting Medical Information for Presentation to Medical Providers on Mobile Terminals

Abstract

A system for providing medical providers with medical records accessible from a mobile terminal in one embodiment comprises reformatting the information in a medical record database to be used with large, ergonomic icons allowing easy transitions between pages of information in the medical record. Docking stations or wireless networks may enable the mobile terminal to access the medical records. Thus, the medical provider may have bedside access to the information in the medical records to make informed decisions about treatment regimens.

We claim: 
     
         1 . A method comprising:
 receiving, by a server, data from a plurality of medical database systems;   reformatting, by the server, the data into a common format,
 wherein the common format allows for presentation of the data on a GUI of a mobile terminal, the GUI comprising a touch screen display having a plurality of GUI controls having a size that permits user activation via a finger, wherein each GUI control is responsive to user touching for displaying a respective type of patient information; 
   storing, by the server, the reformatted data;   receiving, by the server, a request for a portion of the reformatted data by the mobile terminal; and   forwarding, by the server, the requested portion of the reformatted data to the mobile terminal for display by the mobile terminal.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the data includes HL7 data streams. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the mobile terminal comprises a wireless telephone. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein activation of one of the GUI controls causes automatic display of a user customizable information screen which displays a favorite set of patient test data, with the set of patient test data defined by the user. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the GUI comprises a list of patient names, wherein each displayed patient name identifies a patient and is responsive to user touching, and wherein data associated with the patient is displayable upon user touching of a respective displayed patient name. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the GUI comprises a GUI control that is responsive to user touching for adding patient names to the list of patient names. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the GUI comprises a GUI control that is responsive to user touching for displaying an expected discharge time for a patient from a medical facility. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the resource includes an electronic medical textbook. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the GUI comprises a GUI control that is responsive to user touching for displaying a list of costs corresponding to services administered to a patient. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 receiving, by the server, an update to the data from the mobile terminal; and   forwarding, by the server, the update to the data to at least one of the plurality of medical database systems.   
     
     
         11 . A system, comprising:
 a server, wherein the server is configured to:
 capture a data stream from a medical records database; and 
 reformat data from the captured data stream into a common format; 
   a database for storing the reformatted data; and   a plurality of mobile terminals, wherein each mobile terminal comprises a touch screen display, and wherein each mobile terminal is configured to download data from the database, choose data from the database to be displayed on a customized main page of a graphical user interface (GUI) based on which data is most commonly used by the mobile terminal, and display the chosen data in the GUI within a respective touch screen display, wherein the GUI comprises a plurality of GUI controls, wherein each GUI control has a size that permits user activation via a finger, and wherein each GUI control is responsive to user touching for displaying a respective type of patient information.   
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 11 , wherein the data stream is an HL7 data stream. 
     
     
         13 . The system of  claim 11 , wherein the mobile terminals comprise wireless telephones or personal digital assistants. 
     
     
         14 . The system of  claim 11 , wherein activation of another one of the GUI controls causes automatic display of a user customizable information screen which displays a favorite set of patient test data, with the set of patient test data defined by the user of the mobile terminal. 
     
     
         15 . The system of  claim 11 , wherein the GUI comprises a list of patient names, wherein each displayed patient name identifies a patient and is responsive to user touching, and wherein data associated with the patient is displayable upon user touching of a respective displayed patient name. 
     
     
         16 . The system of  claim 15 , wherein the GUI comprises a GUI control that is responsive to user touching for adding patient names to the list of patient names. 
     
     
         17 . The system of  claim 11 , wherein the GUI comprises a GUI control that is responsive to user touching for displaying an expected discharge time for a patient from a medical facility. 
     
     
         18 . The system of  claim 11 , wherein the GUI comprises a GUI control that is responsive to user touching for displaying medical reference information. 
     
     
         19 . The system of  claim 11 , wherein the GUI comprises a GUI control that is responsive to user touching for displaying a list of costs corresponding to services administered to a patient. 
     
     
         20 . A method of staging medical records information for retrieval by a mobile terminal comprising:
 extracting, by an interface connected to a medical database, an HL7 data stream from the medical database;   parsing, by the interface, the HL7 data stream into common format data; and   providing, by the interface, the common format data to a staging database,
 wherein the staging database communicates with a mobile terminal in real-time to deliver the common format data for display by the mobile terminal.