System for medical protocol management

Abstract

A system for treating orthopedic injuries by presenting a set of treatment protocols; approving a treatment protocol from among the presented set of treatment protocols; capturing information identifying the approved treatment protocol from among the set of presented protocols; and generating information from the captured information into a form compatible with a handheld computer adapted for connection to an orthopedic sensor system. The generated information includes parameters of the identified approved treatment protocol. The process may also include the steps of basing the presented set of treatment protocols upon a database of historic patients, orthopedic injuries, treatment protocols and outcomes, and retaining information about the current patient, the patient's injury, treatment protocol and outcome.

What is claimed is:  
     
         1 . A method of treating a patient using an instrumented treatment system based on a treatment protocol, the method comprising: 
 automatically evaluating and updating the patient's treatment protocol from a remote central computer.    
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the instrumented treatment system comprises a treatment system computer and a communication system allowing communication between the treatment system computer and the central computer.  
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2  wherein the treatment system computer is an ambulatory computer.  
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 2  wherein the communication system is selected from the group consisting of wireless communication, hard wired communication, phone modem communication, private network communication, public network communication, and Internet communications.  
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising monitoring a patient's activity relative to a selected treatment protocol and storing monitored data in the treatment system computer.  
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5  further comprising processing the stored monitoring data and communicating the stored monitoring data to the central computer.  
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 5  wherein the monitoring of the patient's activity is performed with an instrumented orthosis.  
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 7  wherein the instrumented orthosis fits around two flexibly connected body portions of the patient.  
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 5  wherein the monitoring of the patient's activities is performed with a strain gauge.  
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 6  wherein the processing of the stored monitoring data is performed at the central computer to produce processed patient data.  
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 10  further comprising updating a historic database with the processed patient data.  
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 11  further comprising comparing the processed patient data with historic data stored in the historic database using an analysis interaction algorithm.  
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 12  wherein the evaluating and updating of the patient's treatment protocol comprises analysis of the processed patient data and the historic data stored within the historic database.  
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 11  wherein the historic database comprises historic data on previous patients.  
     
     
         15 . A method of treating a patient using an instrumented treatment system operated based on a treatment protocol, the method comprising: 
 generating information for a specific treatment protocol into a form compatible with an ambulatory computer wherein the specific treatment protocol was selected from a set of treatment protocols.    
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 15  further comprising loading the generated information into the ambulatory computer.  
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 15  further comprising monitoring patient activity relative to an approved treatment protocol and storing data resulting from the monitoring in the ambulatory computer.  
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 17  further comprising communicating data obtained from the monitoring to a central computer.  
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 18  further comprising evaluating compliance from the data relative to the approved treatment protocol.  
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 18  wherein the communicating to the central computer is performed by wireless communication.  
     
     
         21 . The method of  claim 18  wherein the communicating to the central computer is performed by Internet communications.  
     
     
         22 . The method of  claim 16  further comprising processing the monitoring data at the central processor to produce processed data.  
     
     
         23 . The method of  claim 22  further comprising updating a patient's treatment protocol based upon analysis of the processed data.  
     
     
         24 . The method of  claim 23  wherein the updating of the patient's treatment protocol is performed automatically.  
     
     
         25 . The method of  claim 24  wherein updating a patient's treatment protocol comprises selecting a treatment protocol from a set of treatment protocols.