Medical consultation management system

Abstract

A medical consultation support system in which a client computer, such as a personal computer or a terminal of an existing medical support system, is employed to transfer a structured request for consultation from a primary care physician to a supervisory host computer. The structured request may be accompanied by additional information related to the request, such as existing data files containing patient history information, medical image data, laboratory results, pathologies, etc., forming a transmittable, machine-readable collection of information relating to the consultation request. At the supervisory computer, the request is displayed for preliminary review by a receiving staff physician who designates a specialist and retrieves and assembles selected tutorial and background information, including related published articles, tutorial background lessons, practice and protocol documentation, and records of prior consultations which are related to the current consultation request, all of which are stored in one or more databases of medical information accessible to the supervisory host computer. The supervisory computer then transmits the request for consultation, together with at least the identification of the assembled supporting documentation, to the selected specialist for review, and thereafter receives the responsive comment from the selected specialist. The supervisory computer further stores the request for consultation, including the specialist's responsive comment and an identification of the cited supporting material, as a structured case history item in the database of medical information where it may be accessed for future reference. Each consultation is further stored as a recorded learning event associated with the requesting primary care physician, and used to generate a report of continuing legal education credits earned by the requesting physician while participating in the managed consultation sessions.

1 . A method of providing continuing medical education credit to a first physician who has been engaged in a consultation with a second physician via an intermediary, the intermediary being connected by a telecommunications system to both the first and second physicians,
 the method comprising the steps performed in the intermediary of:
 receiving a comment made with regard to the consultation via the telecommunications system from the second physician; and 
 providing the comment to a medical information specialist in the intermediary who is neither the first nor the second physician, the medical information specialist indicating continuing medical education credit for the first physician based at least on the comment in a database accessible from the intermediary. 
   
     
     
         2 . The method of providing continuing medical education credit set forth in  claim 1  wherein the method further comprises the steps of:
 retrieving instructional material relevant to the comment and the consultation from the information data base and   providing the instructional material to the first physician via the telecommunications system,   
       the step of retrieving instructional material being performed by the medical information expert. 
     
     
         3 . The method of providing continuing medical education credit set forth in  claim 2  wherein the method further comprises the steps of:
 providing an examination based on at least the instructional material via the telecommunications system;   receiving answers for the examination from the first physician via the telecommunications system;   grading the received answers; and   if the first physician passes the examination, providing the continuing medical education credit.   
     
     
         4 . The method of providing continuing medical education credit set forth in  claim 1  wherein the method further comprises the steps of:
 providing an examination based on at least the comment to the first physician via the telecommunications system;   receiving answers for the examination from the first physician via the telecommunications system;   grading the received answers; and   if the first physician passes the examination, providing the continuing medical education credit.