Method and system for managing medical professionals

Abstract

A system and method for improving medical care through tracking reported findings or diagnoses of patient medical conditions and feeding back actual medical conditions and patient medical condition outcomes to determine accuracy of the reported findings. By feeding back the actual medical conditions and patient medical condition outcomes, a quantitative measure of each reported finding of each medical professional can be determined. One medical professional expertise in which the feedback system can be particularly useful is with medical image reading professionals, as this medical professional expertise provides a basis for other medical professionals to determine treatment and/or additional testing options.

1 . A method for improving medical care, said method comprising:
 providing medical condition information of anatomical regions of patients to first medical professionals for interpreting the medical condition information to describe medical conditions of the respective patients;   providing the interpretations of the medical condition information to second medical professionals to treat the respective patients for medical conditions described in the interpretations by the first medical professionals;   collecting patient outcome information associated with outcome of the patients treated for the medical conditions described in the interpretations;   storing the collected patient outcome information in association with information of respective first medical professionals who interpreted medical condition information of the respective patients;   determining an overall competency metric for each first medical professional indicative of performance of each respective first medical professional based on the collected patient outcome information; and   determining whether each first medical professional is to be provided medical condition information of other patients based on respective overall competency metrics.   
     
     
         2 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein providing medical condition information of anatomical regions includes providing medical images. 
     
     
         3 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein determining the overall competency metric for each medical professional includes:
 determining whether each interpretation of the first medical professionals is correct or incorrect with respect to actual medical conditions of respective patients; and   assigning a competency metric value to each interpretation depending on whether each respective interpretation is correct or incorrect.   
     
     
         4 . The method according to  claim 3 , wherein determining the overall competency metric includes calculating an average competency metric value of the assigned competency metric values assigned to each interpretation for each respective first medical professional. 
     
     
         5 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein determining whether each first medical professional is to be provided medical condition information of other patients includes determining whether the overall competency metric of each first medical professional is above a threshold value. 
     
     
         6 . A system for improving medical care, said system comprising:
 a storage unit;   at least one data repository stored on said storage unit;   a processing unit in communication with said storage unit and configured to:
 provide medical condition information of anatomical, regions of patients to first medical professionals for interpreting the medical condition information to describe medical conditions of the respective patients; 
 provide the interpretations of the medical condition information to second medical professionals to treat the respective patients for medical conditions described in the interpretations by the first medical professionals; 
 collect patient outcome information associated with outcome of the patients treated for the medical conditions described in the interpretations; 
 store, in said at least one repository, the collected patient outcome information in association with information of respective first medical professionals who interpreted medical condition information of the respective patients; 
 determine an overall competency metric for each first medical professional indicative of performance of each respective first medical professional based on the collected patient outcome information; and 
 determine whether each first medical professional is to be provided medical condition information of other patients based on respective overall competency metrics. 
   
     
     
         7 . The system according to  claim 6 , wherein said processing unit, in determining the overall competency metric for each medical professional, is further configured to:
 determine whether each interpretation of the first medical, professionals is correct or incorrect with respect to actual medical conditions of respective patients; and   assign a competency metric value to each interpretation depending on whether each respective interpretation is correct or incorrect.   
     
     
         8 . The system according to  claim 6 , wherein said processing unit is further configured to calculate an average competency metric value of the assigned competency metric values assigned to each interpretation for each respective first medical professional. 
     
     
         9 . The system according to  claim 6 , wherein said medical professionals are medical image reading professionals. 
     
     
         10 . The system according to  claim 6 , wherein the patient outcome information is provided by at least one of medical insurance claims, treatment reports, and random quality medical image readings. 
     
     
         11 . A system configured to identify potential medical image reading professionals who will become highly skilled medical image reading professionals, said system comprising:
 at least one database configured to store historical attributes of medical image reading professionals in a network of medical image reading professionals, said at least one database include scores of each of the medical image reading professionals;   a processing unit in communication with said at least one database, and configured to:
 identify historical attributes of the medical image reading professionals having a certain expertise and having scores within a top predetermined percentage of all medical image reading professionals having the same certain expertise; 
 identify a medical image reading professional not in the network of medical image reading professionals and having the same certain expertise; 
 compare historical attributes of the medical image reading professional not in the network of medical image reading professionals and historical attributes of the medical image reading professionals in the network of medical image reading professionals having scores within the top predetermined percentage of all medical image reading professionals having the same certain expertise; 
 determine whether historical attributes of the medical image reading professional not in the network of medical image reading professionals are related to attributes of the medical image reading professionals in the network of medical image reading professionals having scores within the top predetermined percentage of all medical image reading professionals having the same certain expertise; 
 if at least one historical attribute of the medical image reading professional not in the network of medical image reading professionals are related to the historical attributes of the medical image reading professionals having scores within the top predetermined percentage of all medical image reading professionals having the same certain expertise, then identify the at least one historical attribute that is related to provide a user with the at least one historical attribute to enable the user to assess the potential of the medical image reading professional not in the network of medical image reading professionals to achieve the a score within the top predetermined percentage of all medical image reading professionals having the same certain expertise; 
 otherwise, notify the user that none of the historical attributes of the medical image reading professional not in the network of medical image reading professionals were related to the historical attributes of the medical image reading professionals having scores within the top predetermined percentage of all medical image reading professionals having the same certain expertise. 
   
     
     
         12 . The system according to  claim 11 , wherein historical attributes being related is a match of the historical attributes.