Method for consolidating medical records through the world wide web

Abstract

Medical records, clinical observations, and medical imagery are organized and aggregated into a common database, enabling the data to be viewed and/or updated by medical practitioners world-wide. The information may also be viewed and monitored by patients or their relatives for accuracy, also regardless of their location. The invention further allows the records to be updated by manually controlled or automated instrumentation which measures medical parameters whether located in a doctor's office, in a hospital setting, in the patient's home, or worn by the patient. Common access and point-to-point data transmission is via the global grid, or over public access common data networks supporting TCP/IP, most often referred to as the Internet. The same approach can be using insider an organization over an internal network or Intranet.

We claim: 
     
         1 . A method for managing patient information, comprising the steps of:
 providing a central archive Internet website enabling a patient to access an individual data library and perform the steps of:   (a) displaying the data by data type or dates/visits,   (b) printing the data,   (c) updating the data, and   (d) uploading data; and   
       wherein the step of uploading data further comprises:
 (e) accessing an institutional data upload site, 
 (f) selecting at least one patient record, 
 (g) transferring the selected patient record to the individual data library. 
 
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the step of transferring the selected patient record to the individual data library includes encrypting and decrypting the record for secure communication over the Internet. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , including the steps of:
 providing a first computer network interfaced to the individual data library through a medical practice or institution enabling access to the information by the patient's physician or clinicians; and   providing direct, secure access to the individual data library by the patient through an interface to a second, wide-area network, independent of the first computer network, in communication with the individual data library.   
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the step of transferring the selected patient record to the individual data library includes the conversion of the record from a standard for exchanging information between medical applications to HTML. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein the standard for exchanging information between medical applications includes the HL7 format. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the individual data library includes documents and film from medical records and imaging systems. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the information from medical records or imaging systems is contained in a GIF, TIFF, JPEG or DICOM file. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , further including an input for receiving patient information in a clinical observation and analysis system (COAS) format. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , further including:
 a scanner with optical character recognition (OCR) capabilities; and   wherein the individual data library stores the information in raw and OCR versions.