WO2004104898A2

WO2004104898A2 - Medical information system

Info

Publication number: WO2004104898A2
Application number: PCT/GB2004/002193
Authority: WO
Inventors: Robert Fairclough; Karl Andrew Swenson Thomsom
Original assignee: Robert Fairclough; Karl Andrew Swenson Thomsom
Priority date: 2003-05-22
Filing date: 2004-05-21
Publication date: 2004-12-02
Also published as: GB0311799D0; WO2004104898A3

Abstract

A system for relaying medical data about a patient during an emergency includes a SIM Gard (30) of the kind used in mobile telephones but including also data about the patient. The SIM card is releasably held in a container (20) worn by the patient at all times, eg by means of a necklace (22), and bearing a mark 20a signifying that it contains medical data. If the patient is affected by an emergency any practitioner called to the scene will recognise the mark (20a), release the SIM card (30) and then insert it into his own mobile telephone (34). This causes information about the patient's medical condition to be displayed on the screen (34a). Alternatively a mobile telephone is used to key in a number carried by the patient, which number gives access to a central data store from where the data is relayed.

Description

MEDICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM

This invention concerns a medical information system for enabling a

practitioner to access medical data about a patient during an emergency affecting

that patient.

The invention is particularly intended to help paramedical personnel such as

ambulance crews to administer appropriate on-the-spot treatment to persons

diagnosed with some medical condition who are affected by an emergency such as

collapsing in a public place. However it is to be understood that the invention is

not limited to this specific use and it may for instance be used by physicians

wanting immediate reminders of a patient's medical history, by nurses or junior

doctors in hospitals, by a wide variety of therapists or by veterinary surgeons or

other personnel caring for animals. The terms "medical", "practitioner" and

"patient" as used herein are to be construed accordingly.

Traditionally, medical information systems were based on written records.

Over the past few decades such systems have been computerised. However they

have remained consolidated stores of information, essentially immobile and

therefore not readily accessible except within a hospital or surgery. But of course

very many people have medical conditions which, albeit serious, do not keep them

in hospital or even at home, and to help these people lead an active life they often

carry some kind of device to indicate their condition. This device may be a card

with printed information or, say, a bracelet or necldace bearing some symbol. Devices of this kind have brought substantial benefits to large numbers of

people, but they are not without problems. Printed cards can provide all the

essential information needed by a practitioner; but they are obtrusive if worn on

the body, are easily mislaid if carried in clothing or a bag, and may be difficult to

keep clean and legible. Symbolic devices may be unobtrusive, they may even be

decorative; but they require practitioners to recognise them, to distinguish them

and to recall appropriate treatment.

It is an object of the present invention to provide medical information in a

form which is easily carried by a patient and easily accessed by a practitioner.

According to the invention there is provided a medical information system

for enabling a practitioner to access medical data about a patient during an

emergency affecting that patient, which system comprises a register for said data, a

reader for reading and displaying the data in the register and connection means for

connecting the reader to the register so that said data is read and displayed,

wherein the connection means is configured and arranged to be carried by said

patient.

The connection means may be held in a container arranged to be worn by

said patient at all times. The connection means may be releasable from said

container to connect the reader to the store, and said container may embody a

mark signifying that it holds said connection means..

The reader may be portable as well as the connection means. In a first embodiment of the invention, the connection means may comprise

a subscriber identity module (SIM) card, and the reader may comprise a mobile

telephone. The mobile telephone may be arranged to be carried by said patient,

and it may include an alarm operable by said patient to communicate the

emergency. Alternatively and preferably the mobile telephone may be arranged to

be carried by said practitioner and have a screen to display data, in which case the

patient's SIM card may be insertable into the practitioner's mobile telephone to

cause the data on the SIM card to be displayed. The system may include

programming means, which may be conveniently located at a mobile telephone

depot, operable to enter said medical data onto the SIM card.

In another embodiment of the invention, the connection means may

comprise a numeric string having a first part representing a telephone number of

the data store and a second part identifying data in that store specific to the

patient. With this embodiment the reader preferably comprises a mobile telephone

including a keypad for entering said numeric string. There may be control

apparatus associated with the data store and operative, when said numeric string is

entered, automatically to send a signal to the mobile telephone requesting the call

number of that mobile telephone to be entered; and then, when said call number is

entered, the control apparatus is preferably operative automatically to transmit to

the mobile telephone the data specific to the patient. Alternatively there may be

control apparatus associated with the data store and operative, when said numeric

string is entered, automatically to identify the call number of the mobile telephone and to transmit thereto the data specific to the patient. The control apparatus may

include means responsive to the call number of the mobile telephone to transmit

the data in a language appropriate to the territory of the mobile telephone.

Other features of the invention will be apparent from the following

description, which is made by way of example only with reference to the

accompanying schematic drawings in which -

Figure 1 depicts an emergency in which a man has collapsed;

Figure 2 shows a device worn by the collapsed man to indicate that he

suffers from some medical condition;

Figure 3 indicates how information about the collapsed man's medical

condition can be accessed;

Figure 4 illustrates programming of a first embodiment of a medical

information system according to the invention; and

Figure 5 illustrates the use of a second embodiment of a medical

information system according to the invention.

Referring first to Figure 1, this shows a man indicated at 10 who has

collapsed in the street. An ambulance, not shown, has been summoned and now a

paramedical practitioner indicated at 12 and his assistant indicated at 14 are

attending the man 10. The man 10 suffers from diabetes and he has collapsed from

acute hypoglycaemia, but this is not immediately known to either the practitioner

12 or his assistant 14. They are therefore carrying out basic medical checks before

attempting to move the man 10. In performing these checks, the practitioner 12 very rapidly discovers that

the man 10 is wearing a device 20 attached to a chain 22 around his neck, as shown

in Figure 2. The device 20 is in the form of a container bearing a mark 20a which

the practitioner recognises as indicating that the man 10 suffers from some medical

condition and that the device 20 contains connection means giving access to a

store of essential information about this condition. (It may be noted here that the

mark 20a is a general-purpose indicator and does not itself identify the medical

condition of the man 10. Thus people with all sorts of different conditions can

wear a device 20 bearing the same mark 20a, which is thereby universally

recognisable. It should be understood that the mark 20a shown in the drawings is

purely illustrative, and any appropriate mark may be used in connection with the

invention).

Referring now to Figure 3, the device 20 can be opened to release the

connection means it contains, which is a SIM card 30 of the kind commonly used

with mobile telephones but including (as well as or instead of the usual personal

information) a data register holding the information about the medical condition of

the man 10. As indicated by arrow 32, the SIM card 30 is inserted into a mobile

telephone 34 carried by the paramedical practitioner 12 (see also Figure 1). When

this is done the medical data a held in the register of the SIM card 30 is displayed

on the screen 34a of the mobile telephone 34, and the practitioner 12 can

immediately determine appropriate treatment for the man 10. The SIM card 30 can be loaded with medical information in a mobile

telephone depot as will now be described with reference to Figure 4. A person

wishing to make use of the medical information system takes to the depot a record

(eg a diskette or compact disc, not shown) of his medical condition. At the depot a

computer 40 is programmed to add medical data to a SIM card and is connected to

an encoding device 42 into which a SIM card is inserted. The record is loaded into

the computer 40 in the usual way, and the computer 40 reads the information and

causes the encoding device 42 to create a personalised SIM card bearing in which a

data register holds the person's individual information. This SIM card can then be

inserted in any mobile telephone to cause the person's medical information to be

displayed. Yet confidentiality can be preserved by arranging the computer 40 not

to display this information.

Various modifications may be made to the medical information system

described herein without departing from the present invention. For instance, the

medical information may be held in a data register provided otherwise than on a

SIM card may be used, for instance in a device readable by way of a USB port of a

computer or some other reader, although a SIM card has particular advantages in

terms of its widespread use and low cost. Those skilled in the art will appreciate

that practitioners may be issued with specially designed readers (for SIM cards or

other registers), but mobile telephones are already very widely used.

A SIM card used in the invention it may be partitioned into a main part

concerned with telecommunications and a module containing the user's medical data; and with this arrangement the SIM card may be used in the person's own

mobile telephone, which may include an alarm button to signal an emergency, to

determine the location of the person and/or to transmit medical data from a

central record. Although the SIM card 30 is described as being releasably held in a

container 20, it may otherwise be embedded in a sheath of synthetic plastics

material allowing it to be connected to a mobile telephone. The data register may

be created loaded with medical information at the user's treatment centre rather

than at a mobile telephone depot.

The invention may exploit the ubiquity of mobile telephones in another way,

illustrated in Figure 5. Rather than the SIM card being used as a storage medium

for personal medical information, in the embodiment of Figure 5 a mobile

telephone 50 is used to call up data from a central store indicated at 52. The data

store 52 comprises a large number of registers R_l5 R₂, R₃ and so forth, each of

which holds data specific to one patient. Control apparatus 54 is associated with

the data store 52 and includes a telecommunications interface.

The arrangement of Figure 5 works as follows. Each patient wears a

bracelet, dog-tag or the like engraved or otherwise indelibly marked with a

connection number (together with some symbol to indicate that this number gives

access to medical information about the patient). The connection number has two

parts - a first part representing the telephone number of the data store and a

second part identifying a register in that store which holds information specific to

the patient. In an emergency, any person attending the patient can key the connection number into the mobile phone 50, and thus setting up a call A to the

data store 52. The control apparatus identifies from the second part of the

connection number that register R_P which holds information for the

corresponding patient, and sends a return call B requesting the telephone number

of the mobile telephone 50 to be entered. When that is keyed in it is transmitted as

indicated by C, and when the control apparatus 54 receives this it automatically

accesses the data in the register R_P as indicated by D and transmits it to the mobile

telephone 50 as indicated by E. The transmitted data appears on the screen of the

mobile telephone 50, where it is seen by the person attending the patient, which

person can then give the patient appropriate on-the-spot treatment.

The control apparatus 54 may include translation means responsive to the

call number of the mobile telephone 50 to transmit the data in a language

appropriate to the territory of the mobile telephone. It may also be enhanced so as

automatically to identify the call number of the mobile telephone and to transmit

thereto the data specific to the patient.

Finally, it should be understood that the invention may be used to provide

information about a virtually unlimited range of medical conditions and may for

instance replace conventional organ donor cards, blood group identifiers or even

the no-transfusion declarations used by some religious sects.

Claims

1 A medical information system for enabling a practitioner to access

medical data about a patient during an emergency affecting that patient, which

system comprises a store for said data, a reader for reading and displaying the data

in the store and connection means for connecting the reader to the store so that

said data is read and displayed, wherein the connection means is configured and

arranged to be carried by said patient.

2 A medical information system as claimed in Claim 1 wherein the

connection means is held in a container arranged to be worn by said patient at all

times.

3 A medical information system as claimed in Claim 2 wherein the

connection means is releasable from said container to connect the reader to the

store.

4 A medical information system as claimed in Claim 2 or Claim 3

wherein tfete said container embodies a mark signifying that it holds said connection

means.

5 A medical information system as claimed in any preceding claim

wherein said reader is portable.

6 A medical information system as claimed in any preceding claim

wherein the connection means comprises a SIM card having a register comprising

said store. 7 A medical information system as claimed in Claim 6 wherein said

reader comprises a mobile telephone.

8 A medical information system as claimed in Claim 7 wherein the

mobile telephone is arranged to be carried by said patient.

9 A medical information system as claimed in Claim 8 wherein the

mobile telephone includes an alarm operable by said patient to communicate the

emergency.

10 A medical information system as claimed in Claim 9 wherein

operation of the alarm automatically causes the location of said patient to be

identified.

11 A medical information system as claimed in Claim 10 wherein

operation of the alarm automatically causes said medical data to be transmitted to a

said practitioner at or near said location.

12 A medical information system as claimed in Claim 7 wherein the

mobile telephone is arranged to be carried by said practitioner and has a screen to

display data.

13 A medical information system as claimed in Claim 12 wherein, if the

SIM card carried by said patient is inserted into the mobile telephone, data on said

SIM card is displayed on said screen.

14 A medical information system as claimed in any of Claims 6 to 13

including programming means operable to enter said medical data onto the SIM

card. 15 A medical information system as claimed in Claim 14 wherein the

programming means is situated at a mobile telephone depot.

16 A medical information system as claimed in any of Claims lto 5

wherein the connection means comprises a numeric string having a first part

representing a telephone number of the data store and a second part identifying

data in that store specific to the patient.

17 A medical information system as claimed in Claim 16 wherein said

reader comprises a mobile telephone including a keypad for entering said numeric

string.

18 A medical information system as claimed in Claim 17 including

string is entered, automatically to send a signal to the mobile telephone requesting

the call number of that mobile telephone to be entered.

19 A medical information system as claimed in Claim 18 wherein, after

said call number is entered, the control apparatus is operative automatically to

transmit to the mobile telephone the data specific to the patient.

20 A medical information system as claimed in Claim 16 or Claim 17

including control apparatus associated with the data store and operative, when said

numeric string is entered, automatically to identify the call number of the mobile

telephone and to transmit thereto the data specific to the patient.

21 A medical information system as claimed in any of Claims 18 to 20

wherein the control apparatus includes means responsive to the call number of the mobile telephone to transmit the data in a language appropriate to the territory of

the mobile telephone.

22 A medical information system substantially as hereinbefore described

with reference to and as shown in the accompanying drawings.