Community based managed health kiosk and research database system

Abstract

The present invention is directed to community based health managed health kiosk and research database systems, and more particularly to facilitating large-scale health screening of individuals and aggregation of the resulting data for medical research purposes. The disclosed research database can be combined with community based managed health kiosk systems to allow medical researchers to access searchable, sortable, and non-personally identifiable health information obtained from on-going health screening of kiosk users distributed throughout the world.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This is a utility patent application, taking priority from provisional patent application Ser. No. 61 / 070,309, filed Mar. 21, 2008.BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention is directed to community based managed health kiosk and research database systems, and more particularly to facilitating large-scale health screening of individuals and aggregation of the resulting data for medical research purposes.STATEMENTS AS TO THE RIGHTS TO INVENTIONS MADE UNDER FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT[0003]Not applicable.[0004]REFERENCE TO A “SEQUENCE LISTING,” A TABLE, OR A COMPUTER PROGRAM LISTING APPENDIX SUBMITTED ON A COMPACT DISK.[0005]Not applicable.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0006]Publicly available self-directed health care stations have been available at varying levels of complexity and sophistication for many years. Do-it-yourself blood pressure monitoring stations are often available in or near retail pharmaci...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

The challenge for further improvements in health care screening is to educate consumers about the need for medical tests, and demonstrate that many tests are effectively performed by publicly available devices or at home.

A present concern is that health screening is performed on an insufficient segment of the population to efficiently prevent or treat ailments.

Other concerns are that health screening is too costly, limited in scope, and time-consuming both for individual patients and health care providers.

Generally, individual doctors and small groups of doctors have insufficient capital to maintain complete health screening facilities.

Even if more health care providers were suitably equipped, typically only a small portion of the population utilizes health screening facilities due to time constraints, cost considerations, and / or general apathy.

Health care costs are a major concern in this day and age in the United States.

Some commentators point out that our current national health care policy does little to incentivize preventative medicine and instead incentivizes treating major problems, at a high cost, somewhere down the line.

Such systems, however, do not take advantage of more modern technologies.

More and more medical testing devices have become cheaper and easier to manufacture, making their absence from such screening facilities inefficient.

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