Website messaging system

#The field of the invention relates to physician/patient contact and more particularly to methods of forwarding messages from a patient to a physician.

#Good communication between doctor and patient has always been an important part of healthcare. While face-to-face communication has always been the best form of communication, it is also often necessary for physicians to remain available after hours for emergencies and other patient concerns.

#The traditional method of contacting a physician after hours has been through an answering service. Answering services answer calls directed to the physician and take messages. The physician may periodically call the answering service to pick up his messages. Alternatively, the answering service may page the physician for each message, if the physician has a pager.

#FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a website messaging system under an illustrated embodiment of the invention;

#FIG. 2 is a physician selection screen that may be used by the system of FIG. 1;

#FIG. 3 is a classification screen that may be used by the system of FIG. 1;

#FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a website messaging system 10 shown generally in accordance with an illustrated embodiment of the invention. The website messaging system 10 may be used to forward messages from patients to their attending physicians under any of a number of predetermined message formats and patient conditions specified by the attending physician.

#The system 10 may also be used by associates of the physician (e.g., labs, pharmacies, etc.) to forward messages about patients to the attending physician. Because of the flexibility of the system 10 in handling messages the term “patient” or “requester” is often used herein generically to refer to any of patients, associates of the physician or to other physicians passing messages through the system 10.

#The system 10 may include a number of different interfaces 40, 42, 44. A first interface 40 may function as a patient interface that is able to provide information to and receive information from a patient 20, 22. One of the primary functions of the patient interface 40 is to identify a patient's attending physician and to function as an interface between the patient and the identified attending physician from among the many other physicians that may also use the system 10.