Interactive unified workstation for benchmarking and care planning

A method for facilitating care of a patient, the method comprising the steps of:

• providing a clinical benchmarking knowledge database comprising clinical treatment history of individual patients;
• obtaining a diagnosis of a patient;
• obtaining an identification of parameters deemed important concerning said patient;
• finding a match in said clinical benchmarking knowledge database by comparing said diagnosis and said parameters for said patient with entries in said clinical benchmarking knowledge database;
• and
• creating an initial treatment plan for the patient with the aid of the match from said clinical benchmarking knowledge database.

A method of facilitating patient care, comprising the steps of:

• furnishing information regarding ongoing treatment of a patient to a workstation, said workstation having access to a clinical benchmarking knowledge database comprising clinical treatment histories and characteristics of a plurality of patients;
• identifying in the clinical benchmarking database a reference patient and associated treatment plan that matches the patient;
• comparing the progress of treatment of the patient with the progress of the reference patient at a comparable elapsed time in treatment, and
• providing the results of said comparison to the practitioner.

A method for providing a service for facilitating care of a patient, the method comprising the steps of:

• a) providing a clinical benchmarking knowledge database comprising clinical treatment history of a plurality of individual patients,
• b) receiving information regarding the diagnosis of said patient and parameters deemed important concerning said patient from a practitioner;
• c) finding one or more substantial matches from said clinical benchmarking knowledge database by comparing said diagnosis information and said parameters for said patient with entries in said clinical benchmarking knowledge database;
• and
• d) delivering treatment recommendations for said matches to said practitioner for said patient.