Business method and system for ordering, purchasing and storing stem cells
AssigneeHydrojoule, LLC
InventorsElena Brevnova, James Justin Lancaster
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An online business method and system enables donors or parents or guardians of donors to order and purchase stem-cells extracted from biological tissue sampled from the donor, such as, for example, cord-blood stem cells of a newborn baby, wherein the ordering process interfaces directly with the attending medical services, and the service steps include collection, extraction, preservation, containment, packaging, delivery and storage of the stem cells in a storage medium that can be cost-effectively maintained in a storage facility or by the donor, parent or guardian at home. In one embodiment, preservation is by freeze-drying, containment is in a vacuum vial, and storage is at room temperature.
Claims15
A computer-based and Internet-based method of facilitating a transaction between a customer and a medical or biomedical service provider, the method comprising the steps of:
- (a) providing an offer to at least one potential customer to sell a service of storing stem cells or to sell a storable stem cell product;
- (b) registering online via a web site a customer order responsive to the offer;
- (c) generating a service order automatically by a computing module based on the customer order, the service order directing:
- (i) sampling or collecting a biological tissue to produce a tissue sample;
- (ii) extracting specimen stem cells from the tissue sample;
- (iii) freeze-drying the specimen stem cells to create freeze-dried specimen cells;
- and
- (iv) loading the freeze-dried specimen cells into a non-refrigerated dry-storage container and closing the container;
- and
- (d) outputting the automatically generated service order from a computer, and
- (e) automatically delivering the service order to third-party practitioners specified in the service order to carry out the steps specified in the service order.
A stem-cell-storage, service-business system comprising:
- a database that stores information about a plurality of service providers, medical service professionals, hospitals, clinics or a combination thereof who deliver at least one of the medical services of delivering babies, attending births, taking tissue samples, storing tissue samples, extracting stem cells from tissue samples, and storing stem cells;
- business system software that is configured to (a) provide an offer online to at least one potential customer to sell a service of storing stem cells or to sell a storable stem cell product, (b) register online via a web site a customer order responsive to the offer, (c) generate automatically based on the customer order a service order specifying and directing steps to be carried out by a third party in delivering the stem-cell storage service or storable stem cell product, (d) output the automatically generated service order from a computer, and (e) automatically deliver the service order via the internet to the third-party specified in the service order to carry out the steps specified in the service order;
- an application server, connected to the database and accessible to customers via an internet connection, that hosts the business system software;
- an input module, whereby a customer inputs information;
- and
- a planning module that plans at least one of stem-cell extraction and stem-cell storage for a customer accessing the system, wherein a customer accessing the application server through an Internet connection causes the business system software to initiate the planning module based on input information from the customer, wherein the planning module connects or relates the customer's input information to information about the medical services and retrieves from the database information sufficient to complete and deliver a standard service order, whereupon the business system software completes the service order and delivers the service order to the third party.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.