Method and apparatus for monitoring infection risk during an epidemic and pandemic

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11510633-B2
Application number	US-202117317177-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 11, 2021
Priority date	Oct 10, 2013
Publication date	Nov 29, 2022
Grant date	Nov 29, 2022

Abstract

A method, system, and/or apparatus for automatically monitoring for possible infection or other physical health concerns, such as from Covid-19. The method or implementing software application uses or relies upon location information available on the mobile device from any source, such as cell phone usage and/or other device applications. The method and system automatically uses and/or learns user location and activity patterns and determines and infection risk that can be communicated as a warning to community members.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of determining infection risks for individuals during an epidemic or pandemic, such as Covid-19, the method executed by a computer system and comprising:
automatically determining positional destinations of a user using a first mobile electronic device of the user;
automatically determining context information about each of the positional destinations without input by the user;
automatically deducing as user information a location type and/or user activity of each of the positional destinations from the context information;
automatically monitoring destinations and user activities performed at the positional destinations of the user via the first mobile electronic device, wherein the user activities comprise an eating activity or an exercise activity, each at a location or with one or more community members;
assigning a user risk assessment to the user according to locations and/or activities of the user during a predetermined timeframe, wherein the predetermined timeframe is at least a predetermined incubation or latency period of a contagion or pathogen; and
providing the user risk assessment to a community member via a community member electronic device before an in-person meeting with the user, wherein the user risk assessment is automatically displayed to the community member upon an electronic meeting request and/or the in-person meeting being entered into an electronic calendar;
wherein the user risk assessment is a compilation of a plurality of risk metrics determined for locations and/or activities during the predetermined time period, and each of the risk metrics is determined from a predetermined assessment score for each of the locations and any activity performed thereat, as a function of time spent at the location and/or performing the activity.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining a corresponding user participation time for the each of the locations and/or activities; and
scaling the risk metric for the each of the locations and/or activities according to the corresponding user participation time.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining the risk metric for the each of the locations and/or activities comprises comparing a location and/or an activity to a predetermined risk scale.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising increasing a risk metric of the user risk assessment upon an in-person contact at the locations and/or activities with a person having a negative risk assessment.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining any in-person contact of the user for the each of the locations and/or activities;
obtaining a contact person risk assessment for the in-person contact; and
adjusting the user risk assessment as a function of the contact person risk assessment.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
automatically associating the user with a second user at the positional destination, wherein a second user location and/or second user activity is determined;
automatically inferring the location type and/or user activity from the second user location and/or activity; and
adjusting the user risk assessment due to in-person contact with the second user.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising for each of the locations, determining the assessment score by normalizing the number of infected people in an area around the location.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the user risk assessment is a summation of a risk metric for each of a location, an activity, and a duration of the activity and/or at the location.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computer system comprises the first user electronic device in wireless communication with a server computer, and the computer system comprises more than one non-transitory recordable medium collectively including a series of preprogrammed instructions that, when executed by the first user electronic device and the server computer, cause the computer system to perform the method.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining a risk metric for each of the locations and/or activities for the user, to provide the plurality of risk metrics during the predetermined timeframe, wherein the determining the risk metric for the each of the locations and/or activities comprises comparing a location and/or an activity to a predetermined risk scale;
determining a corresponding user participation time for the each of the locations and/or activities;
scaling the risk metric for the each of the locations and/or activities according to the corresponding user participation time;
increasing any risk metric of the user risk assessment upon an in-person contact at the each of the locations and/or activities with a person having a negative risk assessment; and
computing the user risk assessment from the plurality of risk metrics.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
automatically determining a first user visit of a user at a first positional destination via a first user electronic device;
automatically determining a location of the first positional destination via the first mobile electronic device;
receiving a user activity at the location through the first mobile electronic device, wherein the user activity comprises an eating activity or an exercise activity, at a location or with one or more community members;
automatically determining a first context for the first user visit and user activity;
automatically tagging the location with the user activity and the context information determined from the first context, and storing the tagged location in a location database;
automatically determining a second user visit at the positional destination via the first user electronic device;
automatically delivering via the first user electronic device a request for manual confirmation of the user activity being performed for the second user visit;
automatically determining a second context for the second user visit at the positional destination;
automatically updating the context information of the tagged location from the second context;
for each of a plurality of automatically determined further user visits at the positional destination, automatically determining a potential for the user activity based upon a comparison of a corresponding further context automatically determined for the each of the further user visits to the context information;
automatically presenting the user activity to the first user through the first user electronic device for manual confirmation of the user activity through the user device at each of a plurality of further user visits at the location;
automatically updating the context information of the tagged location from the further context of each of the further user visits;
automatically learning the user activity by automatically associating the user activity with the location and the context information after receiving the user activity for the plurality of further user visits at the location;
automatically deducing that the first user is participating in the learned user activity upon future user arrivals at the location as a function of comparing the context information to a future context of each of the future user arrivals, without receiving any manually entered confirmation or manually entered additional user information; and
providing the user risk assessment to the community member via the community member electronic device before an in-person meeting with the user, wherein the user risk assessment is automatically displayed to the community member upon an electronic meeting request and/or the in-person meeting being entered into an electronic calendar.

Assignees

• Aura Home Inc

Inventors

• Frieder Ophir
• Chowdhury Abdur
• Jensen Eric

Classifications

• G06F21/552

  involving long-term monitoring or reporting · CPC title

• A61B5/7246

  using correlation, e.g. template matching or determination of similarity · CPC title

• A61B5/7267

  involving training the classification device · CPC title

• A61B5/746 Primary

  Alarms related to a physiological condition, e.g. details of setting alarm thresholds or avoiding false alarms · CPC title

• H04W4/21

  for social networking applications · CPC title