Computer-assisted abstraction for reporting of quality measures

1. A method of tracking quality measures in one or more documents, wherein said documents are respectively associated with content abstracted from the documents, said method comprising:

determining that the one or more documents belong to a collection of documents that correspond to a single patient encounter;

determining, based on the abstracted content, a quality measure category;

obtaining a quality measure definition corresponding to a quality measure included in the determined quality measure category, said definition including at least one quality measure criterion, keywords corresponding to the at least one quality measure criterion and queries corresponding to the at least one quality measure criterion;

determining, based on the keywords corresponding to the criterion, whether a portion of the abstracted content satisfies the at least one quality measure criterion;

determining that no information was located in the documents satisfying the at least one quality measure criteria;

selectively generating, based on the quality measure definition, a report including the query corresponding to the criterion, a query response, and indicates criteria in the definition for which no abstracted content satisfying the criteria was included in the collection of documents;

determining that the patient encounter is ongoing; and

generating an alert to take an action for satisfying the at least one quality measure criteria that has not been satisfied, while the encounter is ongoing.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the quality measure definition includes criteria for the quality measure and respective sets of queries and keywords corresponding to each criterion.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the alert includes:

determining that a time frame for performing the one or more criteria has not expired; and

generating an alert for the one or more determined criteria that have not expired.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the content abstracted from the documents comprises content abstracted based on a lexicon of medical terminology.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the content abstracted from the documents comprises content abstracted using a natural language processing engine.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the content abstracted from the documents is linked to medical codes.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining that the portion of the abstracted content does not satisfy the criterion includes:

providing, to an abstractor, an interactive computer-user interface presenting the query, the criterion and the portion of the abstracted content; and

receiving a response to the query from the abstractor, said response affirming that the portion does not satisfy the criterion.

8. A system for tracking quality measures in one or more documents, wherein said documents are respectively associated with content abstracted from the documents, comprising:

a processor;

a display device;

a user-input device; and

a non-transient computer-readable information storage device having program instructions recorded therein, said program instructions when executed by the processor controlling the system to:

determine that the one or more documents belong to a collection of documents that correspond to a single patient encounter;

determine, based on the abstracted content, a quality measure category;

obtain a quality measure definition corresponding to a quality measure included in the determined quality measure category, said definition including at least one quality measure criterion, keywords corresponding to the at least one quality measure criterion and queries corresponding to the at least one quality measure criterion;

determine, based on the keywords corresponding to the criterion, whether a portion of the abstracted content satisfies the at least one quality measure criterion;

determine that no information was located in the documents satisfying the at least one quality measure criteria;

selectively generate, based on the quality measure definition, a report including the query corresponding to the criterion, a query response, and indicates criteria in the definition for which no abstracted content satisfying the criteria was included in the collection of documents;

determine that the patient encounter is ongoing; and

generate an alert to take an action for satisfying the at least one quality measure criteria that has not been satisfied, while the encounter is ongoing.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the quality measure definition includes criteria for the quality measure and respective sets of queries and keywords corresponding to each criterion.

10. The system of claim 8 , wherein the program instructions controlling the computer to generate the alert include program instructions that control the computer to:

determining that a time frame for performing the one or more criteria has not expired; and

generating an alert for the one or more determined criteria that have not expired.

11. The system of claim 8 , wherein the content abstracted from the documents comprises content abstracted based on a lexicon of medical terminology.

12. The system of claim 8 , wherein the content abstracted from the documents comprises content abstracted using a natural language processing engine.

13. The system of claim 8 , wherein the content abstracted from the documents is linked to medical codes.

14. The system of claim 8 , wherein the program instructions controlling the computer to determine that the portion of the abstracted content does not satisfy the criterion include program instructions that control the computer to:

provide, to an abstractor, an interactive computer-user interface presenting the query, the criterion and the portion of the abstracted content; and

receive a response to the query from the abstractor, said response affirming that the portion does not satisfy the criterion.