BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

In the recent years, telehealth has become extremely important to increase efficiency, reduce cost, provide the expertise to remote locations, increase collaborations, increase knowledgebase, reduce error in diagnosis, improve the health care system for all, increase access and speed, double-check the accuracy and consistency, increase the security and privacy for patients, keep the old records safely, access the old records from other locations, apply new methods for efficiency, e.g., AI, transmit large files, e.g., images, tagged or supplemented with opinions from multiple experts/specialists, and increase the life expectancy and improve the well-being for all humans across the globe. This has a great/positive social and economical impact across the globe, particularly in the United States, to manage and optimize the health care and its cost very efficiently.

In one example/aspect of our system/method, ViTelNet's continuum of care offerings in the telehealth space contain many use cases where a Pan Tilt Zoom (PTZ)-enabled camera is essential to support a remote clinicians ability to successfully support a patient encounter. Video conferencing is now a commodity, and as such, ViTelNet's customers may already have substantial investment in a video platform. In some cases, a customer may be using multiple third-party video platforms with multiple camera models that must seamlessly work together within the ViTelNet vCareNet platform. One of the core value propositions of VitelNet's business model is to provide seamless integration between disparate video platforms. Far End Camera Control (FECC), which is the ability to control a PTZ camera from a remote location, is accomplished differently in each video vendor's solution. ViTelNet's challenge is to provide the same FECC experience to clinicians within platform applications, regardless of the underlying video conferencing technology being used.

Thus, in various formats and various technologies, there is a huge need to integrate and make it easier for the user to apply all these technologies across the board, without the need to become an IT/software expert or hire one in-house, which is very expensive and duplicative effort for other similar organizations in the health care industry to do the same exact function. So, that would reduce the cost and increase efficiency. It would also improve the use across various domains, for example, for the formatting of images and privacy/security levels for the patient's data, between hospitals and various doctors. That results in less error, delay, cost, misdiagnosis, and loss of data.

However, the invention and embodiments described/addressed here, below, have not been addressed or presented in any prior art.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In one embodiment, we describe a method/system which overcomes the problems mentioned above, to reduce cost and increase efficiency.

For example, in one embodiment, the solution is to move FECC out of the third-party vendor's video platform into the ViTelNet vCareNet platform. This would require:vCareNet native applications (applications that are targeted to a specific operating system, such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, or Linux) be given the capability to issue PTZ commands to either a Universal Serial Bus (USB) attached camera or a network attached CODEC controlled camera.vCareNet native applications be given the ability to send camera PTZ commands to the vCareNet platform and receive PTZ commands from the vCareNet platform. The technology used to accomplish this is a web socket. More specifically, the web socket implementation provided by Microsoft Signal®. PTZ commands can be either basic or advanced. Basic PTZ commands instruct the camera to:Incrementally move in a specified direction (up, down, left, or right).Zoom in or out.Position to a memorized preset, which specifies both direction and zoom.

Advanced PTZ command instruct the camera to:Center the camera based on a user clicking or tapping a position on vCareNet application video window.Drawing a box in the vCareNet application video window which results in basic PTZ commands being issued to the camera, until the boxed video area occupies the full video window.Track a user's face to keep it centered in the video window.

To implement advanced PTZ commands, the current thinking is to have the vCareNet platform join each video conference as a participant, which gives the platform the ability to see the video conference. When the platform receives an advanced PTZ command from a vCareNet application, it uses a machine vision approach to issue the basic PTZ commands to the camera, until the view requested in the advanced PTZ command is achieved.

Other embodiments and solutions to increase efficiency and convenience are described below, in details.

