1. Evaluating the diagnostic and triage performance of digital and online symptom checkers for the presentation of myocardial infarction; A retrospective cross-sectional study.
- Author
-
William Wallace, Calvin Chan, Swathikan Chidambaram, Lydia Hanna, Amish Acharya, Elisabeth Daniels, Pasha Normahani, Rubeta N Matin, Sheraz R Markar, Viknesh Sounderajah, Xiaoxuan Liu, and Ara Darzi
- Subjects
Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics ,R858-859.7 - Abstract
Online symptom checkers are increasingly popular health technologies that enable patients to input their symptoms to produce diagnoses and triage advice. However, there is concern regarding the performance and safety of symptom checkers in diagnosing and triaging patients with life-threatening conditions. This retrospective cross-sectional study aimed to evaluate and compare commercially available symptom checkers for performance in diagnosing and triaging myocardial infarctions (MI). Symptoms and biodata of MI patients were inputted into 8 symptom checkers identified through a systematic search. Anonymised clinical data of 100 consecutive MI patients were collected from a tertiary coronary intervention centre between 1st January 2020 to 31st December 2020. Outcomes included (1) diagnostic sensitivity as defined by symptom checkers outputting MI as the primary diagnosis (D1), or one of the top three (D3), or top five diagnoses (D5); and (2) triage sensitivity as defined by symptom checkers outputting urgent treatment recommendations. Overall D1 sensitivity was 48±31% and varied between symptom checkers (range: 6-85%). Overall D3 and D5 sensitivity were 73±20% (34-92%) and 79±14% (63-94%), respectively. Overall triage sensitivity was 83±13% (55-91%). 24±16% of atypical cases had a correct D1 though for female atypical cases D1 sensitivity was only 10%. Atypical MI D3 and D5 sensitivity were 44±21% and 48±24% respectively and were significantly lower than typical MI cases (p
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF