AI nudges clinicians at triage decisionmaking

"Going head-to-head against a small group of clinicians in 50 care episodes, an AI-based smartphone app has equaled or bested the humans at triaging patients to the most appropriate site of care.

The clinicians were seven ER physicians, five internal-medicine specialists and a handful of physician assistants from various specialties.

The care episodes were verbal vignettes (example: A 25-year-old man with severe shortness of breath for a few hours. The symptoms started after a motor vehicle accident in which he was the driver of the car involved. He also complains of chest pain).

For each scenario, the researchers asked the clinicians and the app to present the patient with one of four directives:

“Go to an ER or call 911 (life-threatening injuries or symptoms that need immediate treatment)”
“Go to urgent care [e.g., a walk-in clinic] within 24 hours (non-life-threatening but need treatment”
“Go to primary care physician (PCP) within three days (not immediately life-threatening and can wait three days before being seen by a primary care physician or specialist)”
“Self-care, remain at home and only report to primary care or urgent care if the condition worsens”
The researchers conducted the experiment in several phases to test the app against individual clinicians as well as against consensus decisions made by five MD hospitalists specialized in internal medicine at a major academic medical center.

In one of the consensus rounds, triage decisions made by individual clinicians matched the consensus call 80% of the time (40 of 50 cases). The app did even better, agreeing with the expert consensus at an 88% clip (44 of 50 cases).

Another consensus round brought back similar results..." Lire la suite