Many Montana residents depend on mobile apps to make their lives easier, but a new study found that apps could also help them get better medical care. The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.
Physician-focused mobile health apps are becoming more common in the health care industry. They are designed to help doctors perform various tasks, including making diagnostic and testing decisions. The problem is that no one had ever studied the usefulness of these apps in a medical setting. That changed when researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention teamed with researchers from Baylor University to test the CDC’s PTT Advisor app, which aims to help doctors diagnose and test for certain coagulation and bleeding disorders.
For the study, researchers created eight challenging clinical scenarios based on real clinical cases. They then had 46 doctors diagnose four cases using the PTT Advisor app and four cases using more typical diagnostic research methods, including the internet, textbooks and personnel resources. They found that the app helped increase diagnostic accuracy by 13 percent. It also helped reduce the time required to make a diagnosis by 22 percent. The authors of the study hope their testing methods will help others assess the usefulness of doctor-focused diagnostic apps in the future.
Misdiagnosis is a huge problem in the United States. Individuals who suffer a worsened medical condition due to a diagnostic error or another type of medical mistake may wish to pursue a medical malpractice claim against the doctor who harmed them. An attorney, with the assistance of expert opinion testimony, could help demonstrate that the practitioner failed to exhibit the requisite standard of care.
Source: Medical Xpress, “Study finds use of mobile app improved physician lab test ordering and diagnosis“, April 25, 2018
