Diagnoses Disease
Conditions
Keywords
Google, Knowledge Panels, Health Search, Online, Internet, Smartphone, Tablet, Digital, Mobile, Symptoms, Differential diagnosis, Diagnosis, Anxiety
Brief summary
There are large differences in knowledge between patients and healthcare providers (i.e. physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners), and there is a strong interest on the part of both industry and academia to reduce the gap in knowledge between patients and healthcare providers. Currently, about 1 in 20 searches on Google are health related. Among internet users, 72% reported searching for health information, and among persons who use mobile phones, 31% of cell phone users and 52% of smartphone users have looked up health or medical information. Oftentimes, patients will search on Google or other search engines in order to find health conditions that explain their symptoms prior to visiting their healthcare provider. With the launch of Google's new health search tools for mobile devices (i.e. smartphones, tablets, etc.) it is important to understand how patients use these search platforms and what their effects are on clinical encounters. The main objective of this study is to understand the accuracy of differential diagnoses generated by Google searching; the investigators hypothesize that searching on Google using a tablet or mobile device will be more accurate than not using any search tool, and that the new health search experience will improve accuracy over the standard search platform.
Interventions
OTHERHealth Search
OTHERStandard Search
Sponsors
Google LLC.
Johns Hopkins University
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
OTHER
Masking
SINGLE (Caregiver)
Masking description
Healthcare providers will not have knowledge of the interventions assigned to individual participants.
Intervention model description
Participants presenting with new symptoms to either an urgent care center or emergency department will be randomized in a 1:1:1 ratio to one of three groups. 1. Access to Health Search (i.e. Google's new health search platform for mobile devices; Health Knowledge Panels and Symptom Search Tool); 2. Access to Standard Search (i.e. prior version of Google search); 3. Usual Care. Groups 1 and 2 will use a tablet or mobile phone to search while group 3 will not.
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* Adult patient \>= 18 years of age * Presenting for care at urgent care or emergency department * In search of a diagnosis to explain a new symptom or group of symptoms
Exclusion criteria
* Not literate, defined as lacking the ability to read and write (self-reported) * Non-English Speaking (self-reported) * Not mentally competent to provide consent due to inability to understand relevant information due to deficit in intelligence (e.g. mental retardation), memory (e.g., advanced dementia or significant delirium), or attention span (e.g., Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or mania) based on prior documentation in medical records or as judged by the researchers) * Unable to use phone/tablet for any mental or physical impairment (e.g., blind) (self-reported) * Exacerbation of chronic condition (self-reported)
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Accuracy of patient's pre-visit differential diagnosis after Google searching on a tablet or mobile phone. | Assessing diagnostic accuracy from baseline to up to one hour post-clinical encounter. | Proportion of patient's pre-visit differential diagnosis meeting the criteria of match with clinician post-visit differential diagnosis (i.e. Two of the three conditions on the clinician's differential diagnosis were more likely to be present in the patient's pre-visit assessment when a tablet or mobile phone was present). |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Accuracy of differential diagnosis of Health Search vs. Standard Search | Assessing diagnostic accuracy from baseline to up to one hour post-clinical encounter. | Proportion of patient's pre-visit differential diagnosis meeting the criteria of match with clinician post-visit differential diagnosis comparing Arm 1 (i.e. Health Search) vs. Arm 2 (i.e. Standard Search). |
Other
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Changes in anxiety on a visual analog scale | Assessing a change in anxiety from baseline to up to one hour post clinical encounter. | Comparing changes in anxiety (pre-clinical encounter vs. post-clinical encounter) among treatment arms. (Health Search vs. Standard Search). |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed