Can I read Beyond Dr. Google: the evidence on consumer-facing digital tools for diagnosis on EtoBox?

Beyond Dr. Google: the evidence on consumer-facing digital tools for diagnosis by Michael L. Millenson; Jessica L. Baldwin; Lorri Zipperer; Hardeep Singh is a Medicine article available to read on EtoBox.

What is Beyond Dr. Google: the evidence on consumer-facing digital tools for diagnosis about?

Over a third of adults go online to diagnose their health condition. Direct-to-consumer (DTC), interactive, diagnostic apps with information personalization capabilities beyond those of static search engines are rapidly proliferating. While these apps promise faster, more convenient and more accurate information to improve diagnosis, little is known about the state of the evidence on their performance or the methods used to evaluate them. We conducted a scoping review of the peer-reviewed and gray literature for the period January 1, 2014-June 30, 2017. We found that the largest category of evaluations involved symptom checkers that applied algorithms to useranswered questions, followed by sensor-driven apps that applied algorithms to smartphone photos, with a handful of evaluations examining crowdsourcing. The most common clinical areas evaluated were dermatology and general diagnostic and triage advice for a range of conditions. Evaluations were highly variable in methodology and conclusions, with about half describing app characteristics and half examining actual performance. Apps were found to vary widely in functionality, accuracy, safety and effectiveness, although the useful

Who reads Beyond Dr. Google: the evidence on consumer-facing digital tools for diagnosis?

Author

Michael L. Millenson; Jessica L. Baldwin; Lorri Zipperer; Hardeep Singh

Publisher

Walter de Gruyter GmbH

Published

2018

Language

EN

Field

Medicine (Health Sciences)