A computer has proved more accurate in diagnosing severe fever in children than doctors using their clinical judgement, researchers have found.
Specialists in Australia who developed the computerised diagnostic model say it may improve early treatment in children with conditions such as pneumonia and meningitis who need an urgent administration of antibiotics.
One of the toughest tasks in medicine is distinguishing between children with ordinary viral illnesses, from which they normally recover without treatment, and those with bacterial infections which require an urgent administration of antibiotics. Family doctors have sleepless nights worrying about whether they have made the right call.
Now researchers at the Westmead Children's Hospital in Sydney, Australia, have developed a 28-item checklist which, when used with a statistical modelling technique, successfully distinguishes between the two.
Specialists in Australia who developed the computerised diagnostic model say it may improve early treatment in children with conditions such as pneumonia and meningitis who need an urgent administration of antibiotics.
One of the toughest tasks in medicine is distinguishing between children with ordinary viral illnesses, from which they normally recover without treatment, and those with bacterial infections which require an urgent administration of antibiotics. Family doctors have sleepless nights worrying about whether they have made the right call.
Now researchers at the Westmead Children's Hospital in Sydney, Australia, have developed a 28-item checklist which, when used with a statistical modelling technique, successfully distinguishes between the two.
Read the full BMJ article: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/340/apr19_2/c1594
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