Annals of family medicine
-
Annals of family medicine · May 2023
Triaging Patients With Artificial Intelligence for Respiratory Symptoms in Primary Care to Improve Patient Outcomes: A Retrospective Diagnostic Accuracy Study.
Respiratory symptoms are the most common presenting complaint in primary care. Often these symptoms are self resolving, but they can indicate a severe illness. With increasing physician workload and health care costs, triaging patients before in-person consultations would be helpful, possibly offering low-risk patients other means of communication. The objective of this study was to train a machine learning model to triage patients with respiratory symptoms before visiting a primary care clinic and examine patient outcomes in the context of the triage. ⋯ The model triaged patients in line with expected outcomes. The model can reduce the number of CXR referrals by eliminating them in risk groups 1 through 5, thus decreasing clinically insignificant incidentaloma findings without input from clinicians.
-
In this essay, I describe my last overnight call as I transitioned out of practicing obstetrics. I was worried that by giving up doing inpatient medicine and practicing obstetrics, I would lose my identity as a family physician. I realized that I can embody the core values of a family physician, including generalism and patient centeredness, in the office as well as in the hospital. Family physicians can stay true to their historical values even while giving up inpatient medicine and obstetric care by remembering that it is not only what we do, but how we do it that is important.