Looking to diagnose your ailments online? Be careful

[AussieNeil]

A Harvard Medical School study published last month in the medical journal BMJ finds online ‘symptom checkers’ often get it wrong:

bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/...

Those of us that have been following the developments in CLL treatment will readily confirm that any information that you read on CLL, even from reputable sources, is quite likely to be out of date when it discusses prognostic markers or the best treatment options. It's getting so that even information that was correct when published when this site commenced is becoming out of date!

Neil

Photo: The Early Nancy wild flowers have appeared in the last week. We've just had a good month of winter rains after an extremely dry June, so perhaps we'll have a good wild flower season and more importantly a good season for the farmers this year. We still need a few more months of good rains before that's a certainty though...

[Newdawn Administrator]

Yes indeed, Dr. Google and printed medical material can mislead and misdirect in the wrong hands. I like this quote;

“Be careful about reading health books. Some fine day you'll die of a misprint.”

― Markus Herz

Newdawn

[SeymourB]

Interesting to see that "But overall, the accuracy was comparable to that of telephone triage lines that primary care practices use to field calls from ill patients."

More and more, eMedicine uses Clinical Decision Support, especially when presenting with many symptoms. Combination with electronic medical records that contain past visit summaries and lab results improves results.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clini...

But even then, there is variable quality.

There are also clinical triage books that doctors and nurses have used for years.