At Johns Hopkins Hospital, these algorithms provided ready access to state-of-the-art Covid-19 care for hospitalized patients, enabling clinicians to expertly manage the new illness in the midst of a crisis.
Harvard Business Review
by J. Hunter Young, Kyle Richardville, Bradley Staats, Brian J. Miller
May 06, 2022
Summary
Automated clinical algorithms promise to transform primary care.
Clinical algorithms specify the steps of a clinical process, leading from inputs such as a patient’s diagnosis to outputs such as recommendations for medication, further diagnostic testing, imaging, or even specialty referrals.
Once automated, they direct the care process without real-time clinician input.
Automated clinical algorithms can be as simple as age-based rules that trigger a scheduling call for a preventive vaccination or as complex as an automated clinical pathway specifying a series of tests and treatments for chronic conditions such as high blood pressure.
As has been demonstrated during the Covid-19 pandemic, done well, they enhance operational efficiency and maximize clinical quality.
But tapping their full potential will require adherence to principles developed over 75 years for automating the clinical trial — which we will discuss in this article.
Six core principles are discussed, to automate Medical Systems
1.First, do no harm: Safety must be a primary principle guiding the utilization of an automated clinical process.
2.Choice: Patients who meet the inclusion criteria for a specific automated process should be able to opt out.
3. Disclosure: To facilitate patients’ and clinicians’ choices, the automated nature of the decision-making process needs to be disclosed to them.
4. Personalization: There should be an opportunity for patients to “tell the algorithm” their personal preferences for treatment.
5. Degrees of automation: A clinical process may be fully or partially automated.
6. A learning health care system: Automated primary care will become a critical component of a learning and continuously adapting health care system.
As has been demonstrated during the Covid-19 pandemic, done well, (algorithms) enhance operational efficiency and maximize clinical quality.
But tapping their full potential will require adherence to principles developed over 75 years for automating the clinical trial — which we will discuss in this article.
Originally published at https://hbr.org on May 6, 2022.
