Automated patient query for use in pulmonary medicine

The focus of this research is the acquisition of patient history data and the use of these data by a hospital information system. There currently exists at LDS Hospital a comprehensive computer system designed to acquire and process medical data. There is a wide variety of information collected by the computer and stored in the patient database. However, some information fundamental to patient care is absent from the patient database. This information is the patient clinical history. This project was designed to create a system in which clinical history information can be collected directly from a patient and easily entered into the computer. The questionnaire concentrated mainly on pulmonary medicine. A two-stage paper questionnaire, with the second stage produced by the computer, was completed by the patient. The paper format was chosen to allow the patient to easily complete the questionnaire, while the two stages provided the ability to use the computational and analytical power of the computer to direct the questioning. The information obtained from the history was used by the medical decision making programs of the LDS Hospital information system to diagnose the patient's illness. There have been previous methods for history collection tested at LDS Hospital, which were more complex and longer than the two-stage method. The two-stage questionnaire was designed to be as accurate as these other methods without asking as many questions or taking a great deal of the patient's time to complete the questionnaire. The success of the questionnaire system was measured in a variety of ways. The two-stage paper questionnaire was compared with these other methods in the areas of number of questions the patient was asked, the time required to complete the questionnaire and the accuracy of the diagnostic logic of the computer. The two-stage questionnaire was able to substantially reduce the number of questions that the patient needed to answer and also reduce the amount of time required to complete the questionnaire. The diagnostic accuracy of the medical decision programs of the computer was similiar to the results obtained from a greater number of questions.