VisualDx, the popular clinical decision support system that in the past has focused on dermatology and visual signs of disease, has launched its next generation point-of-care program. Unveiled at the 2016 meeting of the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) in Las Vegas, the new system has been expanded to include cardiopulmonary, gastrointestinal, neurologic, renal, urologic and infectious diseases, among others.
Art Papier, MD, CEO and co-founder of VisualDx, VisualDx – Visual Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) explained that the new platform has doubled the number of potential diagnoses that it’s capable of deciphering from 1,300 to 2,700 and is able to accept any chief complaint. “Combining the world’s largest medical image library with our unique Sympticon visuals offers frontline healthcare providers a comprehensive resource for patient diagnosis.” Its Sympticon technology lets clinicians visualize and compare symptoms by means of a series of searchable graphics. Each Sympticon highlights which organs are affected by the specific disease or diagnosis, confirming the old adage about a picture being worth a thousand words.
Papier and his colleagues from the University of Rochester College of Medicine have conducted a randomized trial to compare the software tool to standard textbooks to determine if VisualDx offers any advantages during the diagnostic process. Their findings, which were presented as a poster at an American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) meeting, found that correct diagnoses doubled among non-dermatologists and was statistically significant.
