|
Isabel.org.uk
What is
it?
Funded the
United Kingdom-based Isabel Medical Charity,
Isabel.org.uk was designed in response to a
misdiagnosis that almost killed a 3-year old named
Isabel.
The girl’s parents, Jason and Charlotte
Maude, created the site in 2000 to provide
clinical decision support and information for
pediatrics physicians in an effort to avert
improper diagnoses and preventable illnesses. With the
expert guidance of Dr Joseph Britto, a specialist
in intensive pediatric care, the Maudes hope that
Isabel.org will be widely used by hospitals and
medical professionals throughout the world within
the next five years. Access to
the site is free to all registered members of the
healthcare community, and although the system was
initially targeted at United Kingdom-based health
professionals, Isabel’s services are available to
physicians the world over via the Internet. Over the
next year, the management team hopes to begin
offering regionally customized online services.
The site formally launched on 17 June 2002.
Why was it
created?
Isabel’s case
demonstrated that a simple illness, chicken pox,
can lead to tragic outcomes if not properly
treated.
After multiple visits to the hospital to
address a rising temperature and skin
discoloration, Isabel was finally diagnosed with
Toxic Shock Syndrome and Necrotising Fasciitis
(a.k.a. flesh-eating bug), resulting in multiple
organ failure and cardiac arrest. After
spending two months in the hospital, including
four weeks in intensive care, Isabel was able to
go home.
Although she has overcome the sickness that
threatened her life, the experience Isabel endured
left her with some ongoing health problems, mainly
plastic surgery-related treatments that could last
into her teen years.
While the
National Health Service’s (NHS) direct online and
telephone advisory service helps advise patients
on courses of action to address specific ailments,
the NHS has not extensively used ICTs in its
operations.
However, with donations from institutions
and individuals, coupled with support from the
medical community, Isabel has the potential to
bridge the knowledge gap between physicians
throughout the world, while serving as a catalyst
for integrating new technologies in the NHS. Isabel’s
experience and the development of the Isabel.org
website underscores the importance of providing
professional and immediate support to physicians
making critical decisions that affect future
generations.
 How does
it work?
While there
are some common use segments of the site, the bulk
of Isabel is dedicated to helping healthcare
professionals formulate their diagnoses. The Isabel
differential diagnostic tool (IDDT), which runs on
pattern matching software provided by Autonomy
Corporation, is at the heart of the site. By using
IDDT physicians can input patients’ symptoms to
retrieve a range of 15 diagnoses from Isabel’s
extensive library containing over 3,500
possibilities. Given that
junior-level doctors and non-specialists are
generally the initial contact that a child has
with the medical community, IDDT provides instant
access to a wide range of symptom and treatment
guidelines created by medical experts. Another
crucial component of the site is the annotated
image library, which affords physicians the
opportunity to compare x-rays and clinical
pictures that have been donated from a variety of
medical fields. The site
also facilitates an ongoing discussion forum that
allows physicians to share ideas and
experiences.
What is
the future of Isabel.org?
Given the
ever-growing demands for service and increased
regulations on physicians (e.g. Work Time
Directive), alternative and supplementary medical
resources, such as Isabel.org, will play an
increasingly important role in the future of
healthcare.
As a testament to the success of Isabel,
before it launched publicly the site had over
3,000 users and the backing of some of the most
talented pediatric specialists in the United
Kingdom The management team hopes to have the
pediatric version of Isabel fully completed in
2004.
The estimated cost of the first phase of
the site is £517,000. Thus far,
the Charity has raised approximately £400,000, but
needs to double that amount to complete the system
for both children and adults. Depending
on funding, the management team hopes to begin
providing medical reference services for adults
sometime in 2004. In a
recent online United Kingdom Telegraph article, Dr
Britto indicated that the “online second opinion”
source could potentially reduce medical errors in
the National Health Service.
The Isabel
site, although spawned from an unfortunate
incident, demonstrates the effectiveness of a
grassroots approach to building a world-class
digital system designed to save lives. With a
sound growth model and a highly committed staff,
Isabel promises to become a model for information
age healthcare-related initiatives. For
additional information visit http://www.isabel.org.uk/.
|
Unfettered
by linguistic boundaries, tiredness or capacity
constraints, Autonomy Systems’ pattern
recognition infrastructure software has become a
universal tool for determining the digital
characteristics of text. From the
United States Department of Defense to Ericsson
and the Royal Mail, Autonomy offers analyses
based on context rather than words. For
Isabel, Autonomy’s |
program
allows physicians to use a combination of
symptoms to helpdetermine a
final diagnosis.
By mimicking
a doctor’s intuition, the Autonomy diagnostic
tool ensures that all possibilities are covered,
thereby avoiding potentially life-threatening
misdiagnoses. For
Isabel, Autonomy’s software draws from the most
widely used medical resources, including
Nelson’s Textbook of Pediatrics and Forfar and
Ameil’s Textbook of Pediatrics. For
additional information on Autonomy visit
www.autonomy.com.
|
Information
for this case study was compiled from the
following resources:
Back
Home |
