Client Success Stories

Lakewood Family Medicine

To support their clinical decisions, physicians and nurse practitioners at Lakewood Family Medicine in Holland, Michigan have relied upon Isabel Healthcare’s clinical reasoning tool, Isabel, to access evidence-based patient data and potential diseases since January 2010.

Solution with Isabel

Dr. Tim Smith, practitioner with Lakewood Family Medicine, learned about Isabel Healthcare and decided to implement the technology. Isabel has empowered doctors at Lakewood Family Medicine with information to accurately diagnose patients.

Isabel’s clinical reasoning tool has enabled more focused referrals, more appropriately ordered tests and fewer consults. Doctors at Lakewood Family Medicine noticed that there is less need to informally consult colleagues, saving time and enhancing the patient experience.

Diagnostic Challenges

Prior to using Isabel, the doctors tried other tools including Epocrates and UpToDate to assist with patient diagnosis. They found that Epocrates occupied too much of their system’s memory while UpToDate had limitations of only being able to enter one symptom. Subsequently, the doctors lacked access to information from a single reference source and depended heavily on consults to diagnose patients. Turning to Isabel, doctors discovered that Isabel provided the critical information they were missing and have improved their speed in time-to-diagnosis.

“Isabel provides an avenue to refresh the memory and prompt diagnostic thinking. With one click, Isabel delivers relevant clinical content to educate our doctors and speed the time to diagnosis.” said Dr. Tim Smith, Lakewood Family Medicine.

Lakewood Family Medicine'S Results with Isabel

Since using Isabel in their practice, Lakewood Family Medicine physicians successfully diagnosed numerous patients with the help of the Isabel tool. Two cases proved to be particularly challenging for the doctors to diagnose – and with Isabel, they found the right diagnosis and profoundly impacted the lives of two patients.

Patient Case #1: A 40 year old female from Michigan presented with a four year history of myalgia, paresthesia, fever and fatigue. After her examination, consults were made to both infectious disease and rheumatology, and the results were inconclusive. The patient’s lab results did not indicate Lyme’s disease, so doctors had previously ruled out this diagnosis. Upon entering her symptoms into the Isabel system, Lyme’s disease came up high on the differential result list. Doctors re-examined her using an alternate test and subsequently diagnosed her with Lyme’s disease. The patient is now receiving appropriate care from a specialist in New York to treat her condition.

Patient Case #2: A 14 year old male with a four year history of recurring fever and persistent joint pain sought treatment at Lakewood Family Medicine. His severe pain limited his ability to engage in physical activity. An initial diagnosis of Ankylosing Spondylitis was made, and he was referred to a rheumatologist. Because he was misdiagnosed that treatment plan failed, and he was referred back to his practitioner at Lakewood Family Medicine. The physician entered the symptoms and demographics into Isabel which indicated that Lyme’s disease was a likely cause. With that information, the doctors ordered lab tests and were soon able to make a correct diagnosis of Lyme’s Disease. The patient began and responded well during a four-week treatment plan – a significant improvement over the four-year battle of symptoms. The patient was now able to ride his bike for six miles and spend an hour on batting practice – which are activities he could not do over the last four years.

About Lakewood Family Medicine

Based in Holland, Michigan, Lakewood Family Medicine is a family medicine practice and board certified by the American Board of Family Practice. Affiliated with Holland Hospital, there are 11 physicians and five nurse practitioners on staff who see approximately 250 patients each day.