EXPERIENCE IN CREATING AN AUTOMATED SYMPTOM QUESTIONNAIRE USING MULTILEVEL ALGORITHMS TO OPTIMIZE THE WORK OF A DOCTOR IN THE PRIMARY DEPARTMENT OF A MULTIDISCIPLINARY HOSPITAL

Abstract

Actuality. One of the most important tasks of the doctor of the reception department is to establish the correct preliminary diagnosis and then refer the patient to the appropriate specialist department, while spending as little time as possible on this. Purpose: development and analysis of the procedure for creating an automated questionnaire of symptoms – a doctor’s assistant in the reception department. Materials and methods. The automated program is written in the Dot net (.net) programming language. The initial list of symptoms, clarifying questions and variants of medical conditions was taken from the textbooks for the training of paramedics. To check its accuracy, expert opinions were provided by 5 doctors of the entry department of the Lviv Railway Hospital over the course of 2 years. The project was carried out using methods of the system approach and structural and logical analysis. Research results. The creation of an automated questionnaire was divided into 3 main stages. The first consisted of the description of the task and the definition of performance indicators. At the second stage, we created a technical task for a team of programmers, using a graphic editor to visualize the algorithm and list of the necessary tables. At the third stage, we tested the questionnaire during the practical work of the doctor and updated the task to improve the algorithm. After three stages of improving the questionnaire, the work of a doctor with more than 10 years of experience was compared with the work of the developed algorithm. Also, work with an automated questionnaire was experimentally introduced into the daily work of the entry department. At the last stage, the effect of the doctor’s work using the questionnaire to the doctor’s work without it was analyzed. Conclusions. Automated questionnaires created on the basis of the evidence-based medicine literature can be useful for assisting the work of medical staff in multidisciplinary medical institutions, where the main task is to quickly establish a preliminary diagnosis and refer the patient to a specialized department. In our case, this led to a 21% reduction of the patient’s registration time in the entry department, and a reduction in the number of patient transfers between specialized departments.