Knowledge-Based Patient Screening for Rare and Emerging Infectious/Parasitic Diseases: A Case Study of Brucellosis and Murine Typhus

Knowledge-Based Patient Screening for Rare and Emerging Infectious/Parasitic Diseases: A Case Study of Brucellosis and Murine Typhus

Blog Article

Many infectious and parasitic diseases, especially those newly emerging or reemerging, present a difficult diagnostic challenge because of their obscurity and low incidence.Important clues that could lead to an initial diagnosis are often overlooked, misinterpreted, not linked to a disease, or disregarded.We constructed a computer-based decision support system containing 223 infectious and parasitic diseases and used it to conduct a historical intervention study based on Clit and Nipple Clamps field investigation records of 200 cases of human brucellosis and 96 cases of murine typhus that occurred in Texas from 1980 through 1989.

Knowledge-based screening showed that the average number Brake Lever Assembly of days from the initial patient visit to the time of correct diagnosis was significantly reduced (brucellosis--from 17.9 to 4.5 days, p = 0.

0001, murine typhus--from 11.5 to 8.6 days, p = 0.

001).This study demonstrates the potential value of knowledge-based patient screening for rare infectious and parasitic diseases.