ROCHESTER, N.Y., Oct. 3, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Four years ago, the Institute of Medicine recommended the Department of Health and Human Services promote the use of clinical decision support tools to ensure doctors quickly and accurately detect and diagnose bioterrorism and infectious disease outbreaks.
Today, with the threat of Ebola and other deadly diseases arriving via airplane in the U.S., most hospital emergency departments still don't have these tools, even though they're readily available, affordable and proven effective.
"Diagnosing a disease they've never seen before can be difficult for physicians, especially if they fail to take note of a patient's travel history, and they're working in a busy emergency department," said Art Papier, MD, CEO and co-founder of Logical Images, the company that created VisualDx, a clinical decision support tool used by thousands of doctors to accurately diagnose and treat disease. "A clinical decision support tool will help physicians quickly and accurately diagnose disease by ensuring their patients' international travel history is recorded and their symptoms are compared against a database of diseases prevalent in the countries where the patients traveled."
In the first case of Ebola virus disease reported in the U.S., the patient who had traveled from Liberia was not accurately diagnosed in his first visit to the emergency department. He left the hospital and potentially exposed family members to the deadly virus before he was accurately diagnosed and quarantined.
With VisualDx, an app and online clinical decision support system, the physician is taken through a series of questions, including questions about recent travel, symptoms, medication, lab results and any visual signs of disease. VisualDx then uses a patented process to quickly deliver "stacked visual knowledge" – a highly specific list of potential diagnoses, a series of medical images to compare to the patient's current conditions and the recommended treatments.
Doctors then use VisualDx to arrive at the best diagnosis, explain the process to the patient using the images and decide on the right treatment for each unique patient.
"With VisualDx, public health alerts and clinical guidelines can be made available within 24 hours of an outbreak, natural disaster, contamination or other events that require an immediate or coordinated medical response," said Dr. Papier. "We know it works because more than 1,500 hospitals and large clinics, including the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, rely on VisualDx to help them quickly and accurately diagnose disease and educate their patients."
VisualDx is available directly on the web, integrated into Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and as a mobile app that works with the iPhone, Android and iPad.
To see a video regarding VisualDx please visit: http://www.visualdx.com/visualdx-videos/
To see a version of this app for consumers, please visit: www.skinsight.com
About Logical Images
Logical Images, based in Rochester, NY, is the industry leader in visual diagnostic decision support, providing affordable, fast and widely used mobile apps and online resources scientifically proven to improve diagnostic accuracy while also educating and empowering patients. The company's products include VisualDx (VisualDx.com), a mobile app and online clinical decision support system for diagnostic accuracy, and Skinsight (Skinsight.com), the Web's leading consumer skin health and wellness resource.