Visual Diagnostic Decision Support System Improves Diagnostic Accuracy

The new browser architecture improves accessibility and gives clinicians fast, convenient access to visual diagnostic decision support. This enhanced diagnostic accuracy improves healthcare quality and reduces costly medical errors.

Logical Images, Inc. (Rochester, NY, USA), a developer of visually-based medical technologies, announced the availability of VisualDx 6.0. Research indicates that nearly 15% of medical diagnoses are incorrect, costing millions of healthcare dollars and thousands of lives every year. There is an ever-increasing amount of medical data available--too much for any primary healthcare physician to memorize. VisualDx 6.0 gives clinicians access to the specialist knowledge they need to diagnose patients quickly and accurately using visual clues. Thousands of doctors at hospitals, public health organizations, medical groups, and medical schools use VisualDx to improve care and diagnostic accuracy.

"VisualDx enhances healthcare quality and offers fast, convenient access to a wealth of medical images and information that I use to supplement my clinical judgment to accurately diagnose diseases I don't see every day,” said Dr. Edward A. Bartkus, EMS medical director of Clarian Health in Indiana. "The ability to enter and select a patient's findings as a combination of text and images, and to compare multiple diagnoses and images simultaneously, is a particularly effective way to build a customized differential diagnosis. VisualDx is a very useful decision support system.”

Traditional medical reference sources such as textbooks and atlases offer limited information and require the clinician to search by diagnosis name, so users must consult and index multiple pages, which takes time and focus away from the patient. With VisualDx 6.0, clinicians simply enter the patient's clinical features, such as lesion morphology, body location, symptoms, and medical history, to build a customized pictorial differential diagnosis in seconds. The main module is logically organized by age group, body location, and problem area to make it easier to initiate a differential diagnosis. Results are color-coded with the most relevant findings listed at the top.

"The intuitive design of VisualDx 6.0 reflects our goal to reduce complexities in healthcare,” said Dr. Art Papier, chief science officer of Logical Images. "Physicians in fast-paced clinics, emergency rooms, and hospitals often have to make quick decisions with incomplete data. VisualDx is available at the point of care to help accurately diagnose diseases using distinct visual clues and symptoms. Access to the information is only a click away using a Web browser.”

New features of VisualDx 6.0 include: (1) Browser-Only Architecture: VisualDx works on any system with a modern Web browser, including Macs and iPhones. (2) Quick start: The system loads immediately to provide fast and convenient access to search capabilities and diagnostic details. (3) Refined user interface: Navigation is intuitive and user-friendly, improving speed, accuracy, and overall efficiency. Users can easily switch between the Results and Compare views with the highly visible navigation tabs within each module. (4) Side-by-side diagnostic comparison: Users can open multiple Diagnostic Details pages to view or simultaneously compare multiple relevant diagnosis write-ups and images. (5) Reporting and alerts: Allows for multiple dynamic links from the system's home page or specified disease pages, offering users convenient and efficient access to information that ensures timely action and notification of reportable diseases. (6) Lastly, VisualDx is the only point-of-care decision support system to merge medical images with clinical information to build a visual differential diagnosis for more than 900 visually identifiable diseases, drug reactions, and infections based on actual patient findings.

Logical Images develops visual healthcare tools to elevate diagnostic accuracy, enhance medical education, and heighten patient knowledge. Logical Images has developed the most comprehensive digital medical image library with over 50,000 images including all age ranges and skin types. This extensive collection is the foundation for both the VisualDx professional tool and the VisualDxHealth consumer tool--designed to speed disease recognition for faster, more accurate decision-making, and patient understanding.

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