Introduction: Online symptom checkers are a way to address patient concerns and potentially offload a burdened healthcare system. However, safety outcomes of self-triage are unknown, so we reviewed triage recommendations and outcomes of our institution's depression symptom checker.
Methods: We examined endpoint recommendations and follow-up encounters seven days afterward during 2 December 2021 to 13 December 2022. Patients with an emergency department visit or hospitalization within seven days of self-triaging had a manual review of the electronic health record to determine if the visit was related to depression, suicidal ideation, or suicide attempt. Charts were reviewed for deaths within seven days of self-triage.
Results: There were 287 unique encounters from 263 unique patients. In 86.1% (247/287), the endpoint was an instruction to call nurse triage; in 3.1% of encounters (9/287), instruction was to seek emergency care. Only 20.2% (58/287) followed the recommendations given. Of the 229 patients that did not follow the endpoint recommendations, 121 (52.8%) had some type of follow-up within seven days. Nearly 11% (31/287) were triaged to endpoints not requiring urgent contact and 9.1% (26/287) to an endpoint that would not need any healthcare team input. No patients died in the study period.
Conclusions: Most patients did not follow the recommendations for follow-up care although ultimately most patients did receive care within seven days. Self-triage appears to appropriately sort patients with depressed mood to emergency care. On-line self-triaging tools for depression have the potential to safely offload some work from clinic personnel.
Keywords: Depression; patient portal; self-triage; symptom checker; telemedicine.