Crowdsourcing Saves a Boy’s Life
When a Utah-based primary care physician couldn’t uncover what was wrong with a young boy with a persistent cough, he turned to the crowd for a diagnosis – and it saved the boy’s life.
Initially, it was thought that the cough wasn’t serious. That was until the patient coughed up a strange looking branch-like mass. Not sure what it was, and rather than wait for lab results to come back, Dr. Easton Jackson logged onto SERMO, a social networking platform for doctors.
Crowdsourcing Medical Help
He uploaded a picture of the regurgitated mass and presented a poll listing 16 diagnoses. The first response came within 30 minutes, and during the course of the next two days, more than 200 physicians from the US and the UK had contributed their thoughts.
The full diagnosis was made by a cardiologist within a few hours, who explained that the substance was the result of an extremely rare condition. This was confirmed by a pediatrician with pulmonary expertise, while another doctor outlined the sad story of a boy who went undiagnosed with the same condition and died.
Life Saver
On reading all this, Dr. Jackson went into action and referred his young patient to a cardiologist, who ultimately treated the boy and saved his life.
This story, as recounted in HIT Consultant went on to say that with 13,000 known medical conditions, doctors do not have the breadth of knowledge to recognize everything. Hence the value of an expert crowd, such as those who have signed up to SERMO where doctors can benefit from a global pool of expertise.
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