{
  "abstract": "Introduction Abdominal pain is a common medical complaint, but it is challenging to evaluate during virtual appointments without the ability to do a physical examination. To address this concern, this study analysed a device that measures the self-applied force by the patient. This was used to predict the need for in-person care; specifically, the need for advanced imaging and/or admission to the hospital. The purpose of the device is to mimic abdominal palpation such that a provider can determine whether or not the patient can be safely treated virtually for their abdominal pain.Methods Complete data were collected on 76 patients presenting to a large county hospital emergency department with abdominal-related complaints. In this convenience sample, patients pressed the device on their own abdomens to mimic abdominal palpation. Separately, a blinded physician would evaluate the patient as usual.Results In this small derivation sample, the device was able to correctly categorise patients into low-, medium- and high-risk groups for receiving advanced imaging or hospital admission. 100% (53/53) of the patients that the device predicted as high risk required imaging and/or admission, which suggests the device is very effective at detecting high-acuity pathologies. 61.9% (13/21) of the patients in the medium-risk group underwent imaging and/or admission. None of the patients (0/2) deemed as low risk required imaging and/or admission.Conclusions Future studies will be needed to determine the generalisability and robustness of the results, but this early data suggests that the need for a physical examination in patients with abdominal pain will be a diminishing barrier to virtual care for this subset of patients as technology evolves.",
  "authors": [
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "California University of Science and Medicine, Colton, California, USA",
        "Internal Medicine, University of California San Diego, San Diego, California, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Jordan L Pace"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "California University of Science and Medicine, Colton, California, USA",
        "Anesthesiology, Riverside University Health System, Moreno Valley, California, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Santana Youssoffi"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "California University of Science and Medicine, Colton, California, USA",
        "Family Medicine, University of California Irvine, Irvine, California, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Ahmad Sebai"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Inflect Health, Emeryville, California, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Samuel Tamayo-Sarver"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Emergency Medicine, Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, Colton, California, USA",
        "Emergency Medicine, University of California Irvine, Irvine, California, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Cyrus Nguyen"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Emergency Medicine, Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, Colton, California, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Carol Lee"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Inflect Health, Emeryville, California, USA",
        "Vituity, Emeryville, California, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Joshua Tamayo-Sarver"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Ability of a handheld device to detect need for imaging or hospital admission based on difference in patient applied force",
  "uid": "4afe5342-790d-5f11-91c0-1f773cf541bd"
}