A Biosurveillance-driven Home Score to Guide Strep Pharyngitis Treatment

Authors

  • Andrew Fine Boston Children's Hospital; Harvard Medical School
  • Victor Nizet University of California, San Diego
  • Kenneth Mandl Boston Children's Hospital; Harvard Medical School

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5210/ojphi.v5i1.4561

Abstract

Adults at low risk for Group A streptococcal (GAS) pharyngitis should neither be tested nor treated, yet millions annually seek care. We derive and validate a 'home score' to estimate a patient's GAS risk based on history and real-time local biosurveillance, and compare its accuracy to traditional models. Data included 110,208 patients seen at a national retail health chain. Using a 0.10 home score cutoff extrapolates to 230,000 saved visits annually and 8500 additional missed cases (0.20: 2.9M visits saved, 320,000 additional missed). A patient-centric approach could save millions of visits annually by identifying low-risk patients in the pre-visit setting.

Author Biography

Andrew Fine, Boston Children's Hospital; Harvard Medical School

Dr. Fine is a pediatric emergency medicine specialist at Boston Children's Hospital and Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on developing methods to infuse epidemiological context into medical decision-making and improve the lives of individual children and the public health. He has published numerous studies about the use of epidemiologic context for the approach to communicable diseases including strep throat, meningitis, pertussis and Lyme disease.

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Published

2013-03-24

How to Cite

Fine, A., Nizet, V., & Mandl, K. (2013). A Biosurveillance-driven Home Score to Guide Strep Pharyngitis Treatment. Online Journal of Public Health Informatics, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.5210/ojphi.v5i1.4561

Issue

Section

Oral Presentations: Disease Surveillance Methods