Digital diagnosis: internet users bypass doctors

A new app marketed as being “smarter than doctors” is allowing people to self-diagnose from the palm of their hand.

The free app Ada invites users to list their symptoms to generate a predictive diagnosis, and then allows users to book a video consultation with a doctor.

Online health services are an increasingly popular method for people to seek medical advice before visiting a doctor or pharmacist. But can medical apps be trusted?

Pharmacist Aine Heaney said using unreliable online information might lead people to believe they are well when they should be seeking medical attention, “or make people unnecessarily anxious or confused after receiving a catastrophic diagnosis from Dr. Google”.

Heaney is a spokesperson for NPS MedicineWise, a non-for-profit research organisation advising good health for consumers and medical professionals.

A recent study by the organisation found 59 percent of people look up health conditions on the Internet to avoid seeing a professional.

This trend was higher in young people aged 18 – 34 years where 79 percent said they used the internet to bypass health professionals altogether.

When going to the doctor can be expensive and inconvenient, it is no surprise young people will pick up their phones first.

Student Aidel Hanovitch, 30, said while she’ll always google her symptoms she’s aware of the misleading health information out there.

“I had vertigo, but I thought it was something much worse because I had looked up the symptoms on the internet,” she said.

“I thought the nerves in my neck had stopped working.”

A Melbourne pharmacist, who preferred not to give her name, told City Journal self-diagnosing customers come in daily and are often “looking into something totally wrong”.

“I always disregard self-diagnoses and do my own questioning,” she said.

“I wouldn’t encourage people to google their health problems, but I think if there was a platform run by health professionals it could work really well.”

The company behind Ada said medical experts developed the app over six years to include over 10,000 symptoms and conditions to diagnose anything from a common cold to rare diseases.

Despite its promises, leading organisations such the Australian Medical Association and Royal Australian Collage of GPs are concerned about the Ada app’s reliability.

While medical apps can aggregate symptoms to determine a likely diagnosis, they cannot consider information specific to individual situations.

“We’re not yet in a place where we have artificial intelligence to replace the many years a doctor has to undergone in training,” Heaney says.

“It can’t contextualise and so I don’t think we’re at a point where it is so reliable that it can replace the human mind and the experience of a doctor.”

By Hugo Hodge and Alana Beitz