Google Health Search Trial (GHST)

April 11, 2019 updated by: Johns Hopkins University

Accuracy of Differential Diagnosis From Google Health Search and Impact on Clinical Encounters

There are large differences in knowledge between patients and healthcare providers (i.e. physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners), and there is a strong interest on the part of both industry and academia to reduce the gap in knowledge between patients and healthcare providers. Currently, about 1 in 20 searches on Google are health related. Among internet users, 72% reported searching for health information, and among persons who use mobile phones, 31% of cell phone users and 52% of smartphone users have looked up health or medical information. Oftentimes, patients will search on Google or other search engines in order to find health conditions that explain their symptoms prior to visiting their healthcare provider. With the launch of Google's new health search tools for mobile devices (i.e. smartphones, tablets, etc.) it is important to understand how patients use these search platforms and what their effects are on clinical encounters. The main objective of this study is to understand the accuracy of differential diagnoses generated by Google searching; the investigators hypothesize that searching on Google using a tablet or mobile device will be more accurate than not using any search tool, and that the new health search experience will improve accuracy over the standard search platform.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

300

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

    • Maryland
      • Baltimore, Maryland, United States, 21287
        • Johns Hopkins Hospital
      • Baltimore, Maryland, United States, 21224
        • Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Adult patient >= 18 years of age
  • Presenting for care at urgent care or emergency department
  • In search of a diagnosis to explain a new symptom or group of symptoms

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Not literate, defined as lacking the ability to read and write (self-reported)
  • Non-English Speaking (self-reported)
  • Not mentally competent to provide consent due to inability to understand relevant information due to deficit in intelligence (e.g. mental retardation), memory (e.g., advanced dementia or significant delirium), or attention span (e.g., Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or mania) based on prior documentation in medical records or as judged by the researchers)
  • Unable to use phone/tablet for any mental or physical impairment (e.g., blind) (self-reported)
  • Exacerbation of chronic condition (self-reported)

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Other
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Health Search
Access to Health Knowledge Panels and Symptom Search Tool.
Experimental: Standard Search
No access to Health Knowledge Panels and Symptom Search Tool, but access to prior version of Google search.
No Intervention: No Search
No access to Health Knowledge Panels, Symptom Search Tool, prior version of Google search, or mobile device.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Accuracy of patient's pre-visit differential diagnosis after Google searching on a tablet or mobile phone.
Time Frame: Assessing diagnostic accuracy from baseline to up to one hour post-clinical encounter.
Proportion of patient's pre-visit differential diagnosis meeting the criteria of "match" with clinician post-visit differential diagnosis (i.e. Two of the three conditions on the clinician's differential diagnosis were more likely to be present in the patient's pre-visit assessment when a tablet or mobile phone was present).
Assessing diagnostic accuracy from baseline to up to one hour post-clinical encounter.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Accuracy of differential diagnosis of Health Search vs. Standard Search
Time Frame: Assessing diagnostic accuracy from baseline to up to one hour post-clinical encounter.
Proportion of patient's pre-visit differential diagnosis meeting the criteria of "match" with clinician post-visit differential diagnosis comparing Arm 1 (i.e. Health Search) vs. Arm 2 (i.e. Standard Search).
Assessing diagnostic accuracy from baseline to up to one hour post-clinical encounter.

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Changes in anxiety on a visual analog scale
Time Frame: Assessing a change in anxiety from baseline to up to one hour post clinical encounter.
Comparing changes in anxiety (pre-clinical encounter vs. post-clinical encounter) among treatment arms. (Health Search vs. Standard Search).
Assessing a change in anxiety from baseline to up to one hour post clinical encounter.

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Collaborators

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Seth S Martin, MD, MHS, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

  • "Health Fact Sheet." Pew Research Center, Washington D.C. (December 16, 2013). http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/health-fact-sheet/.

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

September 7, 2016

Primary Completion (Actual)

August 9, 2017

Study Completion (Actual)

August 15, 2017

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

February 16, 2017

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 2, 2017

First Posted (Actual)

March 8, 2017

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

April 16, 2019

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 11, 2019

Last Verified

April 1, 2019

More Information

Terms related to this study

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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