Changelog-Engine API
News: Infermedica is changing. To find out more about our recently announced Medical Guidance Platform and the renaming of our core products, please visit our new webpage (opens in a new tab).
August 29, 2024
API 3.20.0 has just been released!
With this update, we made:
- Technical enhancements to how the algorithm chooses what question to ask next, which will allow us to make even more qualitative improvements to this process in the near future.
- Technical enhancement to Red Flags functionality, making it more independent from the logic associated with next question selection, which will enable us to develop each more effectively.
- Improvements to Search endpoint data logging, allowing us to gain a better understanding of how patients use this functionality.
Changes from this update will not impact the end results of either the triage assignment or the condition rankings.
June 27, 2024
API 3.19.0 released!
With it, we made:
- Technical enhancements to Rationale and Explain functionality - We’ve refactored the parts of the Engine that are responsible for providing data to the
/rationale
and/explain
endpoints, improving maintenance and allowing for more future improvements of those functionalities. - Fixes to a issue related to the reporting of
Age=0 years
- We’ve discovered an infrequent situation where some applications would report a patient’s age as 0 years but not provide the exact number in months. As it is medically important to specify an infant’s actual age, we’ve prohibited the providing ofage value = 0 years
. In such cases, an error message will be returned. To avoid errors, ensure that anyone under the age of 1 has their age reported in months.
May 21, 2024
API 3.18.0 live now!
In this update:
- We removed Lab tests from the
/search
endpoint, - We removed Lab tests from the
/concepts
endpoint, - We removed the Lab tests count from the
/info
endpoint.
April 23, 2024
API 3.17.1 released today!
Here are the latest improvements:
- We've ensured that prevalence values are always returned in lowercase,
- We've removed the prevalence value LIKELY.
April 11, 2024
API 3.17 is here!
We'd like to introduce API 3.17, which brings key enhancements like:
- Improvements in logic to the Red flags method in Suggest - We’ve evaluated and fixed several issues related to the Red flags method in
/suggest
, which should improve the quality of outcomes from that endpoint, - Fixes to Evidence-based risk factors method in Suggest - We’ve introduced a fix to the endpoint that should increase the number of relevant risk factors it returns,
- New additions to our API - We’ve added a new parameter to
/search
. Now you can use theinclude_pro
parameter to decide whether users should be able to search for more complex medical symptoms, such as “Moniz sign” or “Trigeminal neuralgia”, - Technical enhancements to Suggest’s functionality - We’ve introduced changes across the whole of Suggest’s logic that make it easier to maintain long term while also not impacting its outcomes.
December 7, 2023
API 3.16 now live!
We'd like to introduce API 3.16, which brings key enhancements like:
- content filters for improved search functionality - new content filters were added internally to ensure more refined search results, enhancing search accuracy and improving the user experience,
/suggest
and/diagnosis
endpoint enhancements - multiple updates were made to improve the long-term maintainability and performance of the API and Inference Engine,teleconsultation_applicable
flag improvements - despite this flag being deprecated, continued support and improvements are being made to its functionality to ensure that its users continue to have seamless integration.
October 6, 2023
API 3.15 is live!
With it, we:
- introduced several changes that’ll improve our ability to maintain the API and Inference Engine long term,
- updated the question selection algorithm by removing some edge cases and simplifying the overall logic of choosing the next question,
- solved a bug related to symptom duration recognition in our NLP,
- deprecated the
teleconsultation_applicable
flag in the/triage
endpoint. This functionality can now be achieved by using the/recommend_specialist
endpoint. For more information, see Specialist & Channel Recommender.
July 17, 2023
API 3.14 is here!
We're thrilled to introduce API 3.14, which brings significant improvements to our platform like:
- an improved triage algorithm - our triage algorithm has been fine-tuned to minimize over-triage during emergencies, leading to more accurate assessments and reduced unnecessary alerts,
- streamlined maintenance - we've implemented technical improvements that make maintaining our API and engine easier.
June 19, 2023
API 3.13.1 is now live
Here's what's new!
With this update, we made a couple of minor changes to our newly released Intent Survey feature. More information about the feature can be found here.
We've also added three new Asiatic languages for our API customers: Thai, Japanese, and Chinese Traditional (Hong Kong). This brings our number of available languages up to 24.
April 20, 2023
API 3.12 has just been released!
Here are the latest changes:
- We introduced several changes that’ll improve our ability to maintain the API and Inference Engine long term.
- We fixed a bug involving automatically inferred risk factors.
- We fixed a bug related to the reporting of non-existent evidence IDs.
March 31, 2023
API 3.11 is now live!
Here are the newest changes to our API:
- We introduced several security improvements to our core functionalities.
- We introduced changes that will improve the maintenance of the API and Inference Engine long term.
- We fixed a bug related to the impact evidence was having on inference.
December 7, 2022
API 3.10
API 3.10 is here!
We are introducing a new enable_symptom_duration
feature. This feature will allow you to enable an additional parameter that will let you specify the exact duration of the reported symptoms.
For details, please check Diagnosis v3 - Infermedica for Developers
July 26, 2022
API 3.9 is here!
With it we are introducing internal security improvements that are making the user data and interview process even more resilient.
May 11, 2022
API 3.8
API 3.8 is here, along with a new feature!
Discover the Patient Education feature that is now available with API 3.8. This new feature brings an additional layer of knowledge, in the form of articles describing the most popular conditions and some common care methods.
The Patient Education functionality involves changes in two endpoints:
-
/diagnosis
(endpoint extension)- When extra
"include_condition_details": true
is applied, new informationhas_patient_education
will appear to every condition in ranking. - Diagnosis response is extended with a new field interview_token which is needed to use the Patient Education functionality.
- When extra
-
/patient_education
(new endpoint)- Endpoint returns Patient Education content in JSON rich text format.
Apart from the introduction of Patient Education, API 3.8 also brings a few internal security improvements.
Please note that the Patient Education feature is available for an additional cost. For details, please contact the Infermedica team.
March 21, 2021
API 3.7
API 3.7 is here! Below are the main changes:
- To improve compatibility of
/triage
and evidence seriousness levels we added a new field:seriousness
. Possible values for the field are:serious
,emergency
andemergency_ambulance
. - We deprecated flag
is_emergency
for items in the serious evidence list. The evidenceseriousness
(value ofemergency
andemergency_ambulance
) is more granular and should be used instead. More details can be found in the Triage section. - We applied internal security improvements.
Engine & NLP
The latest change to our Engine & NLP:
- We overhauled the spelling corrector used by our NLP endpoint. The new algorithm is capable of dealing with common mistakes going beyond typical typos. Thanks to it, the
/parse
endpoint will be able to understand messages such as “soar throat”, “diaheria” or “backpain”.
November 30, 2021
API 3.6
Long-awaited update to Infermedica API just arrived! With API 3.6 we updated third-person questions in /symptoms
and /risk_factors
. More details can be found in the Medical concepts section.
August 31, 2021
API 3.5
API 3.5 is here! Below are two main changes:
- We introduced new suggest modes for risk factors based on provided evidence.
evidence_based_risk_factors
gives you an option to ask our system if we have propositions of any risk factors based on the already collected evidence.demographic_risk_factors
returns risk factors that are common for given age and sex.demographic_risk_factors
works in the same way as the current methodrisk_factors
and we will support both for the time being. More details can be found in the Suggest related concepts section. - We adjusted the text form for explanations (explication and instructions in
/diagnosis
) to consider patient sex.
July 7, 2021
API 3.4
Below are the newest changes to our API:
- We extended concept types within
/search
withcondition
. You can now use/search
to request a list of all available conditions. - We added the possibility to display explanations (explication and instruction) for returned items within
/suggest
. You can find guidelines on how to use/search
effectively in the Suggest related concepts section. - We added a possibility to disable asking about intimate concepts within
/diagnosis
and/search
. More details can be found in the the Suggest related concepts and Diagnosis sections. - We are now filtering out items that are difficult to understand within
/search
. This will prevent us from displaying symptoms which cannot be clearly described by its common name without asking a dedicated question.
March 31, 2021
API 3.3
Below are the newest changes to our API:
- We added a new field in the
/triage
response -root_cause
. Now, understanding the reason behind triage recommendation is much easier. See more details in Root cause levels paragraph within the Triage section. - We strongly believe that the importance of a quick response in emergency cases is unmeasurable. This is why we added the new
has_emergency_evidence
flag in/diagnosis
. This flag informs about the high seriousness of reported evidence. It is a helper for the purpose interrupting interviews in emergency cases. See more details in Stop recommendation paragraph within the Diagnosis section. - We improved the algorithm of suggest for
red_flags
to better detect most common emergency cases.
February 1, 2021
API 3.2
February 2021 welcomes us with new changes. Our team hasn't slown down and we've made some technical improvements to our API. We've laid the groundwork for our future updates but, most importantly, we refreshed our suggest algorithms. The new implementation of /suggest
endpoint in symptoms
mode will cover a wider range of cases, as well as make it faster and more accurate. The changes do not require any actions from the API user for now, but stay tuned!
November 26, 2020
API 3.1
November is almost over, and we introduced some significant changes to our platform. One of them is Specialist Recommender, a new powerful feature, enabling healthcare providers to enrich digital pre-diagnosis and triage processes.
- We added an endpoint for recommending the most relevant specialty of the physician and appropriate consultation channels. See more details in Specialist recommender section.
- We added a new mode in
/suggest
endpoint to return common risk factors given patient demographics. See more details in Relevant risk factors paragraph within the Suggest related concepts section. - The red flags can be now used alternatively in
/suggest
endpoint with{"suggest_method": "red_flags"}
. We recommend using the/suggest
endpoint, since/red_flags
has been deprecated. See more details in Red flags paragraph within the Suggest related concepts section. - More condition details in
/diagnosis
are returned with an extra parameterinclude_condition_details
. See more details in Include condition details section. - The “common_name” field in
/symptoms
and/risk_factors
is not null anymore. - Endpoint
/search
returns correctly filtered concepts in misspelling.
October 27, 2020
API 3.0
In API v3, we introduced a few significant improvements that require the adaptation of your application.
- We significantly improved the reasoning algorithm. It outperforms the previous algorithm in terms of diagnostic and triage accuracy. Now, a more relevant ranking is returned.
- We added the age dimension to our models, which requires a new request format. Moreover, the
age
attribute becomes mandatory in/parse
,/suggest
and GET requests. Additionallysex
parameter will be mandatory in/suggest
. - Requests with age under twelve years old will not be accepted anymore.
- A new
/concepts
endpoint was introduced to return basic data about symptoms, risk factors, lab tests betaLab tests are still in development and will be available soon., and conditions. See more details in the Concepts section. - A new option in the
extras
collection:enable_explanations
was introduced in/diagnosis
. The purpose of this option is to provide additional descriptions of selected questions to make them easier to understand for users. See more details in the enable_explanation section. - A new option in the
extras
collection:enable_third_person_questions
. This option allows you to create an interview scenario in which users can answer questions on behalf of someone else, e.g. "Does she have a headache?" See more details in the enable_third_person_question section. - The endpoint
/rationale
will return an empty response when there is no result for the request. Previously it returned a 400 error code and an error message. See more details in the Rationale section. - 5-level triage recommendation will become the default one. If you’d like to continue using 3-level triage, you need to add the
extras
option:enable_triage_3: true
See more details in the enable_triage_3 section. - Diagnoses ranking is limited to the most relevant conditions by default. The
extras
optionenable_adaptive_ranking: true
is no longer supported. See more details in the Disable Adaptive Ranking section. - Flags
initial
andrelated
that occur with evidence in POST requests are no longer supported. They are replaced by thesource
attribute. See more details in the Indicating Evidence Source section. - Request parameter
type
in/search
is replaced with parametertypes
which can handle multiple values separated by a comma. - Endpoint
/lookup
is removed.
August 18, 2020
API 2.5
Most of the changes were related to technical and infrastructure improvements.
- We shortened the maximal length of the interview in
/disable_groups
mode. - Triage “consultation” is now recommended in case no diagnosis was found.
- Since this version, you could check which API version is already deployed via
/info
endpoint.
July 14, 2020
API 2.4
The last two months were productive in our team. Check the new update - it's a breaking change!
- [BREAKING CHANGE] We introduced an evidence attribute called
source
which allows you to describe the exact stage of the interview at which given evidence was reported. Attributesinitial
andrelated
get deprecated. Read more in Indicating evidence source. - With new extra parameter
enable_adaptive_ranking
, you are able to limit diagnostic ranking to most relevant diagnoses worth displaying to the user. Read more in Adaptive ranking. - Last but not least, the endpoint
/suggest
is fixed, so you are able to filter desirable results accurately.
January 17, 2020
API
- Our NLP service (
/parse
endpoint) now accepts text input that is 2048-characters long. This may help you better understand your users’ health concerns. - We’ve released a new version of our Python client (opens in a new tab) that supports
/red_flags
and/rationale
enpoints.
October 10, 2019
API
We've released a new version of our triage algorithm, which in addition to the ranking of possible conditions, puts more emphasis on the symptoms reported by the patient. This will also allow the upcoming content release to include new, more fine-grained triage levels for more meaningful recommendations.
January 16, 2018
API
- Now, question selection algorithm prioritizes risk factors (e.g. being post-menopausal). As a result, some conditions are excluded.
- We’ve improved stop recommendation algorithm.
- We’ve fixed bugs that prevented mentions of some common symptoms from being properly captured by
/parse
. - Lastly, we're working on a German language support for
/parse
. Beta version will be available soon!
December 4, 2017
API
We're happy to share two new features with you.
- Have you ever wondered when is the good moment to stop asking further diagnostic questions? We've introduced our stop condition recommendation that you can use to end interviews when enough information is collected.
- Our question selection algorithm can now better focus on the initial symptoms reported by a user. All chief complaints and reported observations should now be marked as initial evidence. This is an important change that you should implement for the optimal performance.
September 4, 2017
API
We continue to improve already existing features:
- Question selection algorithm – Enhanced for risk factors related to injuries.
/search
endpoint – We've rewritten phrase matching algorithm. The endpoint now returns more accurate results, especially in Chinese (due to better tokenization)./suggest
endpoint – We analyzed our statistics once again and, as a result, recommendations have become better.
Jul 14, 2017
API
We are introducing common names, one new endpoint and more:
- The API now returns both
name
(professional medical term) and newcommon_name
(plain language) – for most of the symptoms and many conditions. - The new
/suggest
endpoint returns related symptoms. It allows you to simplify the initial data entry by suggesting other symptoms that patient may have. - The
/search
endpoint was improved to work better with languages using diacritical marks (e.g. Spanish). - NLP understands common risk factors.
May 10, 2017
API
We profiled crucial parts of our code and achieved meaningful performance improvements. A significant focus has been put into improving question selection strategy for conditions strongly associated with a particular risk factor (e.g. skeletal trauma).
March 23, 2017
API
We've introduced important enhancements to our underlying reasoning engine:
- The algorithm may now ask about risk factors such as chronic conditions (e.g. diabetes), events (e.g. injuries) and activities (e.g. mushroom consumption).
- Improved sequencing of questions to better differentiate between conditions.
- Improved triage recommendations as they were initially too restrictive.
February 15, 2017
API
We're exited to introducte the new endpoint. It's called /triage
and it allows you to assess the severity level of reported symptoms. We published a brand new section in the documentation describing all details.
January 17, 2017
We're excited to begin this year with a major update of the Infermedica API.
API
Improvements of the reasoning algorithm and request processing.
- More flexible question selection which is now less depended on pre-fixed logic.
- Better filtering of likely conditions.
- Solved a bug causing null questions to be returned on rare occassions.
- Better error handling.
- Introduced various techniques to prevent data-scraping (malicious actions against the API are obviously prohibited).
- More scalable and reliable server infrastructre in two fail-over locations.
November 21, 2016
We’re constantly improving. From now on we’re going to post all changes here. All updates are divided into two groups:
- Model – all changes affecting the medical concepts (conditions, symptoms, risk factors and lab testsbetaLab tests are still in development and will be available soon.). We’ll let you know what has been added, deleted or updated.
- API – all amendments in the Inference Engine and other algorithms.
Check out what’s new and update your application’s code, if necessary.