Intake

What is Intake?

Intake is an intelligent workflow designed to enhance patient onboarding and support care processes through the collection of a patient’s medical data - including their medical history, allergies, and other relevant data - ahead of their medical visit. It processes medical data information by using scientific evidence and the most up-to-date standards of care to provide healthcare professionals with insights about a patient's symptoms and potential conditions before their visit. By streamlining the data transfer into clinical workflows and simplifying Intake surveys, this workflow improves patient-physician communication, reduces administrative tasks with automated notes, and supports clinical decisions by recommending triage levels and probable conditions. This tool prepares patients for their visits, eases the workload of doctors, and fosters collaborative dialogue between physicians and patients.

Key steps described within this workflow (survey):

1. User creation
2. Patient creation
3. Survey creation
   a. Demographics
   b. Risk factors
   c. Visit reason
   d. Initial symptoms
   e. Symptoms assessment
   f. Medical history collection
4. Next steps

How to create an Intake workflow

To create an Intake workflow with Platform API, we need to start by creating a user and a patient, which are the fundamental entities necessary to link a survey to a specific user/patient.

Steps to creating an Intake survey:

1. Creating a user

A user represents an individual who interacts with the Infermedica platform.

Example request:

curl "https://api.infermedica.com/api/mgp/v1/users" \
  -X "POST" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <ACCESS_TOKEN>" \
  -d '{
  "email": "user@example.net",
  "phone": "+498999998999"
}'

Available attributes:

• email - user email
• phone - user phone number

More information on creating a user can be found here.

2. Creating a patient

A patient is an entity representing a person's medical information within the Infermedica system. Each Intake survey is linked to a patient. The data provided during patient creation directly affects the questions that appear in each survey.

Example request:

curl "https://api.infermedica.com/api/mgp/v1/patients" \
  -X "POST" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <ACCESS_TOKEN>" \
  -d '{
  "sex": "male",
  "age": {
    "unit": "year",
    "value": 20
  },
  "evidence": [
    {
      "id": "s_98",
      "choice_id": "present",
      "source": "initial"
    }
  ],
  "dependent": true,
  "user_id": "c599e21b-3795-4f02-a14e-b46884f8a0c9"
}'

Available attributes:

• dependent - is patient dependent on the user. The value true means that the survey created for this patient is completed by another person, like a parent or caregiver. For underage patients, dependent must be set to true - if provided initially, the question about dependent will be omitted
• sex - patient sex - if provided initially, the separate question about sex will be omitted
• age - patient age - if provided initially, the separate question about age will be omitted
• evidence - a patient's initial symptoms - If at least one initial symptom is provided, the patient won't be asked about providing initial symptoms in the survey. However, patients will be asked about when those symptoms appeared. This can reduce the number of questions about symptoms that the patient will be asked about later on in the survey
• user_id (required) - related user ID

More information on creating a patient can be found here.

3. Creating a survey

A survey is the interview process in which medical information about a patient is collected.

Example request:

curl "https://api.infermedica.com/api/mgp/v1/surveys" \
  -X "POST" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <ACCESS_TOKEN>" \
  -d '{
  "sections": [
    "risk_factors",
    "dynamic",
    "​​chronic_diseases",
    "specialist",
    "hospitalization",
    "allergies",
    "drugs"
  ],
  "visit_reason": [
    {
      "id": "symptoms"
    }
  ],
  "visit_date": "2024-04-22T11:51:14.198477",
  "expiration_date": "2024-04-22T11:51:14.198593",
  "specialist": "Example specialist",
  "type": "intake",
  "patient_id": "9702c05b-5871-4109-ae2a-82f8c9dad64c"
}'

Available attributes:

• sections - Survey questions sections that will be displayed during the interview. If no data is provided, all sections will be visible. If data is provided, the interview will include only the specified sections along with mandatory questions about sex, age, and dependents (if not provided during patient creation). The assignment of questions to specific sections is specified in the table in the below.
• visit_reason - survey visit reason - if provided, the question about visit reason will be omitted
• specialist - specialization of the doctor for whom the survey was created (informational purposes - returned in survey summary)
• visit_date - survey visit date information
• expiration_date - the expiry date of the interview, after which it will not be possible to complete it
• type (required) - survey type - intake
• patient_id (required) - related patient ID

More information on creating a survey can be found here.

Demographics

Basic questions that are the same for all patients. Demographic information is important for starting an interview and adapting questions to the appropriate age and sex groups.

• Dependent
• Sex
• Age
• Risk factors

Visit reason

A complimentary question about the reasons for an upcoming medical consultation.

• Visit reason

Symptoms assessment

This is the dynamic interview that is supported with AI-driven question generation. It starts by collecting the evidence. AI-based algorithms then analyze similar symptoms in Infermedica’s Medical Knowledge Base, check the interactions between them, and calculate the most probable conditions.

• Symptoms
• Related symptoms
• Evidence - answers to AI-generated questions during dynamic interview

Medical history collection

This is the static interview that contains sets of questions related to medical history.

• Chronic diseases
• Specialists
• Medications
• Hospitalizations
• Allergies
• Message to doctor

Summary of all of the questions within the Intake survey:

4. Next steps

This workflow is designed to support patients and physicians before and during the medical consultation. Collected data can be integrated with other systems, like patient accounts or doctor panels. Integration of data can differ depending on the solutions used at the given company and should be developed client-side.