Providing Timely and Relevant Information

[The solution]…is called NxOpinion.  It's a real-time diagnostic tool that provides timely and relevant information to help physicians diagnose nonchronic illnesses.  Designed for trauma care, NxOpinion is divided into stabilization and treatment categories and will offer different responses to medical professionals based on their situation and resources: university hospitals with extensive resources, rural hospitals with limited resources, and locations in developing countries that may lack labs and specialists….

When determining an appropriate diagnosis, NxOpinion also takes into consideration the skill level of the medical professionals using the program….  Users create profiles the first time that they use the program, specifying their location type, language, and preferences.  The subsequent treatment options that they are offered reflect those parameters.

NxOpinion is the first medical diagnosis and treatment software to use… [a probabilistic inference engine] to lead users through a series of questions in order to arrive at a diagnosis and proposed treatments.  The Microsoft Research department's Dr. David Heckerman, an expert on Bayesian decision theory, is advising the development team on… algorithms for the continuing development of the diagnostic engine.  The program also uses synonyms for symptoms for the benefit of medical professionals who may not know or frequently use a given medical term.  For example, the program will recognize the medical term diaphoresis as well as the synonym sweating to describe a symptom.