Google Health Search Trial (GHST)

Johns Hopkins University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Diagnoses Disease

Treatments: Other: Standard Search; Other: Health Search

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Industry

Identifiers

NCT03073746

IRB00088552

Details and patient eligibility

About

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.

Enrollment: 300 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

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)

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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300 participants in 3 patient groups

Health Search

Experimental group

Description:

Access to Health Knowledge Panels and Symptom Search Tool.

Treatment:

Other: Health Search

Standard Search

Experimental group

Description:

No access to Health Knowledge Panels and Symptom Search Tool, but access to prior version of Google search.

Treatment:

Other: Standard Search

No Search

No Intervention group

Description:

No access to Health Knowledge Panels, Symptom Search Tool, prior version of Google search, or mobile device.