Newswise — Pneumonia diagnoses are marked by pronounced uncertainty, an AI-based analysis of over 2 million hospital visits has found. More than half the time, a pneumonia diagnosis made in the hospital will change from a patient’s entrance to their discharge—either because someone who was initially diagnosed with pneumonia ended up with a different final diagnosis, or because a final diagnosis of pneumonia was missed when a patient entered the hospital (not including cases of hospital-acquired pneumonia). The study describing the new results publishes August 6 th in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Barbara Jones, MD, MSCI, pulmonary and critical care physician at University of Utah Health and the first author on the study, found the results by searching medical records from more than 100 VA medical centers across the country, using artificial intelligence-based tools to identify mismatches between initial diagnoses and diagnoses upon discharge from the hospital. More than ten percent of all such visits involved a pneumonia diagnosis, either when a patient entered the hospital, when they left, or both. “Pneumonia can seem like a clear-cut diagnosis,” Jones says, “but there is actually quite a bit of overlap with other diagnoses that can mimic pneumonia.
” A third of patients who were ultimately diagnosed with pneumonia did not receive a pneumonia diagnosis when they entered the hospital. And almost 40% of initial pneumonia diagnoses were later revised. The study also.