Performance of national COVID-19 ‘symptom checkers’: a comparative case simulation study (8 March 2021)

Summary

In this study, Mansab et al. examine the COVID-19 community triage pathways used by Singapore, Japan, USA and UK, specifically comparing the safety and efficacy of national online ‘symptom checkers’ used within the triage pathway.Their results suggest that whilst ‘symptom checkers’ may be of use to the healthcare COVID-19 response, there is the potential for such patient-led assessment tools to worsen outcomes by delaying appropriate clinical assessment. The key features of the well-performing symptom checkers are discussed in the paper.