Professor Payam Barnaghi, Imperial College London

Clinical decision-making involves healthcare professionals gathering information and expertise to make patient care decisions, such as for diagnosis or treatment. This process uses evidence, guidelines, patient history, symptoms, test results, and clinicians’ experience. However, access to information and expertise varies across settings.

This complexity is magnified in rare conditions, where patients often face long diagnostic waits, leading to challenges in coping and limited relief from treatments. Diagnosis provides some comfort but leaves questions unanswered about long-term impacts and treatment options due to limited case information.

This research aims to develop a patient-centered approach to accelerate complex case diagnoses and provide comprehensive information for patients, families, and clinical teams. It uses electronic healthcare records to build machine learning models, enabling personalised digital consultations. The approach will be developed and tested at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, extending its applicability to other specialties and clinical settings