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A pilot of artificial intelligence telephone triage of patients with suspected head and neck cancer
  • +6
  • Katrina Mason,
  • Karen Young,
  • Kanishka Rao,
  • Mairead Kelly,
  • Ernest Lim,
  • Aishling Higham,
  • Nick de Pennington,
  • Sarah Little,
  • Enyi Ofo
Katrina Mason
St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Corresponding Author:katrina.mason2@nhs.net

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Karen Young
St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
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Kanishka Rao
St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
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Mairead Kelly
St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
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Ernest Lim
Ufonia Limited
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Aishling Higham
Ufonia Limited
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Nick de Pennington
Ufonia Limited
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Sarah Little
St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
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Enyi Ofo
St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
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Abstract

1. The overwhelming majority of patients referred into secondary care with suspected head and neck cancer (HNC) do not have cancer (~95%). 2. During the COVID-19 pandemic telephone triage of patients with suspected HNC was necessary. During this time, a validated HNC risk-calculator, HaNC-RC-v2 (a set of symptomatology-based questions) was recommended by ENT UK to stratify patients into high or low risk of having HNC via telephone triage [(1)](#ref-0001) 3. Ufonia, a digital health company which uses an Artificial Intelligence (AI) voice assistant to automate clinical conversations via telephone, and *INSTITUTION*, were awarded an SBRI Healthcare grant to help develop an AI-delivered HNC triage telephone call. This was based on the HaNC-RC-v2 and co-created with HNC patients from the Heads2Gether charity via round-table discussions and one-to-one sessions. 4. Twenty-nine patients underwent a clinician-supervised AI-delivered HNC triage conversation as part of their standard telephone consultation. 100% of calls were completed with an average agreement of 89% between the clinician and the AI system for all symptoms asked. The technology was highly acceptable to patients with a median net promoter score (NPS) score of 8 out of 10. 5. Novel technologies involving AI automated telephone calls can be generated to remotely triage suspected HNC patients. This technology may offer an exciting opportunity to help departments triage suspected HNC referrals in an ever increasingly resource pressurised NHS.
Submitted to Clinical Otolaryngology
07 Feb 2024Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
11 Feb 2024Editorial Decision: Revise Minor
23 Apr 20241st Revision Received
24 Apr 2024Submission Checks Completed
24 Apr 2024Assigned to Editor
31 Jul 2024Reviewer(s) Assigned
30 Aug 2024Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
06 Sep 2024Editorial Decision: Accept