What is Urgency AI? 
When a request is submitted by a patient Urgency AI flags the request as either:
- Urgent (orange flag - should be resolved within 48 hours) or
- Emergency (red flag - should be resolved on the same day).
You can read more about what these triage decisions mean here. Urgency AI's suggestions are meant to assist, not replace clinical judgment. You should therefore still triage and reply to all PATCHS requests ASAP.
How accurate is Urgency AI?
In a study of 19,805 requests submitted to PATCHS practices, Urgency AI correctly detected 94% of all urgent and emergency requests (this is called sensitivity).
What are the benefits of Urgency AI?
Without Urgency AI, initial triage decisions are usually made by receptionists. Advantages of PATCHS doing this instead are that it:
- Improves patient safety by speeding up triage decisions, helping urgent requests get reviewed quicker.
- Reduces workload by suggesting triage decisions instead of having to come up with them yourself.
- Improves triage accuracy because it's learned how to triage from hundreds of GPs using PATCHS.
- Reduces clinical risk placed on receptionists by supporting them to triage patients.
What should I do if I disagree with a suggestion from Urgency AI?
Urgency AI is primarily designed to be safe, and has therefore been built to make sure it doesn't miss any urgent requests. This means it will often suggest requests are urgent or emergency just to be on the safe side i.e. it has a high sensitivity. This can be difficult because clinicians often disagree with each other about whether a request is urgent or not.
If you disagree with the urgency suggested by Urgency AI you should change the urgency yourself when making your triage decision. Because PATCHS is always learning, this will help it correct mistakes in future.
