Improving the Accuracy of Artificial Intelligence Triage in Primary Care

NCT07237919 | Recruiting

• 2 other identifiers: 3407767hzfm
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 226,821
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

WHY ARE WE DOING THIS? When patients contact their GP practice, the first step is to work out what kind of help they need and how quickly it's needed. This is called 'triage' and is important for patient safety. Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help make triage faster. While AI is already being used in the NHS, we don't know how accurate it is or if it treats all patients fairly. WHAT WILL WE DO? We will collect anonymised data from patients that use an AI triage system called Patchs in GP practices in England. The project will last four years. We will analyse the data in four steps:

1. 1.Look at data from GP practices using Patchs without AI triage to see how they currently triage patients and what problems they face.
2. 2.Use data from GP practices using Patchs (both with AI on and off) to make the AI triage more accurate.
3. 3.Check data from GP practices using Patchs with AI triage off to measure how well the updated AI system works.
4. 4.Give the improved AI triage system to GP practices already using AI.

Conditions

Primary Care; Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• F1 score

  F1 score of each AI triage module (harmonic mean of its precision and recall)

  From enrollment to the end of the study, anticipated to be 4 years

Study Arms (2)

AI triage

EXPERIMENTAL

GP practices using AI triage

Other: AI triage

No AI triage

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

GP practices not using AI triage

Other: No AI triage

Interventions

AI triage OTHER

Patchs AI automates parts of the triage and workflow process for GP practices when any patient uses the Patchs online consultation system. It is intended to assist, not replace human decision-making. Patchs AI aims to reduce GP practice workload by minimising manual tasks and improve patient safety by helping patients receive appropriate care sooner. Patchs AI uses information about the patient and their online consultation to suggest an urgency, clinical topic, staff role, and mode to conduct the consultation. Based on these suggestions it can provide patients with relevant health information, ask questions to elicit further information, and/or advise them to contact alternative care providers. Suggestions from Patchs AI can be accepted or rejected by GP practice staff and patients, which is used to monitor its safety and re-train the system.

AI triage

No AI triage OTHER

Use of the Patchs system with no AI triage i.e. manual triage only

No AI triage

Eligibility Criteria

• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Child (0-17), Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• GP practices using the Patchs system

You may not qualify if:

• N/A

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Manchester: lead
• University of Cambridge: collaborator

Study Sites (1)

NHS GP practices

London, United Kingdom

RECRUITING

Related Links

• Related Info

Central Study Contacts

Benjamin C Brown, MRCGP, PhD

CONTACT

+44 161 306 9966; benjamin.brown@manchester.ac.uk

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NON RANDOMIZED
• Masking: TRIPLE
• Who Masked: PARTICIPANT, INVESTIGATOR, OUTCOMES ASSESSOR
• Purpose: HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Chief Investigator

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: September 19, 2025
• First Posted: November 20, 2025
• Study Start: April 1, 2025
• Primary Completion (Estimated): April 1, 2029
• Study Completion (Estimated): July 1, 2029
• Last Updated: November 20, 2025

Record last verified: 2025-11

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

GB (1)