ArticlePLOS digital health2023
ePOCT+ and the medAL-suite: Development of an electronic clinical decision support algorithm and digital platform for pediatric outpatients in low- and middle-income countries.
Article in PLOS digital health, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 20 citations in OpenAlex.
- A digital health algorithm to guide antibiotic prescription in pediatric outpatient care: a cluster randomized controlled trial.Nature medicine · 2024Trial
- Acceptability, Usability, and Perceived Quality of Care of a Digital Decision Support System in Tele-Primary Health Care in Sindh, Pakistan: Sequential Explanatory Mixed Methods Pilot Study.JMIR formative research · 2026Article
- Article
- Resources consumption and environmental impacts of the DYNAMIC digital health intervention aimed at improving quality of care for sick children in Tanzania: a life cycle assessment.Frontiers in digital health · 2026Article
- medAL-suite: A software solution for creating and deploying complex clinical decision support algorithms.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2025Article
- Article
- Development and implementation of a digital clinical decision support system to increase the quality of primary healthcare delivery in a refugee setting in Chad.BMC primary care · 2025Article
- ePOCT+ Rwanda: A Clinical Decision Support Algorithm For Managing Sick Children Below 15 Years of Age in Primary Healthcare Settings.Rwanda journal of medicine and health sciences · 2025Article
- The Tools for Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (TIMCI) study protocol: a multi-country mixed-method evaluation of pulse oximetry and clinical decision support algorithms.Global health action · 2024Article
- A cluster randomized trial assessing the effect of a digital health algorithm on quality of care in Tanzania (DYNAMIC study).PLOS digital health · 2024Article
- Implementation of a Clinical Decision Support System for Antimicrobial Prescribing in Sub-Saharan Africa: Multisectoral Qualitative Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Information and Communication Technology to Enhance the Implementation of the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Mayo Clinic proceedings. Digital health · 2024Review
- Impact of digital clinical decision support on quality of care and antibiotic stewardship for children under five in South-Central Somalia.Oxford open digital health · 2024Article
- Digitalizing Clinical Guidelines: Experiences in the Development of Clinical Decision Support Algorithms for Management of Childhood Illness in Resource-Constrained Settings.Global health, science and practice · 2023Article
- Modular Clinical Decision Support Networks (MoDN)-Updatable, interpretable, and portable predictions for evolving clinical environments.PLOS digital health · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
36 authors at 14 institutions in 7 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Electronic clinical decision support algorithms (CDSAs) have been developed to address high childhood mortality and inappropriate antibiotic prescription by helping clinicians adhere to guidelines. Previously identified challenges of CDSAs include their limited scope, usability, and outdated clinical content. To address these challenges we developed ePOCT+, a CDSA for the care of pediatric outpatients in low- and middle-income settings, and the medical algorithm suite (medAL-suite), a software for the creation and execution of CDSAs. Following the principles of digital development, we aim to describe the process and lessons learnt from the development of ePOCT+ and the medAL-suite. In particular, this work outlines the systematic integrative development process in the design and implementation of these tools required to meet the needs of clinicians to improve uptake and quality of care. We considered the feasibility, acceptability and reliability of clinical signs and symptoms, as well as the diagnostic and prognostic performance of predictors. To assure clinical validity, and appropriateness for the country of implementation the algorithm underwent numerous reviews by clinical experts and health authorities from the implementing countries. The digitalization process involved the creation of medAL-creator, a digital platform which allows clinicians without IT programming skills to easily create the algorithms, and medAL-reader the mobile health (mHealth) application used by clinicians during the consultation. Extensive feasibility tests were done with feedback from end-users of multiple countries to improve the clinical algorithm and medAL-reader software. We hope that the development framework used for developing ePOCT+ will help support the development of other CDSAs, and that the open-source medAL-suite will enable others to easily and independently implement them. Further clinical validation studies are underway in Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya, Senegal, and India.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.