Research Studies | Infermedica
Peer-reviewed publications
Peer-reviewed research is essential for improving the quality, accuracy, and safety of healthcare technology. Here we present research papers that showcase the value and impact of Infermedica’s AI-powered solutions for healthcare professionals and decision-makers.
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Research Studies
Increased utilization of telemedical emergency and non-urgent care following deployment of virtual triage and care referral in Australia
Gellert et al. (2025)
Highlights
- Infermedica’s virtual triage nearly eliminates patient uncertainty, with a 99.6% reduction in patients who don’t know which level of care they need.
- Virtual triage decreased emergency care intent by 33%, steering patients to more appropriate care pathways.
- Infermedica’s solutions drive adoption of virtual care services, with the use of virtual ED services up from 0.6% to 8.8%.
- Virtual triage guides patients to the right level of care, increasing low-acuity intent from 21.3% to 52.9%
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Right care, right place, first time: How AI is improving national virtual front doors
Bettina McMahon, M.B.A. and Daniel McInerney, M.Tax. (2025)
Highlights
- Infermedica’s AI-powered triage addresses the limitations of non-AI-based triage protocols by improving both the personalization of triage and the quality of acuity assessment.
- Implementation of Infermedica’s virtual triage has improved self-assessment completion rates by 71%—from 49% to 84%.
- Infermedica improves health system efficiency without compromising patient safety. 55% of consumers who initially intended to attend the ED are diverted to lower-acuity settings.
- Infermedica reduced overtriage by 46% compared to Healthdirect Australia’s legacy CDSS.
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Impact of virtual triage and care referral on patient care seeking intent and clinical acuity alignment in an Australian health plan: A cross-sectional study
Gellert et al. (2025)
Highlights
- Infermedica Triage saves health insurers up to $284.55 per encounter for patients who initially intend to seek emergency care.
- 35.7% decrease in emergency care intent by those using Infermedica’s virtual triage.
- Infermedica’s solutions successfully guide users to care for themselves at home, increasing self-care intent by 56.5%.
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Using AI-based virtual triage to improve acuity-level alignment of patient care seeking in an ambulatory care setting
Infermedica, Reliant Medical Group, OptumHealth (2024)
Highlights
- 35% of patients changed their care-seeking behavior after guidance from Infermedica’s AI-driven solutions.
- Infermedica Triage drove a 12.5% decrease in video and in-person consultations.
- When Infermedica’s virtual triage recommended de-escalation of care, 53% of patients complied.
- 19.1% increase in patient engagement through secure messaging and telephone calls.
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Impact of integrated virtual and live nurse triage on patient care seeking and health care delivery effectiveness and efficiency
Infermedica, Médis (Grupo Ageas Portugal), (2024)
Highlights
- Infermedica’s virtual triage altered member care-seeking behavior in 83.9% of interactions.
- 22.8% of members changed the level of care they intended to seek after using VT-informed nurse triage implemented by Infermedica and Médis.
- 62.2% of those who changed intent de-escalated to lower-acuity care (telemedicine or self-care).
- 20% of interactions took place outside of regular operating hours, Infermedica’s virtual triage directed 48.4% of these cases to lower acuity care.
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Impact of AI-supported triage systems on emergency department management: A comparison of Infermedica, Emergency Severity Index, and Manchester Triage System
Boğa, Erkan (2026)
Highlights
- Infermedica’s AI triage was associated with 61% lower odds of in-ED mortality compared to the Manchester Triage System.
- Complication rates were lowest with Infermedica (4%), compared to 7% with ESI and 10% with the Manchester Triage System.
- Infermedica triage achieved the highest average satisfaction score, with patients reporting an average score of 9/10 compared to 7/10 for Manchester triage.
- Infermedica’s solution demonstrated more balanced resource utilization, indicating improved operational efficiency in emergency departments.
- The study analyzed a large cohort (~18,000 patients), showing consistent clinical and operational advantages of AI-supported triage over standard systems.
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The potential of virtual triage AI to improve early detection, care acuity alignment, and emergent care referral of life-threatening conditions
Gellert et al. (2024)
Highlights
- Examining how virtual triage can help to detect life-threatening symptoms and align care-seeking intentions with risk factors.
- 76% of users with symptoms of a heart attack didn't plan urgent care help.
- 33.5% of users with symptoms of investigated acute conditions hadn’t planned medical consultation before completing virtual triage.
- Infermedica’s virtual triage could save lives in 2 in every 1000 cases.
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A multinational survey of patient utilization of and value conveyed through virtual symptom triage and healthcare referral
Gellert et al. (2023)
Highlights
- 80.1% of patients indicated substantial overall satisfaction with the experience and value delivered by Infermedica solutions.
- 80% of users indicated they will use virtual triage in the future.
- Infermedica’s symptom assessment decreased uncertainty in regards to necessary care in 25% of cases.
Proven across borders: How AI triage transformed patient behavior in a diverse Middle Eastern health plan
Gellert et al. (2025)
Highlights
- 37.6% of patients change the level healthcare services they use following guidance from Infermedica’s AI-based solution.
- Infermedica virtual triage successfully redirected 9.3% of outpatients to self-care.
- Infermedica helps to reduce avoidable care utilization and improve digital member engagement.
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A comparative performance analysis of live clinical triage using rules-based triage protocols versus artificial intelligence-based automated virtual triage
Gellert et al. (2023)
Highlights
- Infermedica and Schmitt-Thompson produced zero critical mis-triage situations — cases where an “emergency” is identified as “self-care.”
- Infermedica provides triage advice as safe as Schmitt-Thompson.
- Infermedica collects 4x more patient initial symptoms than Schmitt-Thompson for more data-driven assistance.
- Infermedica provides reliable and accurate results and increases triage levels in case of risk factors (especially for children).
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Preserving clinical judgment in the age of generative AI
Irving Kent Loh, Piotr Orzechowski (2026)
Highlights
- Generative AI has significant potential to support healthcare—improving diagnostics, personalizing treatment, automating workflows, and reducing clinician burnout.
- Designing AI to augment clinicians’ reasoning and preserve clinical judgment is essential for safe and effective adoption.
- The most trustworthy approach to healthcare AI is hybrid “neuro-symbolic” systems that combine generative AI interfaces with transparent, probabilistic clinical reasoning while keeping humans accountable for medical decisions.
Virtual triage reporting of mental health symptoms in Europe prior to and following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
Gellert et al. (2025)
Highlights
- Ukrainian users utilized Infermedica’s virtual triage to report mental health symptoms, which saw a rise of 11.6% after the start of the conflict.
- Infermedica’s virtual triage tool received a 158.7% increase in reports of suicidal thoughts/intent among Ukrainians.
- Ukrainian users reporting sleep disorders to virtual triage increased by 45.7%.
- Infermedica’s virtual triage is an effective vehicle for enhancing the detection of mental health symptoms and accelerating care referral.
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AI-based virtual triage and telemedical health care for Ukrainian war refugees and displaced persons
Gellert et al. (2025)
Highlights
- Infermedica’s virtual triage proved invaluable in scaling mental health support to displaced Ukrainians—there were twice as many encounters as expected for the population size.
- Displaced persons reported more mental health concerns than the general population (28% vs. 16%), demonstrating the demand for mental health support during a crisis and Infermedica’s ability to provide it.
- Infermedica’s virtual triage provides effective care continuity when traditional pathways are blocked or overwhelmed.
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How virtual triage can improve patient experience and satisfaction: a narrative review and look forward
Gellert et al. (2023)
Highlights
- Delivery of earlier and faster care can help to improve the patient experience.
- Virtual triage can reduce a patient’s need to visit a medical facility for low-acuity conditions.
- Virtual triage can divert primary care patients away from emergency departments to clinically appropriate outpatient settings.
- Virtual triage enhances clinical effectiveness and care referral.
- Virtual triage is an opportunity for providers to make patient healthcare experiences more personalized.
The role of virtual triage in improving clinician experience and satisfaction: a narrative review
Gellert et al. (2023)
Highlights
- Virtual triage improves the clinician experience by leveraging real-time data, streamlining communications, personalizing case delivery, optimizing care coordination, and better aligning digital services with clinical practice.
- Healthcare organizations benefit from virtual triage by increasing the clinical impact of telemedicine and virtual care.
- Virtual triage helps to minimize administrative burden for better organizational efficiency.
An analysis of virtual triage utilization by pregnant women prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic
Jaszczak et al. (2024)
Highlights
- The COVID-19 pandemic significantly influenced the use of virtual triage by pregnant women.
- In the first six months of 2020, there was an increase in pregnant users of 213%.
- The percentage of pregnant users grew from 0.32% in the first half of 2019 to 0.85% in late 2021.
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The quality of diagnosis and triage advice provided by free online symptom checkers and apps in Australia
Highlights
- Symptomate has the highest accuracy results:
- 77% correct possible conditions listed in the top 3 results.
- 61% correct possible conditions listed as first.
- 81% correct possible conditions listed in the top 10 results.
Assessing the safety of a new clinical decision support system (CDSS) for a national helpline
Nirvana LUCKRAJ, Renee STRAZZARI, Enrico COIERA and Farah MAGRABI (2025)
Highlights
- Healthdirect improved triage accuracy by 9% by implementing Infermedica’s virtual triage for nurse call centers.
- Infermedica’s nurse triage co-pilot reduced overtriage by 46% compared to the previous CDSS.
- Infermedica’s solution was proven to be as safe as the previous system.
Mental health symptom reporting to a virtual triage engine prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic
Gellert et al. (2024)
Highlights
- Virtual triage usage surged by 160% from the pre-pandemic to the post-vaccine period, reflecting growing reliance on and demand for digital health tools during disruption to global healthcare services.
- 20% of users reported at least one mental health symptom.
- Virtual triage is effective in detecting and referring mental health issues, demonstrating scalability for early care.
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Diagnostic accuracy of web-based COVID-19 symptom checkers: comparison study
Highlights
- A good balance between sensitivity and specificity achieved only by two symptom checkers – COVID-RA by Infermedica and Symptoma.
- Infermedica and Symptoma were ranked at the top in terms of the accuracy for COVID-19 evaluations.
Virtual care to increase military medical centre capacity in the primary health care setting: a prospective self-controlled pilot study of symptoms collection and telemedicine
Highlights
- 85.8% of patients were satisfied with the virtual care experience.
- 85.7% of patients agreed that the symptom checker was easy to use.
- Both patients and physicians felt that the symptom checker allowed for clearer and faster consultations.