Dr Xiang Ling

Symposium 2
Beyond the Black Box: Unlocking Real Value of AI and Big Data for the Everyday Clinician 
17 April 2026, 1100 - 1230hrs, Room L1-S3

Presenting Title:

Developing an AI-enhanced Symptom Appraisal Tool for Early Diagnosis of Autoimmune Rheumatic Diseases
Poor symptom appraisal is present in both patients with autoimmune rheumatic diseases (ARDs) and non-rheumatologist healthcare professionals, characterized by unawareness and misinterpretation of one’s own symptoms and consequent delayed help-seeking and inability to recognize specific symptoms and signs and consequent delayed referral, respectively. It is a primary cause of diagnostic delay in ARDs, a long-standing issue worldwide, and results in poor patient outcomes. We have therefore planned a series of studies to enhance symptom appraisal in these two populations. For patients (and more broadly, symptomatic individuals in the general population), we developed a novel symptom appraisal tool, Symptom Testing for Autoimmune RheumaTic diseases (START), and building on this, an AI-enhanced version (START AI 1) to 1) assist the individuals in completing START and 2) refine START based on their feedback. For non-rheumatologist healthcare professionals, we plan to develop START into START Plus for use as a rheumatology referral decision-making tool to aid their referral decisions, by incorporating specific features of ARDs identified by AI. START and START Plus can potentially complement each other to shorten the diagnostic delay among patients with ARDs by empowering symptomatic individuals in the general population to seek help early and directing non-rheumatologist healthcare professionals to refer patients with possible ARDs to rheumatologists early, respectively.