Bridging the Communication Gap in Healthcare: A Symptom Pre-Fill API for Better Consultations

By Angie Yang, 2025

Introduction: The Healthcare Challenge

Miscommunication is a common issue in everyday life, in the case of healthcare, it can have serious consequences. In clinical settings such as general practice, telehealth, and urgent care, accurate communication between patients and healthcare professionals is critical for safe and effective diagnosis and treatment.

One of the most important steps in any consultation is collecting information about a patient’s symptoms. However, this process can be disrupted when patients struggle to describe their symptoms clearly, or when time constraints prevent doctors from asking detailed follow-up questions.

This can result in:

Example of Doctor and Patient Miscommunication:

Example of miscommunication between doctor and patient
Figure 1. Example of miscommunication between doctor and patient. Adapted from OUP Accepted Manuscript (2021)

The challenge lies in patients’ understanding of how to describe and measure their symptoms. Often, they spend extra time trying to answer general medical questions, which can lead to delays and reduce the time healthcare professionals have to focus on more critical aspects of patient care.

To help address these issues, I propose building a Symptom Pre-Fill API, a backend tool that allows patients to enter key health information before their consultation. This system would support clinicians (including GPs, nurses, and specialists) by providing structured, relevant symptom data ahead of time. The goal is not to replace human interaction, but to enhance it by giving doctors a clearer starting point and reducing repetitive questioning.

The Problem

In one study, researchers compared the symptoms patients wrote on intake forms with those doctors recorded during the consultation. Alarmingly, in one out of every three cases, at least one patient-reported symptom was not documented by the physician (Pakhomov et al., 2008). This kind of information loss is surprisingly common and can occur due to time pressure, unclear descriptions, or differences in how symptoms are expressed and interpreted.

While personal health tracking tools are becoming more popular, they are bringing their challenges. A 2014 study found that not all self-reported data is clinically useful, and physicians often need to filter through irrelevant information to find what truly matters (West et al., 2014).

When general practitioners (GPs) are rushed or must rely on incomplete or misunderstood patient input, it can lead to:

As noted in the RACGP’s Clinical Information System guide:

“High-quality health records support good patient care and facilitate:
• safe clinical decision making
• effective communication between health professionals
• trusting partnerships with patients
• coordination and continuity of care.”
— The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP)

These issues highlight a clear need for better tools that are able to support accurate, structured symptom reporting to improve communication, reduce the cognitive load on both patients and doctors, and ultimately lead to better outcomes.

Attempted Resolution: The Symptom Pre-Fill API

To address the communication gap between patients and healthcare providers, I developed a backend Symptom Pre-Fill API. This tool helps the patients to enter structured symptom data (e.g. pain severity, duration, affected areas) before their consultation. The goal is to provide doctors with concise, relevant health information in advance, helping them better prepare for and focus on the in-person discussion.

This approach offers a balance between efficiency and clinical accuracy, without replacing the human interaction that is central to medical care.

Key Features

Technical Implementation

The project was built using the following stack:

The API design follows RESTful principles, to integrate easily into future front-end interfaces or existing clinical information systems (CIS). It includes endpoints for creating, updating, and retrieving symptom data, all with secure request handling and validation.

API Example Diagram

The following flowchart illustrates how the Symptom Pre-Fill API serves both the patient and healthcare provider sides of the consultation process. Patients begin by submitting structured symptom data through a secure endpoint. This data is then stored in the backend database. Later, authorised medical staff can access this information using a secure, authenticated dashboard to review and prepare for the consultation.

API flowchart showing patient submission and provider review process
Figure 2: API flowchart showing how patients submit symptoms and providers retrieve them securely.

Ethical and Privacy Considerations

Handling sensitive patient data demands strict adherence to ethical standards and privacy regulations. The Symptom Pre-Fill API prioritises patient safety, data confidentiality, and compliance with healthcare laws with the following:

By integrating these principles, the API respects patient autonomy and privacy while fostering trust between patients and healthcare providers.

Skills Gained

This project helped me develop self-learning skills by completing an end-to-end coding solution using a programming language I had not used before. It was my first time working with TypeScript. While I initially struggled with type declarations and route handler syntax (e.g., needing to specify Promise<any>), I was able to debug and resolve these issues independently.

More importantly, I learned that real-world development requires collaboration, especially when designing tools for broad use in sectors like public health. I also became more confident using REST APIs, TypeScript typing, and Mongoose schemas.

Challenges and Future Work

There were several challenges I faced during this project:

In the future, I plan to:

References