Physician- and Patient-Elicited Barriers and Facilitators to Implementation of a Machine Learning–Based Screening Tool for Peripheral Arterial Disease: Preimplementation Study With Physician and Patient Stakeholders
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is underdiagnosed, partially due to a high prevalence of atypical symptoms and a lack of physician and patient awareness. Implementing clinical decision support tools powered by machine learning algorithms may help physicians identify high-risk patients for diagnostic workup. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to evaluate barriers and facilitators to the implementation of a novel machine learning-based screening tool for PAD among physician and patient stakeholders using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR). METHODS: We performed semistructured interviews with physicians and patients from the Stanford University Department of Primary Care and Population Health, Division of Cardiology, and Division of Vascular Medicine. Participants answered questions regarding their perceptions toward machine learning and clinical decision support for PAD detection. Rapid thematic analysis was performed using templates incorporating codes from CFIR constructs. RESULTS: A total of 12 physicians (6 primary care physicians and 6 cardiovascular specialists) and 14 patients were interviewed. Barriers to implementation arose from 6 CFIR constructs: complexity, evidence strength and quality, relative priority, external policies and incentives, knowledge and beliefs about intervention, and individual identification with the organization. Facilitators arose from 5 CFIR constructs: intervention source, relative advantage, learning climate, patient needs and resources, and knowledge and beliefs about intervention. Physicians felt that a machine learning-powered diagnostic tool for PAD would improve patient care but cited limited time and authority in asking patients to undergo additional screening procedures. Patients were interested in having their physicians use this tool but raised concerns about such technologies replacing human decision-making. CONCLUSIONS: Patient- and physician-reported barriers toward the implementation of a machine learning-powered PAD diagnostic tool followed four interdependent themes: (1) low familiarity or urgency in detecting PAD; (2) concerns regarding the reliability of machine learning; (3) differential perceptions of responsibility for PAD care among primary care versus specialty physicians; and (4) patient preference for physicians to remain primary interpreters of health care data. Facilitators followed two interdependent themes: (1) enthusiasm for clinical use of the predictive model and (2) willingness to incorporate machine learning into clinical care. Implementation of machine learning-powered diagnostic tools for PAD should leverage provider support while simultaneously educating stakeholders on the importance of early PAD diagnosis. High predictive validity is necessary for machine learning models but not sufficient for implementation.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.043 | 0.102 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".