Kevin Leicht, PhD, a sociology professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Mary Stapel, MD, a physician at Peoria, Ill.-based OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, are collaborating on software designed to alert clinicians to medical misinformation trending on social media.
The software intends to use machine learning, data mining, information filters and other methods to identify and identify false medical information, according to a Dec. 15 OSF HealthCare news release.
The project is funded by Discovery Partners Institute and a $100,000 Jump Arches grant.
"If we can even get ahead of that — and know what information is circulating and start feeding out more accurate information ahead of time through our community partners — that really could be a game changer when we're thinking about things like pandemics and infectious disease," Dr. Stapel said in the release.