eDIS-MED — Electronic Delirium Screening Tool for Medical Settings

What this tool is and how to interpret its evidence

eDIS-MED is a mobile delirium-screening concept adapted from eDIS-ICU for adult medical wards. The 2024 publication focused on face validity and content validity: whether intended users regarded the content and presentation as relevant and appropriate. It did not test sensitivity, specificity or patient outcomes against an independent delirium reference standard.

The adaptation matters because medical-ward patients differ from ICU populations in communication, mobility, arousal, illness trajectory and available observations. Expert and user review is an appropriate development step, but it cannot show whether a digital tool detects delirium accurately or improves care. Completion time, training burden, usability during routine workload, handling of dementia and sensory impairment, and performance across languages remain to be established in clinical cohorts.

eDIS-MED should be added only as an emerging version under the eDIS family. It should not enter the mature bedside-tool count and should carry no accuracy percentage. The page can describe the intended setting, digital format, relationship to eDIS-ICU and current evidence stage, then link to the source. It should avoid reproducing the app screens or operational content and should state what evidence is missing. Promotion to a core clinical version would require prospective diagnostic-accuracy testing and preferably external implementation research showing feasible and safe use.