Computers Shown To Be Better Than Docs At Diagnosing, Prescribing Treatment

Lucas123 writes "Applying the same technology used for voice recognition and credit card fraud detection to medical treatments could cut healthcare costs and improve patient outcomes by almost 50%, according to new research. Scientists at Indiana University found that using patient data with machine-learning algorithms can drastically improve both the cost and quality of healthcare through simulation modeling.The artificial intelligence models used for diagnosing and treating patients obtained a 30% to 35% increase in positive patient outcomes, the research found. This is not the first time AI has been used to diagnose and suggest treatments. Last year, IBM announced that its Watson supercomputer would be used in evaluating evidence-based cancer treatment options for physicians, driving the decision-making process down to a matter of seconds."

Comments

Drug Companies doing away with doctors

[anthony_greer]

This sort of thing is just what big pharma wants, no human interaction and careful consideration, just a pill dispenser...symptom a + symptom B == Pill 2...
How much you wanna bet this thing always prescribes expensive non generic drugs and never tries the 50-70 year old known treatments that are usually the first steps in treatment before new expensive drugs are prescribed.

Also, anyone notice the change in medical advertising and communications, they never say "ask your doctor" any more, its ask your prescriber, or ask your provider...like they want to dis-intermediate doctors and are getting the public ready.

It's just another tool

[TheCrazyMonkey]

And will the system consider the patients age/cost to treat/insurance level/likelihood of patient paying future insurance premiums to make up for expenses?

It will if you program it to. Things like this are tools. As a relatively young doctor (resident) I welcome things like this. Every doctor I know uses reference material, some are printed on dead trees and some are electronic. Today, there's not much difference. But the point it is that there's too much medical knowledge for one person to keep it all in their head at one time. If something like this were to come to market it wouldn't be replacing doctors, it would be augmenting them. Machines do what we tell them to, always have and (hopefully) always will. False rivalries like this completely miss the point. I would love to have a computer algorithm that could correctly diagnose 99% of the time even if it were flagrently wrong the other 1%. That's why humans are in the loop.

Re:It's just another tool

[quantumghost]

As an attending physician, I have several issues with this article.

A) the slashdot title is a little sensationalistic....never did TFA mention diagnosis without a physician in the loop.

B) by what standards was the final diagnosis discovered (i.e. the gold standard)? Another physician? Another program? Was the trial blinded?

C) this article mentions only one disease process - depression, I fail to accept, blindly, that their results can be extrapolated - that is the crux of medical versus scientific research....see D. Not all diagnoses are obtained by just talking with a patient, in fact short of a psychiatric diagnosis, most require a physical exam....and a competent one. Suppose someone is obviously malingering and complaining about abdominal pain....this system would not pick up on malingering and would likely recommend an operation....a totally wrong diagnosis.

D) this is a retrospective study...in medicine, this is not adequate proof of effectiveness.....you need to perform a prospective trial, preferably with randomization and blinding to adequately prove your hypothesis for treatment. Actually, upon re-reading TFA...it was _simulations_ that were performed. This is hardly world class evidence.

E) cost savings were mentioned, but not long term outcomes....who cares if I saved 75% in the cost of treatment if the patient didn't get better in the end. (yes, short term were noted, but anyone who's ever been on long term therapy knows that the short term does not dictate the long term outcome.

F) In life threatening situations - those that require the most expedient decisions, often with less than complete information, this system would be useless because the patient would die in the time it takes you to input the facts.

G) not all situations are cut and dry. I am often consulted to make decisions about patients that are not addressed in any book. In fact, there may be only 1 or 2 journal articles about the problem, and often there are none. Making a decision treatment in the absence of an established precedent is not going to be one of this systems strengths...."Oh, I'm sorry, I can't help you....I just got the blue-screen of death from the program that was supposed to diagnose you!"

H) would this program tolerate patient autonomy? What happens when the patient refuses some or all of the initial treatment plan?

So, while I point out flaws, it is not to say that this is totally without merit....I am merely pointing out the obvious short coming of this article. In certain fields this could be very advantageous.

I will tell you that in my field, this computer program borders on useless. There is very little doubt about what my diagnosis is, and when I am in doubt, my best evidence is collected by doing something. And computers are really a long way away from matching my skill set. A lot of my diagnosis is made by touching the patient during the physical exam. That exam can completely revamp my decision that started based on the history. And, since I am the one performing procedures, I also would not have a machine dictate the exact method that I use - I am the one performing the operation, I do it the way that I know will result in a safe and effective outcome. In my case, I just don't really don't know what this system would provide to me for patients.