Software Diagnosis and Quality

According to a 2003 study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, at least one in 12 patients who die were diagnosed incorrectly. While doctors face some hard to diagnose cases, will turning to technology to bridge this gap make a difference in these numbers, or healthcare quality? Younger doctors are more comfortable with technology and are ready to rely on it. As the doctors from the baby boom retire, will automated diagnosis become more the rage?

Other businesses use software to automate business processes, but we have to question how these same processes are used in medicine, especially for diagnosis. If anything, depending on softare for diagnosing a patient confuses the issue of responsiblity. When there's a wrong diagnosis, who's responsible, the doctor, hospital, software manaufacturer? Should diagnostic software be used only for those cases that are hard to diagnose or easy to diagnose? Will the be capable of learning like doctors? What about a software bug that misdiagnoses a disease that leads to the wrong treatment? What's the role of peer review when diagnosis, and perhaps even treatment, is automated?

The diagnostic use of software raises lots of questions. A Jan. 4 ScienceLine article, "Doctor’s Diagnosis, Version 2.0" touches on some of these questions. -MM