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0 pointsderefr16y ago0 comments

Why wouldn't it be "good"? If you can only remember the symptoms of 200 diseases, but the machine can remember 18000, why wouldn't it be net-beneficial to always input the symptoms into the machine, as well as performing whatever deductive diagnosis you do normally? Is it just because the UI of existing implementations is horrible?

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nkassis16y ago· 3 in thread

I thinks this is the whole point, were not just talking about making a wiki of disease but doing some analysis of the case and narrowing down the range of disease possible to something the doctor can analyse.

To the ../../post can you remember the name of one of these systems? it be interesting to see what it does and how it works. I don't believe what's out there is what I'm imagining.

EDIT: reread your post, I just found the side for that EPIC system (terrible name). http://www.epic.com/ The page doesn't inspire confidence in this system being of any quality or does what I am talking about.

starkfist16y ago

It does exactly what you're talking about. The quality is not good, but I don't know why anyone thinks the situation will improve. Countless careers have been wasted on expert systems, recommendation systems, and the like. The best minds doing this sort of thing will always be poached by wall street, where they still fail most of the time. However if it makes people feel better, most HMOs and managed care systems will start requiring their doctors to use such a system, if they don't already.

derefrOP16y ago

The problem is of expectations. We don't expect computers to write books (creativity is a Hard problem), but we do expect writers to use word processors.

Likewise, we shouldn't expect computers to deduce your ailment and prescribe treatment (critical thinking is also a Hard problem), but we should expect doctors to use computers to remember, search, and sort things for them: the things computers are good at.

We don't need the computer to think—we need it to help the doctor think. People should be working on that, not on systems to replace the doctors themselves.

nkassis16y ago

I understand what you are saying but I'm an optimist at heart. I don't think careers were wasted because most of what's out there is not very good. This stuff is hard to solve but after seeing things like wolfram alpha I can't help but wonder if these systems will improve soon. As for startup attempting this, it's a long shot but those are the ones that make money.

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