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Quora has a nice set of answers about why machine learning isn't used so much in medical: https://www.quora.com/Why-isn%E2%80%99t-machine-learning-more-widely-

Quora has a nice set of answers about why machine learning isn't used so much in medical: https://www.quora.com/Why-isn%E2%80%99t-machine-learning-more-widely-used-for-medical-diagnoses https://www.quora.com/Why-isn%E2%80%99t-machine-learning-mor... Skip to Jae Won Joe's answer to see a case study with a patient showing the interactive process. Then, especially look at ending questions about missing or deceptive data. Seems like their good diagnoses comes from a combination of domain data and expertly reading people in front of them. Machines suck at the part I emphasized. The data sets might not reflect a lot of stuff like that, too. Who knows.

tosser1234 8y ago
This is a great run-down of the realizations that a lot of the engineering team came to and what I was trying to touch on in my reply above. There is just so much information & context within a doctor's head and so much that is going on during an examination that looks simple to our eyes. Even in the idealized case of having accurate, structured patient data and focusing only on a simple disease, it's a challenge to diagnose and prescribe a correct treatment. Even a system that can accept the text of a patient's medical record and successfully pull out relevant details would be challenge.
- treis 8y ago
  I think this article addresses the half the medical landscape where the problems are hard and computers are worse than humans at solving them. The other half is where the problems are "easy". Practices where Doctors spend ~5 minutes with each patient doing physicals and treating minor ailments. In that half doctors can already easily handle the problems so there's no real value add for a computer. It would take a paradigm shift before AI became useful. Going to watson.com and getting a prescription for antibiotics would be useful and technically feasible. So would augmenting lower trained people to be able to deliver more care. Neither are possible legally and it's not exactly a field you can get away with disregarding the law.
colejohnson66 8y ago
Direct link to the answer in question: https://qr.ae/TWT7Ee https://qr.ae/TWT7Ee

tosser1234 8y ago

This is a great run-down of the realizations that a lot of the engineering team came to and what I was trying to touch on in my reply above. There is just so much information & context within a doctor's head and so much that is going on during an examination that looks simple to our eyes. Even in the idealized case of having accurate, structured patient data and focusing only on a simple disease, it's a challenge to diagnose and prescribe a correct treatment. Even a system that can accept the text of a patient's medical record and successfully pull out relevant details would be challenge.

treis 8y ago
I think this article addresses the half the medical landscape where the problems are hard and computers are worse than humans at solving them. The other half is where the problems are "easy". Practices where Doctors spend ~5 minutes with each patient doing physicals and treating minor ailments. In that half doctors can already easily handle the problems so there's no real value add for a computer. It would take a paradigm shift before AI became useful. Going to watson.com and getting a prescription for antibiotics would be useful and technically feasible. So would augmenting lower trained people to be able to deliver more care. Neither are possible legally and it's not exactly a field you can get away with disregarding the law.

colejohnson66 8y ago

Direct link to the answer in question: https://qr.ae/TWT7Ee https://qr.ae/TWT7Ee