cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/questions/p/1480838/why-did-no-one-ever-think-about-automating-diagnosis-in-healthcare-instead-of-being-depe
In a lot of health problems, the first steps involve listing symptoms and matching it as needed with blood tests, x-ray and other tests to finally lead to diagnosis and treatment. most if not all of the process could be automated to save time and get the best treatment.
To be clear: The automation I am talking about could be just an online symptoms form that give you the tests you need to have before deciding what to do.
In practice: This could be for example a person suffering from low vitamin D levels. Instead of visiting a doctor to order a blood test and then return to the doctor to prescribe him vitamin D, all that could be:
Filling online symptoms form(with pre-written symptoms database to select from) ➩ visiting any blood tests lab ➩ getting a vitamin D prescription.
Why didn’t any hospital or healthcare facility apply this?
At the broadest level, what you are describing already exists. It’s called a “pharmacy” here in the US, and generally includes both a selection of medicines with an acceptinly low risk of harm and diagnostic equipment that can be accurately used without formal training.
For a more electronic example, there have been numerous attempts to augment what used to be a purely manual profession over the years. Several of these are adapted and incredibly useful – any doctor I see can view a shareable electronic record of my treatment, prescriptions are electronically transmitted to a pharmacy, and there are even custom interfaces for electronically checking standards of treatment or insurance coverage.
What you won’t find in general availability are “virtual doctors” that combine an inquiry as to your problem and an application of potential solutions, because humans are absurdly complicated ongoing chemical reactions whose communication is absurdly unreliable.
Or, to put it another way: a lot of people are trying, but it’s a hell of a lot harder than you imagine.