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?
This sort of thing does exist, but the reason you don’t see it so much, is that its generally too imprecise, and too prone to error. For example, let’s say you’re trying to assess something related to abdominal pain. Is the pain on the left, centre, or right, or multiple? Is it closer to the front, back, or both? How does the pain feel? Etc. Etc. Etc. Thats a lot of questions, all of which can significantly affect the likelihood of different diagnoses, and which may be somewhat subjective. At the same time, people can’t be trusted to fill out the survey accurately (intentionally or not), getting worse the longer and more complicated it is. On the other hand, going through a doctor, you can in theory, assess symptoms more naturally and flexibly, while confirming their accuracy so insurance/government isn’t spending on (supposedly) unnecessary procedures.