Diagnosis is driven by probabilistic reasoning: counter-point

Uncertainty is involved in each and every step of the diagnostic process. Trying to eliminate doubt altogether is too costly, is likely to fail, and may lead to patient harm. Acknowledging this, the threshold approach aims to optimize diagnosis-making by adopting the explicit use of probability esti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inDiagnosis (Berlin, Germany) Vol. 3; no. 3; pp. 99 - 101
Main Author Cahan, Amos
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Germany De Gruyter 01.09.2016
Subjects
diagnosis in medicine
probabilistic reasoning
uncertainty
uncertainty
probabilistic reasoning
diagnosis in medicine
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Summary:Uncertainty is involved in each and every step of the diagnostic process. Trying to eliminate doubt altogether is too costly, is likely to fail, and may lead to patient harm. Acknowledging this, the threshold approach aims to optimize diagnosis-making by adopting the explicit use of probability estimates and by discouraging the pursuit of 100% certainty. Yet physicians are affected by cognitive biases which compromise their probabilistic reasoning and may lead to unreliable estimates. Health informatics tools helping to overcome human limitations by empowering physicians to handle probabilities are needed to increase the efficiency of diagnostic process.
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ISSN:2194-8011
2194-802X
DOI:10.1515/dx-2016-0019