Diagnosis is a classification task: a patient has symptoms, the symptoms map to a list of possible conditions, the clinician selects the best label. This is an appealingly simple way to define how medicine works and in many cases, it’s good enough. In others, quite inadequate. Diagnosis can be straightforward – when the patient presents …
Loud music: the new smoking If you join an exercise class at your local gym, one thing will probably strike you immediately – loud music with a thumping bass, and an even louder instructor. The strike isn’t metaphorical. Noise physically damages one of the human body’s most delicate and precious structures: the inner ear. Many …
Insights from Scandinavia for better, safer hospitals External inspection for quality seems straightforward: set standards, assess hospitals against them, then performance should improve. But three Scandinavian countries – Denmark, Norway and Sweden – show a divergence of philosophies and practices behind that idea. Norway’s DNV model applies systems-oriented, ISO-based accreditation internationally. Denmark ended its national …
If a treatment came along that reduced surgical complications by up to 30%, lowered error rates, and decreased mortality, while also reducing burnout, depression and staff turnover, we would rush to adopt it. If it was simple, cheap and without side-effects, its popularity might rival the latest GLP-1 agonist. The “treatment” actually exists but isn’t …
A HIDden free treatment that improves outcomes for patients and staff Read More »
Artificial intelligence is starting to take on parts of the scientific process that once seemed out of reach – automated analysis of complex data, hypothesis generation, even the drafting of full scientific reports. One system, Kosmos, compresses months of exploratory research into a single overnight run. What is Kosmos? Kosmos is an “AI scientist” capable …
AI and aesthetics; being human and looking human The first warning came from my mother, a trained musician and lifelong lover of classical music. I played her a short piano piece I had “composed” using AI, expecting she’d appreciate the artful imitation of Bach or Mozart. She listened, admitted it was clever, but had clearly …
Two Stories, One Dilemma A 52-year-old non-smoking accountant books a comprehensive health scan. He feels well, has no symptoms, and attends mostly because a colleague recommended it. The CT scan shows a small lung nodule. It’s biopsied and turns out to be an early cancer. Surgery removes it completely. He returns to work a month …
China is running enormous experiments with Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the clinical encounter. But how well do these systems actually perform? Are they safe for patients? I look for evidence and discuss what countries like SA should take from China’s rapid healthcare AI rollout. Why China is Pursuing Autonomous AI China’s drive toward autonomous AI …
Evaluating China’s push into autonomous Clinical AI Read More »
When the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed in March 2024, headlines focused on the enormous scale of the disaster: six lives lost, a major port paralysed and a reconstruction bill estimated at $5 billion. Behind the tragedy is a story for healthcare. Image: NTSB https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20251118.aspx Investigators have traced the initial failure on the …
The $5 billion lesson: how one loose wire brought down a bridge Read More »
Human + AI: Winning Team? In 2009, Charles Friedman articulated what he called the “Fundamental Theorem of Informatics”: a person working in partnership with an information resource is better than that same person unassisted. For decades, this has been a bedrock principle of biomedical informatics. It’s a simple idea: computers augment human capability. A calculator …
