Clinical Decision Support Systems: The Uses of Technology for Medical Decision Making.

Abstract

Decisions made by medical practitioners rely on large amounts of knowledge, attention to detail, and problem-solving abilities, and have significant impact on patients’ quality of life. Over the past sixty years, technology that assists humans in utilizing corpuses of knowledge to make informed and accurate decisions has developed and shown to have positive impact. The use of technology in the medical industry has also evolved significantly during that time period. This paper explores the evolution of technology-assisted decision making in the medical industry and discusses its potential for future impact, its limitations, and its ethical ramifications. (From Introduction)