Artificial Intelligence Diagnoses Abuse

[Are_grits_groceries]

A broken bone one day, a particular infection a few months later and depression the following year may appear to be separate, medical issues.

However, to a new artificial intelligence program developed by Boston doctors, these are all symptoms of domestic abuse.

The new software can identify abuse victims up to six years before these cases would otherwise be found and could eventually be used to diagnose just about any disease or injury.

<snip>
Dozens of studies over the last 40 years have correlated various illnesses, injuries and other conditions with abuse. Bruising to the middle of the forearm or the core of the body instead of the elbow or knee can signal abuse. Depression or alcoholism may also be symptoms of this condition.

The new program takes all of these studies and puts them in one place. Before a doctor even consults with a patient, the software will alert the doctor about the likelihood of abuse in a particular case using a color-coded system.

It would then be up to the doctor whether to treat the patient as a victim of abuse.

To create the artificial intelligence program, the CHB doctors used six years of data from more than 560,000 patients ages 18 years and older.

<snip>
"By the time someone is identified as abused, the abuse has generally gone on for a long time," said Sege. "This is really powerful. If I had this with particular patients, I would be aware of the possibility and ask them more detailed questions or tell them about the kinds of services we provide."

<snip>
Electronic health records are the lynchpin of the artificial intelligence system, according to both Reis and Sege.

Abuse victims often seek medical treatment at different locations for each injury to avoid detection. Each hospital or doctor keeps separate patient records but often fail to share those records.

Keeping one, consolidated electronic record of a patient activity would enable the software to detect abuse.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/10/26/artificial-intelligence.html

Muh.... Interesting....

[Dogtown]

1. I see much potential for "abuse" of the system.

I distrust the concept of "central files" for *any* reason.