Medical artificial intelligence constructs AI programs that perform diagnosis and give recommendations. AI programs use models of diseases and clinical manifestations.

Current expert systems are more likely to be used in clinical laboratories. After the first expectations for artificially intelligent diagnostic programmes, many such systems are not in use with few excxeptions. Yet there are challenges in developing such systems, they actually prove to be reliable and accurate (Shortliffe, 1987).

Diagnosis

Symptoms are complaints or problems bringing a patient to a health care provider.

Understanding the significance of symptoms can be crucial. Headache and nausea can represent be manifestations of common conditions: flu, depression, or migraine. They may also be more ominous , such as brain tumors, metastases, ruptured aneurysms or hydrocephalus. Abdominal symtpoms may be triggered by such varied conditions as indigestion, gallstones or gastric cancer.

Symptoms may be chronic or acute, suddenly or progressive. The important thing to remember, is that understanding the underlying cause of your symptoms may be crucial. Education of patients improves the chance of obtaining the right diagnosis and correct treatment.


The modern hospital > Specialized health- and medical-care facilities > Extended health care

With the advance in medical science and the ever-increasing cost of hospital operations, the progressive-care concept is more attractive, both for outpatient and inpatient care. Progressive care can be divided into five categories: (1) intensive care, (2) intermediate care, (3) self-care, (4) long-term care, and (5) organized home-care programs. Two of the categories, self-care and home-care become overwhelmengly important.

References

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Alvarez RC. The promise of e-Health - a Canadian perspective. eHealth Int. 2002 Sep 17;1(1):4.

Robot Surgeon.

Shortliffe EH. Strategic action in health information technology: why the obvious has taken so long. Health Aff (Millwood). 2005 Sep-Oct;24(5):1222-33.
Doupi P, Hamalainen P, Ruotsalainen P. eHealth in Europe: towards higher goals. World Hosp Health Serv. 2005;41(2):35-9, 41, 43.

Self-diagnosis tool Doctor Robot.

http://www.webmd.com/diseases_and_conditions/symptom_checker.htm

Alvarez RC. The promise of e-Health - a Canadian perspective. eHealth Int. 2002 Sep 17;1(1):4.

Expert systems: apply reasoning capabilities to reach a conclusion. An expert system can process large amounts of known information and provide conclusions based on them.

Case based reasoning

Neural networks: systems with very strong pattern recognition capabilities.

Fuzzy systems: techniques for reasoning under uncertainty, has been widely used in modern industrial and consumer product control systems.

England I, Stewart D, Walker S. Information technology adoption in health care: when organisations and technology collide. Aust Health Rev. 2000;23(3):176-85. Review.

Haux R. Health information systems - past, present, future. Int J Med Inform. 2005 Sep 15;