Would You Rather See a Computer or a Doctor?

American ER doctors typically work 10-hour shifts, and during a normal shift they might see up to 30 patients. They have to take a medical history for each of those patients, order the right tests and follow the clues to make a diagnosis for each one. Then they have to come up with an appropriate treatment. These doctors are operating under a tremendous burden of “decision density,” meaning that they have to make a disproportionately large number of important decisions every hour. Given the circumstances, it’s a wonder they diagnose people correctly as often as they do. This episode of Freakonomics, MD explores the role that algorithms could play in medicine.