healthcare research

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How Can Open Source Projects Support Themselves in Health Care?

High prices and poor usability hasn't driven the health care industry away from megalithic, proprietary applications. What may win the industry over to open source (in addition to the hope of fixing those two problems) is its promises of easy customization, infinite flexibility, extensibility, and seamless data exchange. As we will see, open platforms also permit organizations to collaborate on shared goals, which appeals to many participants. But if open source projects can't charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for installation as their commercial competitors do, how will they pay their developers and hold together as projects? This article compares three major organizations in the open source health care space: the tranSMART Foundation, Open Health Tools (OHT), and Open mHealth. Each has taken a different path to the universal goal of stability.

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To Err Is Human, To Diagnose Artificial Intelligence is...?

A new study found that physicians have a surprisingly poor knowledge of the benefits and harms of common medical treatments.  Almost 80% overestimated the benefits, and two-thirds overestimated the harms.  And, as Aaron Carroll pointed out, it's not just that they were off, but "it's how off they often were." Anyone out there who still doesn't think artificial intelligence (AI) is needed in health care? The authors noted that previous studies have found that patients often overestimate benefits as well, but tended to minimize potential harms.  Not only do physicians overestimate harm, they "underestimate how often most treatments have no effects on patients -- either harmful or beneficial"...