Charlie Rose Interviewing Medical Expert

Medical decision-making is a complex and shared human interaction (between patient and their care provider). Dr. Groopman has many insights into human cognitive processing and the impact of 'lean management' on medical care/health outcomes. Time, along with accurate and sufficient data,'right' logic and balanced judgement, is helpful in most decisions people make. His comments about human behavior is mission critical, but I would challenge us to think about achieving better medical outcomes in terms of team medicine-communication, meaningful use of software decision support, and shared responsibility between MD and the care team, IT vendors/support, and patients/family. Our highest risk environments (for error, etc) require innovative re-design of interactions between people, information processing, and meaningful expectations of patients/consumers, care teams, payors, and lawyers-policymakers.

Question for you, Al -- If you're making a supercomputer that offers reliable and error-free decision support for doctors and healthcare teams/networks, what do you advise the team leader to request from their manager/supervisor to support a culture of safety, learning, and responsible innovation? This is fascinating to apply to your current effort of promoting access to mobile health solutions/software apps that are culturally appropriate and condition-specific. You will also have to imagine what scenarios will be best to delegate to patients with their favorite iPhone app and which will require the physical presence of caring and skilled human agents (e.g. doctors, nurses, etc) in a safe, monitored environment e.g. hospital, ICU, Emergency dept, or outpatient clinic.

Also, have you read "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell ... he gives more insights into limitations of rapid cognition. Everyone, not just doctors, would benefit from reflecting on what happens when they take short cuts in thinking, mastering anything, and jumping to quick conclusions about how others make errors.