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How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Doctors More Human
In a new book, a prominent cardiologist argues that A.I. could fix our broken health system — if we get it right
Technology has helped cardiologist Eric Topol save lives. While on an airplane several years ago, a flight attendant asked if there was a doctor on board—a man was suffering from chest pain at 30,000 feet. Topol was able to obtain an electrocardiogram from the man by using a heart activity–reading gadget that attached to his smartphone, made by the medical device company AliveCor.
“It turned out to be a big anterior heart attack I could see right on my smartphone,” says Topol, director and founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in San Diego. “I had to tell the folks to land the plane. He wound up doing pretty well.”
Although Topol used his smartphone to conduct the ECG, it wasn’t an algorithm that led to the man’s diagnosis; it was Topol’s years of knowledge as a cardiologist. The technology could complete the test, but without Topol to interpret the results, it would have been useless. “It was me, the human algorithm,” he says.
“It’s vital that this time we get it right, because we’ll likely never have another opportunity…
