• by Elizabeth H. Elfenbein , Columnist, June 7, 2018

Historically, diagnosing a disease was a human’s job—the physician’s. Today, it’s become a hybrid of man plus machine. And while it sounds rather cold and lacking empathy, one has to argue that where the world of diagnosis is going, it’s a matter of necessity. With more and more rare diseases and rare forms of cancer emerging, the journey to diagnosis is never smooth.

Imagine a world where disease diagnosis is made by a machine with the physician signing off on it. That might just be disruption at its finest (although my father who was a pathologist might disagree). There’s incredible potential to change the way diseases are diagnosed and how physicians come to their clinical conclusions. 

Speed up the journey to diagnosis 

The consumer’s journey with their health begins with prevention, moves to diagnosis, then into treatment, and finally the push to drive adherence. This journey maps the patient’s healthcare experience from start to finish when dealing with their health. Technology has the ability to enable a better, more efficient journey offering solutions that understand the patient’s illness and give clinicians a new form of hope for diagnosing disease.

Diagnosis at the point of data 

Watson Health is leveraging big data, analytics, and mobile technology to help physicians, researchers, insurers, and patients—all to attain improved health outcomes. Using a cognitive computing system can help hasten doctors’ diagnoses of rare and undiagnosed illnesses by sifting through substantial medical records of complex cases, pulling out relevant information, and connecting the dots. The potential to shift from what has historically been a multi-year path to arrive at diagnosis to a fraction of that time just might be the difference between life and death. It also can give the physician confidence in their clinical decision. 

Supporting the journey to diagnosis around the world
At Memorial Sloan-Kettering, they’re using Watson's intelligence and natural language-processing feature as a reference tool to facilitate physicians' and nurses' access to cancer data. This offers the ability to cross-reference existing molecular and genomic data with the hospital's considerable archive of cancer case histories to generate a support system of outcome and evidence-based decisions. 

A remote diagnosis

Amazon is rumored to be getting into telemedicine. This is another way to deliver care and help ease the burden of diagnosis by giving people remote access to physicians with virtual care. Telecare from companies like American Well is exploding and has created another paradigm shift in care. Not only can virtual care support people in rural areas who are physically unable to get to a doctor, which they ultimately delay until they’re really sick, it’s also an alternative to sending employees to a physical office and thus has tremendous impact on reducing overall costs for the provider.

Surprise foray into diagnosis

Apple’s healthcare innovation doesn’t stop at prevention with three medical products in the works to help diagnosis: one for Parkinson’s disease and two for cardiac disease. This will enable managing devices and monitoring health data through the iOS platform, which could help improve diagnosis and more.

Empathy for the diagnosis experience

We cannot underestimate the power of machine learning to get to a proper diagnosis. What technology has accelerated with big data and AI is a more intelligent way to get under the hood quickly and support physicians’ ability to connect the dots of similar cases, as well as creating an evidence-based decision support system. This offers empathy to the physicians, who not only have the responsibility to provide the best care for the patient, but also have a frustrating journey to get to diagnosis, often feeling like they are unable to fulfill their care duties.