7. Several hospitals are introducing or considering the introduction of an intelligent bedside assistant that provides physicians and staff with a patient’s medical record database for diagnosis and prognosis. The system supplies any information required from the patient’s medical records, makes diagnoses based on symptoms, and prescribes medications and other treatments. The system includes an ES as well as a DSS. The system is intended to eliminate some human error and improve patient care. You are a hospital administrator and are very excited about the benefits for the patients. However, when you called a staff meeting, the following questions were raised: What if the system malfunctions?

What if there is an undetected error in the program or the rules? The system, once implemented, takes full responsibility for patient care because physicians rely on it. A loss of data or an error in the program may lead to disaster. For example, suppose there is a bug in the database program, and, as a result, a critical piece of information is missing from the patient’s record. A physician who relies on the system could prescribe a drug on the basis of incomplete data.

The consequence of this mistake could be life threatening.

Another possibility is that some of the rules in the knowledge base might not be accurate for all patients. Would you implement such a system? Why or why not?