Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41054600›Full record

ArticleThe quarterly journal of economics2022

DIAGNOSING PHYSICIAN ERROR: A MACHINE LEARNING APPROACH TO LOW-VALUE HEALTH CARE.

Sendhil Mullainathan, Ziad Obermeyer

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in The quarterly journal of economics, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
28citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

28 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Language-based game theory in the age of artificial intelligence.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2024
    Pooled it
  2. Trial
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. The Health Costs of Cost Sharing.The quarterly journal of economics · 2024
    Article
  13. Feedback Loop Failure Modes in Medical Diagnosis: How Biases Can Emerge and Be Reinforced.Medical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making · 2024
    Article
  14. Article
  15. Review
  16. Inherent Bias in Electronic Health Records: A Scoping Review of Sources of Bias.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2024
    Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Sendhil MullainathanUniversity of Chicago, Booth School of Business.
Ziad ObermeyerUC Berkeley, School of Public Health.

Funding

Understanding and Improving Healthcare Decision-Making and Outcomes for People Living with Alzheimer's Disease and Related DementiasP01AG005842 · NIA · NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH · PI Katherine Baicker · 1986 to 2026
$56.5M
Unexpected death after medical encounters: Measurement, reporting, and analysisDP5OD012161 · OD · BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL · PI OBERMEYER, ZIAD · 2012 to 2016
$1.6M
NIA NIH HHS P01 AG005842NIH HHS DP5 OD012161
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

How effective are physicians at diagnosing heart attacks? To answer this question, we contrast physician testing decisions with a machine learning model of risk. When the two deviate, we use actual health outcome data to judge whether the algorithm or the physician was right. We find physicians over-test: tests that are predictably useless are still performed. At the same time, physicians also under-test: many predicted high-risk patients are untested and then suffer adverse health events (including death) at high rates. A natural experiment using shift-to-shift testing variation confirms these findings: increasing testing improves health and reduces mortality, but only for patients flagged as high-risk by the algorithm. The simultaneous existence of over- and under-testing cannot easily be explained by incentives alone, and instead suggests errors. We provide suggestive evidence on the psychology behind these errors:(i) physicians use too simple a model of risk, suggesting bounded rationality; (ii) they over-weight salient information; and (iii) they over-weight symptoms that are representative or stereotypical of heart attack. Together, these results suggest the need for health care models and policies to incorporate not just physician incentives, but also physician mistakes.

Identifiers

PMID41054600
PMCPMC12497445

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceTDM
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.