Rationalizing Medical Work: Decision-Support Techniques and Medical Practices

Marc Berg, MIT Press, $30, pp 256 ISBN 0 262 02417 9 Three decades of research into computer aids for medical decision making have resulted in thousands of systems and a growing number of successful clinical trials; yet only a handful of applications are in everyday use. This striking failure has led some to question the basis for this research. Any system which corrects medical decision making must be built around an idea of “rational” practice. Marc Berg's monograph discusses changing ideas of rational or scientific medicine, and then explores how computer systems based on these different …