Medical industry splits over Aussies backing Google

A study by Australian researchers that claims Google is good enough for complex medical research has split medical information users in two. Information professionals accept that Google has become the first port of call for information-searching, but some members of the medical community are outraged by the claim.

A team of doctors at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane conducted searched on 26 cases. The team, led by Dr Hangwi Tang, found that in 15 cases the search engine came up with the right diagnosis. They described the results in a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine as a “useful aid”.

Three-to-five search terms were selected for each medical case and the Google search was carried out without prior knowledge of what the correct diagnosis would be.

Robert Kiley, head of systems strategy at the Wellcome Library, part of the Wellcome Trust, was sanguine about the research. “It reflects the reality of the world we live in – that we tend to start with Google.” But he also defended Google. “There is a lot of credible information on the web, [much of which] is evidence-based.”

Caroline De Brun, information scientist at the National Library for Health in Oxford, told the British Medical Journal (BMJ) forum, “This study, although focusing on making diagnosis rather than finding evidence to support treatment choices, has been very thought-provoking.”

Dr Tang’s research upset many, and more so when the BMJ published the findings. “I am surprised BMJ editors let the authors get away with the statement, ‘Arguably, everything could be found on the web, if only one knew the correct search terms,’” said Pam White, library service manager at the West Dorset General Hospitals NHS Trust. Another former peer reviewer described the results as showing a “poor correct diagnostics rate”.

Joseph Britto, clinical director of Isabel Healthcare, a UK evidence-based healthcare system, said, “Google’s accuracy of 58% is less than that achieved by older generation, rule-based diagnosis decision-support systems.”

http://content.nejm.org

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