Atul Gawande wrote about 'non-human' tools in medicine [0]. He advocated using checklists but he has also written about other tools. One I remember was a flow chart to predict some sickness. It outperformed humans solidly.
The biggest problem with checklists, flow charts and software (one older example is MYCIN [1]) is adaption. If the medical practitioners don't want the systems they are going to fail. He also writes a lot about that in the book. He tried to introduce it into hospitals but the professionals often ignored the lists or just checked the boxes without actually checking the condition.
I personally imagine that a practitioner with a good system works the best or like Frederick P. Brooks said [2]:
> If indeed our objective is to build computer systems that solve very challenging problems, my thesis is that IA > AI that is, that intelligence amplifying systems can, at any given level of available systems technology, beat AI systems. That is, a machine and a mind can beat a mind-imitating machine working by itself.
The biggest problem with checklists, flow charts and software (one older example is MYCIN [1]) is adaption. If the medical practitioners don't want the systems they are going to fail. He also writes a lot about that in the book. He tried to introduce it into hospitals but the professionals often ignored the lists or just checked the boxes without actually checking the condition.
I personally imagine that a practitioner with a good system works the best or like Frederick P. Brooks said [2]:
> If indeed our objective is to build computer systems that solve very challenging problems, my thesis is that IA > AI that is, that intelligence amplifying systems can, at any given level of available systems technology, beat AI systems. That is, a machine and a mind can beat a mind-imitating machine working by itself.
[0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Checklist_Manifesto
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycin
[2]: http://www.cs.unc.edu/~brooks/Toolsmith-CACM.pdf