Harvard researchers: 'Absurdly outdated' medical education needs more emphasis on analytics

Love them or hate them, computers are becoming more ingrained in 21st century medical care. And in an increasingly data-driven industry, medical education hasn't kept pace. Physicians might curse their computers for sucking time away from patients or turning them into "data entry clerks," but computers aren't to blame, according to two health policy researchers from Harvard Medical School. As algorithms gradually outperform the human mind, clinicians need to place more emphasis on data science to get the most out of advanced analytics and machine learning that could have a significant impact on medical care care. "Today's medical education system is ill-prepared to meet these needs," Ziad Obermeyer, M.D., and Thomas H. Lee, M.D., who also serves as chief medical officer at Press Ganey, wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine.