A Boston hospital is using a super computer that collects and analyzes patient data, allowing it to predict when they will die, according to BBC News. Each patient at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center can be linked up to the super computer, allowing it to make suggestions as to what's wrong with them prior to doctor diagnosis.
The hospital claims that the computer can predict death with almost 96% accuracy, according to the Huffington Post.
"If the computer says you're going to die you probably will die in the next 30 days," Steve Horng, a doctor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said.
Although the ability to know when you're going to die seems scary to some, the computer offers the benefit of catching diseases that doctors miss. Given the computer's ability to record blood pressure and oxygen levels every three minutes, it can diagnose patients faster than doctors and calculate disease likelihoods.
"For example this computer thinks that this patient has a 99% chance of having some sort of chest pain and they only have 26% of having heart failure," Horng said.
The computer contains information on over 250,000 patients from the past 30 years, allowing it to increase its accuracy as more data is gathered, according to WND. Despite this increase in accuracy, it is not likely to replace the necessity of real doctors.
"It is really about augmenting doctors' ability to take care of patients," Horng said.
