Intelligent health care information systems: are they appropriate?

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) in health care has had a long history of great promise. Striking success has been claimed in areas such as computer aided diagnosis, although contradictory evidence has also appeared. The progression toward intelligent decision support systems (IDSS) appears to be a logical, and perhaps inevitable, one. The author, however, is not convinced that IDSS is an appropriate technology at this stage in the development of health care systems. The concern is that IDSS may not encourage good software development practice. The enthusiasm for delivering mechanisms of AI may seriously detract from the mundane, but essential, tasks of ensuring: match with user and organisational requirements, good design, reliability, robustness, maintainability, and scaleability. The author recommends the increasing use of DBMS technology for health care ISs before IDSS is considered further