University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Is there a Doctor in the Crowd? Diagnosis Needed! (for less than $5)

Cheng, James; Manoharan, Monisha; Zhang, Yan; Lease, Matthew

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/73637

Description

Title
Is there a Doctor in the Crowd? Diagnosis Needed! (for less than $5)
Author(s)
  • Cheng, James
  • Manoharan, Monisha
  • Zhang, Yan
  • Lease, Matthew
Issue Date
2015-03-15
Keyword(s)
  • health informtics
  • information technology and work
  • distributed work
Date of Ingest
2015-03-24T16:07:01Z
Abstract
We investigate the feasibility of crowd-based medical diagnosis by posting medical cases on a variety of crowdsourcing platforms: general and specialized volunteer question answering sites, and pay-based Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and oDesk. To assess the crowd’s ability to diagnose cases of varying difficulty, three sets of medical cases are considered. While volunteer channels proved ineffective for us, we discuss design limitations and opportunities for improvement. In contrast, Mechanical Turk workers without medical training not only correctly diagnosed easy cases, but also a previously unsolved case from CrowdMed involving extensive patient details. Likely due to varying expertise, MTurk workers and oDesk health professionals also differed in their willingness to provide uncertain diagnoses, diagnosis rationales, and reliance on personal experience with a disease to diagnose it.
Publisher
iSchools
Series/Report Name or Number
iConference 2015 Proceedings
Type of Resource
text
Genre of Resource
Conference Paper / Presentation
Language
English
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/73637
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2015 is held by the authors. Copyright permissions, when appropriate, must be obtained directly from the authors.

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iConference 2015 Papers PRIMARY