The potential of collective intelligence in emergency medicine.
Measuring and addressing diagnostic error remains challenging. A prior study showed that when providers had similar individual diagnostic accuracy rates, pooling their assessments led to improved decision accuracy. This computer simulation study analyzed 1710 diagnoses provided by 285 medical students for 6 simulated patients presenting to the emergency room. Investigators found that pooling independent assessments led to enhanced diagnostic accuracy as compared to the average independent assessment, further supporting the idea that collective intelligence may help prevent diagnostic error.