IV. Clinical Consultation Systems Medical Decision Support Systems and Clinical Research Data Bases: A. Medical Decision Support and Artificial Intelligence Methodologies: Bayesian Classification in Medicine: The Transferability Question

摘要

Using probabilities derived from a geographically distant patient population, we applied Bayesian classification to categorize stroke patients by etiology. Performance was assessed both by error rate and with a new linear accuracy coefficient. This approach to patient classification was found to be surprisingly accurate when compared to classification by two neurologists and to classification by the Bayesian method using “low cost” local and subjective probabilities. We conclude that for some medical problems, Bayesian classification systems may be significantly more transferable to new sites than is generally believed.