Like many industries, healthcare has been impacted by technology in ways that were previously unimaginable. Today, heart attacks are diagnosed and treated in record times, people can monitor their blood pressure and even their ECG from their smartphones, and patients can get a rough idea of their potential diagnosis by entering a few symptoms in a computer database before seeing a doctor.

But has this age of technology pushed the role of the physician to the side? A recent research letter published early online in JAMA Internal Medicine argues that their role is far from over in diagnosing patients.

The researchers disseminated 45 vignettes to internal medicine, family practice and pediatric physicians to which they were to determine differential diagnoses for each case. The vignettes were compared to a diagnostic symptom checker called Human Dx.

The physicians were able to list the correct diagnosis first far more often compared to the symptom checker (72 percent vs. 34 percent). The physicians were also able to list the top three diagnoses 84.3 percent of the time compared to 51.2 percent by the symptom checkers. Of specific interest, the physicians were more likely to list correct diagnosis for high-acuity vignettes and in the uncommon vignettes, demonstrating their ability to critically think all reasonable scenarios.

Despite the physicians' superior results, there still were incorrect diagnoses in approximately 15 percent of the cases, which is the same as other reported estimates. Clearly, this confirms some deficit in the ability of the human mind to foresee all possible scenarios or, in this case, diagnosis. The authors of the study suggest practitioners may benefit from a team approach — physician and tool — when attempting to identify a correct diagnosis.

As medicine continues to test the boundaries of how technology can assist in patient care, it is clear that technology cannot replace the complex, artful thinking that goes into the proper diagnosis of a patient. The human will still be needed to properly care for the human in need — continuing the "care" in healthcare.

Healthcare providers cannot be ignorant to the fact that patients have more information at their fingertips to be better educated about their health. However, they still lack the education, training and experience of their provider, which cannot be replaced by an algorithm.

So, now when a patient comes in to be seen and starts the conversation with, "I just looked this up online and I think I have this!", you can remind them the physician is still the best to decide, but be thankful they are involved in their care.