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\u201cThere are many decisions in medicine often made by groups of people, and as we\u2019ve all experienced, with a large group of people\u2014no matter how educated or organized\u2014there is still a heterogeneous and ultimately not efficient way that we tend to fall to collective decisions,\u201d says Dr. Matthew Lungren, assistant professor of pediatric radiology at Stanford University Medical Center. He goes on to explain why this is, which seems to be in large part because of the power dynamics at play in face-to-face conferences or meetings; there are usually leaders or individuals with perceived power and authority over the others in the group, making truly collective decision-making efforts difficult to actualize\u2014whether or not anyone really notices it. But when patients' lives are on the line, can we really count on this method? It\u2019s the only one that\u2019s been used in medicine, and it seems to have been working for eons now, but does that mean it\u2019s the best method? Could it be improved in the name of efficiency, fairness, and patient well-being?\xa0\xa0

Dr. Lungren and the team of senior researchers at Unanimous seem to think so, and for the past two years they\u2019ve been collaborating on an effort to bring swarm intelligence into the realm of decision making in radiology and any other specialty of medicine which might benefit from it. So, what exactly is swarm or collective intelligence? When distilled to the basics and explained illustratively, it\u2019s really quite simple: \u201cIt\u2019s a real-time interaction, but unlike a large conference call\u2026you don\u2019t actually know the identity of anyone else in the swarm and there\u2019s a very graphical way that people who are swarming interface\u2026Imagine a puck on ice that can be slid around, and each person has a magnetic force that they can apply to that puck to pull it toward the answer they believe is correct,\u201d explains Dr. Lungren. Eventually, a conclusion will be reached, with the contributions having been evenly distributed and anonymous within the swarm.

Interested in learning more? Tune in for all the details, check out unanimous.ai, and send your inquiries to Dr. Lungren at mlungren@stanford.edu.