The authors address the medical ethics question of whether autopsy is necessary from Cartesian and sociocultural perspectives and how to obtain consent.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(8):771-778. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.8.ecas2-1608.
This process of developing EBM-based guidelines and applying them to clinical care highlights the tension between generating unbiased knowledge based on statistical aggregation and the application of this information to individual patients.
The use of coded patient data for reimbursement purposes can tempt clinicians to exaggerate the severity of the patient's condition, skewing the accuracy of the data and interfering with clinical decision support and research.
Use of decision-support systems can improve quality of patient care in residency training programs if the resident physician users participate in the development and routine revision of those systems.