Medical Decision Support
MIT OpenCourseWare presents the concepts underlying computer-based decision support in medicine. The course covers decision analysis, knowledge-based systems (both qualitative and quantitative), and learning systems including logistic regression, classification trees, and neural networks, applied specifically to medical problems. Students build and evaluate predictive models, weighing the practical advantages and disadvantages of deploying such systems in real clinical settings. Materials include lecture notes, assignments, and course readings from MIT's Health Sciences and Technology and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science departments, free to access through MIT OpenCourseWare with no certificate offered. The course assumes some background in probability and computing, and it emphasizes hands-on construction of the same algorithmic tools used in real diagnostic and prognostic support systems, alongside honest discussion of where these methods fail or mislead in practice.