Background
DISEASES
Diagnostic error is “the failure to (a) establish an accurate and timely explanation of the patient’s health problem(s) or (b) communicate that explanation to the patient” [Most diagnostic errors likely occur during information collection and integration [A clinical decision support system (CDSS) provides important support to recall diseases in medical history for medical students unable to appropriately recall differential diagnoses and experienced doctors experiencing difficulties in making diagnoses [In addition, few studies have examined the use of a CDSS at any point in the diagnostic process. One study compared the diagnostic accuracy of using a CDSS at the point of presentation of a year-old and a chief complaint with that of using a CDSS at the point when all the tests (interview, physical examination, blood tests, imaging tests) had been concluded. The results revealed that using a CDSS when all the information is available is more useful in listing differential diagnoses [In this study, we aimed to investigate the diagnostic accuracy of a CDSS, especially in the history-taking phase, for which we divided medical students into three groups: one group using the CDSS, one group using Google, and a control group (using neither the CDSS nor Google). We also compared the CDSS and Google groups and a residents’ group (using neither the CDSS nor Google) to verify the usefulness of the CDSS and Google. Medical students’ diagnostic accuracy was predicted to increase by using the CDSS and Google; these systems’ usefulness was anticipated to be better than that of the residents.