Legally, someone has to be responsible for the healthcare provided to the patient. The patient shoulders some of it, true, assuming they're basically competent adults and not severely impaired. (That's why powers of attorney exist, and why physicians are empowered to 'fire' non-compliant patients.) However, the MD is the one who has had the training and who is legally authorized to exercise medical judgement (as opposed to nursing judgement, and no, I'm not going to even try to get into where the arbitrary line between them falls), so the MD is the one who ultimately decides the treatment strategy, which may involve referrals to other MDs, who also must be legally capable of exercising medical judgement.
So, legally, there has to be someone to sanction (threaten with malpractice lawsuits and loss of licensure, among other things) and it's probably better for everyone involved if that person has personal contact with the patient.
You can sue anyone for anything, but unless the computer system is certified by the FDA as a "Medical Device" then you're unlikely to win a judgment. It would be like suing the publisher of a diagnosis textbook that contained incorrect information. That's the reason that clinical decision support vendors typically design their systems to just show possibilities rather than explicitly making a diagnostic recommendation. It's ultimately still up to the doctor and so the doctor bears all of the legal responsibility.
Yes, but the comment I was replying to was within the context of all doctors being replaced by computers, and his point was that it couldn't happen because there needs to be a person to blame. Well, if you get rid of the people (except those creating the computers), then it is still possible to sue the computer owner and/or creator.
Legally, someone has to be responsible for the healthcare provided to the patient. The patient shoulders some of it, true, assuming they're basically competent adults and not severely impaired. (That's why powers of attorney exist, and why physicians are empowered to 'fire' non-compliant patients.) However, the MD is the one who has had the training and who is legally authorized to exercise medical judgement (as opposed to nursing judgement, and no, I'm not going to even try to get into where the arbitrary line between them falls), so the MD is the one who ultimately decides the treatment strategy, which may involve referrals to other MDs, who also must be legally capable of exercising medical judgement.
So, legally, there has to be someone to sanction (threaten with malpractice lawsuits and loss of licensure, among other things) and it's probably better for everyone involved if that person has personal contact with the patient.