Microsoft researchers are developing an AI tool designed to replicate doctors’ step-by-step diagnostic process and improve the accuracy and efficiency of medical work-ups. (Image Source: Reuters)

Microsoft researchers say an AI tool that diagnoses patients step by step, as doctors do, was more than twice as accurate as general physicians at solving complex medical cases, according to a study published on Thursday in Science .

The model identifies and coordinates the questions that should be asked of a patient, as well as the exams and tests that should be ordered, using an “orchestrator” that organises how AI will tackle a problem by employing ⁠a ​simulated panel of clinical experts collaborating to solve diagnostic cases, according to the report.

Existing medical AI models typically take an all-at-once approach that examines all of a patient’s symptoms, lab results and imaging studies to generate a diagnosis.

With the orchestrator coordinating the ​steps ​to reaching a diagnosis, the AI model first…