Managing the State of the Art of Engineering: Learning from Medicine

Abstract

This chapter briefly presents the management of the state of the art (sota) in Medicine as a possible learning opportunity for the future of Engineering. Engineering and Medicine are sibling disciplines for intervention in reality, “sciences of the artificial” according to Herbert A. Simon. They seek to enlarge and disseminate their state of the art (sota) for greater scope and effectiveness. Both seek to convert scientific knowledge or technological possibilities into answers and procedures in tune with practical needs. In different ways, each seeks to improve the quality of the data it considers and the rigor of the methods it employs. Medicine has arrived at one striking, unique arrangement to support individual practitioners: a system that collects, classifies and qualifies medical knowledge comprehensively, and culminates with access through Patient-Intervention-Comparison-Outcome (PICO). PICO protocol allows a medical practitioner to access an up to date configuration of the whole of medical knowledge, being available as readily as in a smartphone. The chapter argues for the opportunity, propriety and desirability of translating the PICO experience to Engineering.