Disclosure in the United Kingdom has sparked a heated debate about the health impacts of an errant algorithm
By Robert N. Charette

Source: 450,000 Women Missed Breast Cancer Screenings Due to “Algorithm Failure” – IEEE Spectrum

It sounds like what we used to call a “bug” to me. I guess bugs are now promoted to “algorithm failures”. 

Nearly half a million elderly women in the United Kingdom missed mammography exams because of a scheduling error caused by one incorrect computer algorithm, and several hundred of those women may have died early as a result. Last week, the U.K. Health Minister Jeremy Hunt announced that an independent inquiry had been launched to determine how a “computer algorithm failure” stretching back to 2009 caused some 450,000 patients in England between the ages of 68 to 71 to not be invited for their final breast cancer screenings.

The errant algorithm was in the National Health System’s (NHS) breast cancer screening scheduling software, and remained undiscovered for nine years.

“Tragically, there are likely to be some people in this group who would have been alive today if the failure had not happened,” Hunt went on to tell Parliament. He added that based on statistical modeling, the number who may have died prematurely as a result was estimated to be between 135 and 270 women.

Source: 450,000 Women Missed Breast Cancer Screenings Due to “Algorithm Failure” – IEEE Spectrum