Groups of doctors deliver more accurate diagnoses than doctors working alone, even when they are specialists diagnosing cases in their own field, a US study shows.

The finding comes from the Human Diagnosis Project, which brings doctors of all career levels together on a digital platform to practise authoring and diagnosing real-life clinical cases. 

Using the project’s database, Harvard University researchers examined 1572 cases for which 2069 users had offered diagnoses — some individually and some in teams.

They found that on their own both qualified doctors and trainees didn’t fare so well, arriving at the correct diagnosis just 62.5% of the time — equivalent to a ‘D’ grade said lead author Dr Michael Barnett, an assistant professor of health policy and management at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.