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Featured In ePatient 2015 Predictive Psychohistory trend icon

Predictive Psychohistory

Big Data, powerful computer algorithms, and more are being used to make large- and small-scale predictions about individual and population health. We are entering the age of health psychohistory.

ePatient 2015, the book where the Predictive Psychohistory trend was first published

First published in ePatient 2015 →

Trend Longevity Rating

B Graded B in 2026 ·
matured and remains highly relevant, even where the details changed

How this trend held up

The underlying bet — that data-driven prediction would reshape diagnosis and treatment — was correct and, with the rise of clinical machine learning and generative AI since 2022, has gone much further than 2013 predictive analytics could. But the book's flagship example aged badly: IBM Watson, held up here as the poster child of the movement, became one of the decade's most-cited AI failures. IBM sold Watson Health for a fraction of what it had invested in January 2022 after the oncology product failed to deliver reliable, generalizable treatment recommendations. The category was right; the specific bet on a single dominant AI oracle was not — a pattern that recurs throughout this book's case studies.

Every past trend prediction is re-reviewed and graded with a Trend Longevity Rating, measuring how much each originally curated trend still matters years later.

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