In some hospitals an inability to diagnose the patient's illness or get a full picture of their condition, because X-rays or CT or MRI scans are not available 24/7, can also be a problem.
The doctor sent me for an MRI scan to make sure the vertigo was the extent of my head injuries.
What the MRI couldn't tell me was if it was the head injury, or the shock, that made me act in complete denial about what had happened to me.
With an MRI scanner, a bespoke finger-pulling device, and a gifted and willing knuckle-cracker, they set about recording the first video footage of the innards of a knuckle being cracked.
To capture the process in action, each crack took place with Fryer's hand in an MRI scanner.
"Our initial prognosis of an ACL tear was confirmed today by MRI, and we are all feeling for Tom, who is an integral part of our team," football manager Graham Lowe said.
MRI scanners were used to observe finger joints as they "clicked", showing that the noise is made by bubbles forming in fluid that lubricates the knuckles.
But in February 1994 it crops up again: "What makes my knees crack?" "There are three sources of noise from a joint – arthritis, tendon flick or gas bubbles," replies a confident-sounding Steve Seddon, of Newcastle-under-Lyme. Who needs MRI when you have the collective wisdom of Guardian readers?
Kawchuk does not rule out other effects though, that were not picked up by the MRI scanner.
Enlitic, a firm based in San Francisco, hopes to employ image recognition to analyse X-rays and MRI scans, looking for problems that human doctors might miss.And deep learning is not restricted to images.
He also suggests the payment of a C$1 billion-a-year transfer to help Canadians pay for "catastrophic" drug expenses, as well as extra money to boost access to health care in rural areas, reform the delivery of primary care and improve the provision of fancy diagnostics such as MRI scanners (see chart).
