The idea is to have a database that doctors, physicians, pediatricians can log client issues into anonymously. The idea being that even common diagnosis are commonly mistreated or patterns are not noticed. If information like a patients age, sex, eating habits, geographic location, smoking and alcohol habits were all tracked by a database trends will be easier to find in patients. For example, a young girls’ age she starts taking birth control and the likelihood of breast cancer. That may not be a great scenario but you may get the idea. I think the biggest drawback is that not all doctors would post or have the ability to post every client and thereby leaving out statistics that could help develop a trend. What do you think?
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Although there are places in Europe well ahead of the USA in digitizing medical data there seems little impetus within the USA to do so. If this basic use of computers in the medical system is not either in place or in motion to get there it is doubtful the computer will be well used within the medical system of general health care in the USA.
"seems a little impetus within the USA to do so"
First, I wasn't referring to only the USA cornering the market on this idea, I know Europe is a little more forward thinking in a lot of aspects but as far as computers go the USA is the perfect place for an idea like this to work. It is definitely an idea that would take awhile to catch on but if several larger hospitals took on this task it could result in some major medical findings.Second, medical facilities thrive off computers. If they can be used for reservations and records, why not data processing? Third, besides the medical field this would also be a good idea for auto service shops. This could be a way for technicians and service advisors to notice breaking points in cars. Example, a certain model of cars having power steering problems at 30,000 miles should warrant a recall however, not all problems are reported or known by the manufacturer. This is another idea and suitable for a different post, what do you think?
Data on a patient's medical condition in the US can only hurt him. If the insurance company finds out that I had a rash when I worked at another company with other insurance, even though they've agreed to insure me, that rash is a pre-existing condition and they don't have to pay for it.
As for the physician using a database to decide if a person has a propensity toward a certain malady, this is not rocket science. If you see that you're patient is an overweight smoker, he probably has high blood pressure. Or colesteral. This is why doctors specialize in geriatrics or pediatrics or whatever. They know all the problems of that group. Also, there really isn't any value added to such a database-how would it make money, who would pay for it? Actually, insurance might like to pay for this so they could deny pre-existing claims.
As a pilot myself, I'm careful to stay as far from any doctor as I can, because almost anything can be cause for denial of my medical certificate. If I don't know that I have high colesteral, I don't have to write it on my yearly application. If however, I've had a 'real' physical and discovered some malady, I'm required by law to disclose it on my pilot medical application. And likely get denied my certificate, or at the least have to test further (at my expense).
Who would have access to my very private records? Can they sell them to drug companies?.
As for the auto records, right now every time I have a broken car, the first thing I do is google-the problem. Sixty people in forums have the same problem and they've posted step-by-step instruction on how to fix it.
The database would be anonymous. The information in it would describe the person's habits and physical attributes. No names, no addresses, no security numbers. As for the auto database, the info would be more for the car manufacturers and technicians, not the general public.
I can't see how an anonymous medical database would be very useful. We already know percentages of people in certain groups that get certain maladies. Probably your statistics would be sharpened, but I think this would be a large undertaking man-hour wise, so it could be costly.
If the data were actually not anonymous, it might be more helpful and have more value, but then you have the other concerns I mentioned. Like a person's 'chart' though it is useful, medical people can use the history against you. Like a credit history--wrong stuff can end up there. Refuse a pill once and you get someone classifying you as 'difficult'. Also, your chart isn't owned by you--most of the time you're not even allowed to view it.
I can see that an anonymous database might be less objectionable, but sometimes anonymous isn't. When you narrow the search enough, you can literally get info about a single person.
On the auto-technician database, my point was that this is already done. Technical Service Bulletins are publicly available and most of the things that break on your car also break on other-people's of the same model. Technicians have pay-databases that allow them quicker access, but as I said, auto-forums are really good already. The manufacturers already know the weak-spots before the car is even sold--that's why they make TSB's and changes so fast the first year. And there are still those-of-us that are our own technician.