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Our Health's Future, Medical Practice or Technology?

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Our Health's Future, Medical Practice or Technology?Todayshealthsite.com

Todays Health Article

April 24th, 2011  

Today, as a baby boomer edging  closer and closer to health care changes, Medicare, Medicaid, health care in general, and just understanding the medical practice and its future, several thoughts have arrived. Why should I be concerned. Would I be better off, if I knew less about medicine, our health care policies,  knowing the importance  for cost containment, our abuse of self-referral, the potential that my own future could be decided by… INDIVIDUALS  IN MEDICAL PRACTICE with LIMITED Medical Education or by TECHNOLOGY! After all I had spent a good share of my life explaining these policies.

Medical Facts or Technology

Now According to Money magazine, (March 2011 pages 98-106),

The Association of American Medical Colleges has projected that in 2015 there will be 63,000 fewer physicians than it needs.

 The Atlantic, “Artificial Intelligence Is the Next Killer App” referenced a statement by a Microsoft executive in a New York Times article speculating that future applications might include a “medical doctor in a box” that could help with basic medical issues.

Martin Ford told NPR’sLinda Wertheimer “Radiologists basically focus on looking at visual images from medical devices — things like X-Rays or CAT scans, that type of thing. Now, machines are getting much better at analyzing that type of visual information.”

As identified in the February 26 New York Times article, “Treat the Patient, not the CT Scan,” patients are not “looked at” anymore. As a patient, either in the office or in the hospital, does your doctor look at you, shake your hand or is he/she fixated on the intake information, the chart and/or the monitors?

Medicine has become so dependent on lab tests and imaging examinations; the “art” of medicine is being lost. Even more disturbing, is that most laboratory examinations highlight when the results are too high, too low, or abnormal in some way. Medicine is being dumbed down at the same time that technology and communication of results is becoming faster.

Where is all this Headed

Now, how  concerning or thrilled should we all be… that the intelligence designated for our  future health care decisions will become limited or Artificial Intelligence readily present. This so reminds me of a past song… “In the year  2525.” 

 Perhaps this may be the story…  A typical visit to the doctor’s office. where upon you are welcomed by a voice activated computer, doors automatically opened and upon you entering lies before you all the most advanced computer and artificial intelligence known to man. You will directed to enter your hand upon a screen where by your finger prints will be scanned, identified, medical records pulled from MIB, pulse and vitals obtained. Health card inserted and like the automated phone options, health options will be selected. Upon your selection you will be escorted by a computer driven piece of equipment to a cubicle that now will have a library of medical knowledge… and like a piece of software driven by a Microsoft Program will predetermine your needs and the proper technology will continue from there, by which a print out of your diagnose given, and prescriptions written out. You now escorted out the door by the same piece of machinery.

 With the advancement of technology you saw no body at all other than robotics, voice activated machinary, and high tech medical devices. No longer the need, for that family doctor and all those nurses, eliminating all those personal touches and diagnoses given.

 Just think of it, as I do, a do it yourself diagnose with hi tech, no touch medicine If  you think this is a joke… you have not visited any major hospital lately. Where I live they have robots doing deliveries between floors… robotics in surgeries, Hi-Tech machinery helping make analysis, and this is just the beginning. How advanced has computer driven equipment become in the last decade?

What Should the Practice of Medicine Mean?

 What is it you want in your physician? For me, Personal Care! I want him/her to listen to my complaints/concerns. You and I know, not all patients know what symptoms to prioritize or what signs and symptoms might be significant or related to the medical problem at hand. I or they are not Doctors, that’s why we go to see them. So Personally, I need a physician to ask appropriate and sometimes probing questions. This may be a typical example, a complaint of  being tired and unable to sleep should prompt questions such as are you going to the bathroom all the time? This additional information might mean, the difference between getting a B12 shot or being evaluated and treated for diabetes or a prostate condition.

 As medicine and science and technology have evolved, the medical specialists have also become a way for medical practice. So no longer is the family doctor around who was there at your birth and the birth of your children. Perhaps necessary, given the accelerated influx of information and research discoveries. To know all areas of medicine thoroughly is virtually impossible.

The problem with the specialist scenario, are going to the “right” one? Specialists may tend to ”listen” only to those symptoms/signs relative to their specialty and assume some other specialist is dealing with “everything else.” In most instances, triage from an astute general internist or primary physician or other health care provider is required.

A Typical Medical Visit Today

EKG

Today there is no time for you even to get a relationship in with your doctor, no additional  listening, there is also the laying on of the hands, palpation, and the physical examination. The Doc’s assistant (PA) many times, sees you instead. How many doctors these days even know how to take a good history or perform an accurate physical exam? Many times the typical visit may consists of an EKG, a stress test, an X-Ray, and a bill. You may have seen the Doctor actually 5 minutes for your hour and half, and after waiting another hour just to get that five minutes of his time.

To answer the question…the complication of needs and health care, a shortage of medical staff who are being over worked, technology may be the only answer, and varying levels of education, experience, and Artificial Intelligence may be calling your health care. Can this become a normal medical practice, whereby the computer is calling the diagnose of the future?

Todays Health Comments

 Today I can only speak for my self as to the frustration I feel when I am speaking to a computer, regarding voice activated and options when you choose the wrong number or it does not understand, and burps out some irrelevant option, and you have to start all over. You just want to speak to a person,  in this case a Doctor. I know you and I are not perfect, so now if we make wrong options from  the AI “medical doctor in a box”, can it understand, that I misunderstood while I am coughing  my lungs out and about to die because I have a blood clot!  Or will it say “Sorry I  could Understand your option Clearly…Please Repeat. No longer will you have to worry, because it was your last breathe.

Unless we request more personal attention, and others who show up just for every sneeze, do not, then this is where we are headed. No longer with the current medical profession, can the staff not depend on technology to make up the difference. Something is going to have to fall short.

 

April 25th, 2011 | Tags: , , , , , | Category: Todays Health | 934 comments

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