The storage capacity of the human mind is amazing. One estimate of the size of the brain’s “RAM” is as high as 2.5 petabytes (a million gigabytes). The number is based on the total number of neurons in the brain and the total number of possible connections per neuron. I suspect it is an overestimate, given the vagaries and innate inefficiency of biological systems. Nevertheless, the true figure …
Today was like no other day. It was our first day together.
Me and my “virtual” scribe — an actual person who seems to “virtually” to exist inside of a Jabra speaker on my desk and so subtlety that I forgot to mute a few times when not seeing patients. The “man” in the Jabra speaker now knows just how long of an appointment I need for my hair, and that …
Collaboration is the key.
When I think about how hard it is to take care of our patients, and how many different people are involved in their care, it’s a wonder that anything ever gets done.
We need to simplify systems, and harness the power of the information systems available to us, as well as the promise of the electronic medical record, …
More than 200 health organizations have now implemented OpenNotes. Many more are piloting, are soon to implement — or have implemented, and we don’t know it! For more than three years I’ve been fortunate to represent OpenNotes to potential implementers, and I’m confident I’ve heard almost every clinician concern or anxiety regarding what might happen when patients read their own notes.
Here are the five most common concerns I’ve heard — …
It’s 10 p.m.
Seven days before Christmas.
I’m sitting at work “finishing” up some charts.
I am suddenly overcome with anger.
What am I doing here right now at this minute? I am helping no one.
This work I’m typing away at — trying so hard not to scream — it’s hoops. Fucki*g hoops … for insurance companies. So I can beg them to pay me. Pay me pennies for the hard, good, compassionate, humanitarian …
It’s always kind of a surprise when you read a patient’s chart, and you see an examination of a body part they just don’t have.
Just the other day, I was reading a consult note on a patient of mine who had been seen by a subspecialist for evaluation of a serious issue, and I received back a long detailed office …
Hippocrates didn’t have a server.
In 2012 our practice invested $300,000 into building computer infrastructure and the purchase of a brand-spanking-new electronic health record, commonly referred to as an EHR. The mandate for this purchase was brought forth from the federal government with the intent to improve overall health care communication.
Since this expenditure, terms like image server, ethernet, firewall, hyperlink, backup server, IP address, fax queue, cache server, LAN, domain server, …
As Wei Wei Lee sat with her doctor to discuss starting a family, she felt a “distance” between them. The physician was busy on the computer and focused on the screen.
“It just didn’t feel very personal,” Lee said. “I didn’t feel heard.”
It seemed as though keeping a record of the conversation was more important to the doctor than making a connection with Lee.
It wasn’t the experience she wanted, but she …
Following on the heels of The Creative Destruction of Medicine and The Patient Will See You Now, Dr. Eric Topol has published his newest book, Deep Medicine, earlier this year. While the first two books highlight how technological disruption will first digitize and then democratize medicine, his newest is about deep learning, and how artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to ultimately deepen the patient-physician bond. It …
Your bed could be watching you.
OK, so not with a camera.
But if you have any of a variety of “smart beds,” mattress pads or sleep apps, it knows when you go to sleep. It knows when you toss and turn. It may even be able to tell when you’re having sex.
Sleep Number, one company that makes beds that can track heart rate, respiration and movement, said it collects more than …
In many countries around the world, women giving birth still face substantial risks to their own lives and that of their baby. Women travel for days to reach facilities that are understaffed, unsafe, and unequipped to provide life-saving surgical care. They are pushed into financial catastrophe as a result of paying for surgical care, if they are able to afford it all, and they return home with little support in …
If you throw a pebble today, it’s likely to land on an article that talks about how artificial intelligence and its brother — machine learning — are changing health care.
Yes, I get it broadly. But I was curious to explore how exactly health care’s trends are shaping a single medical specialty. I chose gastroenterology (GI) because I’m most familiar with the space. And here’s what I found.
Trend #1: Manipulating bacteria …
I have been practicing telemedicine successfully for four years. In 2015, I had to beg doctors to work in telemedicine. Because so many doctors were wary of it, I started to get licensed in multiple states, and now, I have 15 state licenses. Well, what a difference a few years makes. Now, in 2019, I get six to seven Linkedin, Facebook, and Instagram messages a week from physicians asking …
Since the passing of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act in 2009, it has been said that health tech would dramatically revolutionize health care and the patient experience. Advocates have claimed time and time again that it would advance disease diagnosis capabilities, improve patient outcomes, and increase patient satisfaction. Belief in this narrative can be seen in the sharp increase in health tech investments, with …
Earlier this year, we put together a list of what we thought were the best medical apps for health care providers. Now at the end of 2018, we’re augmenting that list to give you a full picture of what we think are must-haves medical apps for those in primary care.
Safe Motherhood Initiative: ACOG DII SMI
Quick reference for common obstetric emergencies
Many of us in family medicine practice full-scope …
With nearly 80 percent of internet users searching online for health-related information, it’s no wonder the catchphrase “Dr. Google” has caught on, to the delight of many searchers and the dismay of many real doctors.
What’s received little attention from physicians or the public is the company’s quiet …
The purpose of clinical documentation is to efficiently communicate critical data to peers in a readable fashion while meeting compliance and billing requirements. This documentation should not represent a data dump.
Physicians continually increase our dependence on technology as the digital age deluges us with data. Accessing the right information at the right time is essential to providing appropriate care. The tsunami of new evidence necessitates clinical decision support, yet we …
Over the course of several years, IBM’s fledgling Watson for Oncology program has received a wide range of reviews. Among them is a harsh critique published by Gizmodo. The article is filed under the keywords “AI,” “Watson,” “health,” “health care,” and “Doctor: This product is a piece of shit.” The last keyword is courtesy of a provider in Florida commenting on a highly publicized medication error.
While the …
Burnout and dealing with its symptoms has become a hot topic in the last decade. It’s a problem that has multiple contributing factors. Some of those factors are thrust upon us and are beyond our control, such as government regulations. Other factors are self-imposed, and thus under our control, such as volunteering for extra call shifts. One self-imposed factor is a little thing we use to improve our lives, our …
Recently, several high-profile institutions have called attention to the issue of inclusion and equity when artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms are applied in medicine. Leaders from the law, medicine, social sciences and computer sciences are speaking out about the challenges of using smart algorithms to solve social problems.
While this topic might easily be dismissed as anti-progress by the tech community, it should be reexamined as a genuine …
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