Tim Churches wrote:
I suggested to Jon a few weeks ago that a skill which every medical
student and intern quickly learns is how to take the masses of detail
and data points about each patient and distil that into a 15 second
summary of only the situationally relevant information for the ward
round (maybe a 1 minute summary if it is the first time the patient is
being seen by the honorary). Computers are great at storing and
regurgitating the masses of information, but are currently hopeless at
working out which bits of all that information are relevant in a
particular situation or point in time. Teaching computers to do that is
a deep problem, but one which needs to be tackled.
Tim,
this is part of the AAPS whinge, recently referenced on this list,
about being forced to use an EHR.
http://www.aapsonline.org/confiden/nhincomments.htm
One view might be that decision support should pick the abnormal
results, but, in a hospital setting there may be great complexity in the
data.
Maybe doctors will always have this role?
Then again, when my father in law was in and out of hospital last year
in the months before his death, on one aoccasion he was taken back to
A&E 2 hours after discharge, and A&E had no knowledge of his previous
week's in-patient treatment, and no way of accessing information about it.
The nurse doing the initial work-up was very grateful when I showed her
the bag of discharge medications. We, unfortunately, had left the
summaries at his home in our anxiety, as it was a crisis re-admission
and his survival looked dubious.
So, there are lots of much simpler 'in-fill' to do, I'd suggest, before
trying to automate clinical acumen. Just making accessible what is known
would be a great leap forward in these sort of circumstances.
Greg
--
Greg Twyford
Information Management & Technology Program Officer
Canterbury Division of General Practice
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ph.: 02 9787 9033
Fax: 02 9787 9200
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