Congress and the nation are considering reforming our health-care system. They are thinking in terms of individual mandate, insurance beyond state lines, whether someone should be on their parent's policies until age 26 or whatever, whether we should cut back on Medicaid, etc.
I don't know why they don't think in terms of these two things I'm about to mention. They should. My thought is, you do what you can. These two changes might be the low-hanging fruit, improvements that are easy to implement. I don't know that they need to be done by government, though, as private institutions could implement them.
One, bring the Internet into the exam room. When the doctor or nurse asks the patient for the symptoms and background, feed those items directly into the computer. I would guess some doctors already do this in some fashion. But, I am rather sure most don't. I didn't witness it on my last visit.
The computer then spits out a list of maladies the patient could be suffering.
The second improvement? It might not be so easy. But, then again, maybe it would. Each time doctors receive new patients, they survey them extensively. How much do you sleep? What are the foods you commonly eat? How much do you worry? What causes you to worry? How much sleep do you get? Etc.
Every 10 years or so, the patients would be re-surveyed. And, information would be entered from their visits on their health condition.
With every person who has a doctor included in the survey, this would be an exhaustive survey. The computer would analyze the results, determining trends nationwide, such as: Do those who not eat sugar have fewer health problems? How do patients on almond milk differ from those using whole milk? A computer being a computer, it will be able to pick out trends you are not even asking it to look for.
Opiods? Perhaps more patients are gainfully employed before they start taking them and it affects their employment. The computer will know. What about patients who choose not to take opiods? What other options are there? The computer can help us determine.
With all the millions of people who could be analyzed this way, we might see significant medical advancements. With the computer making the analysis, and with most every person in the nation included, we should be able to determine causes and influences that we are missing due to our antiquated way of compiling and analyzing data.
The computer then spits out a list of maladies the patient could be suffering.
The second improvement? It might not be so easy. But, then again, maybe it would. Each time doctors receive new patients, they survey them extensively. How much do you sleep? What are the foods you commonly eat? How much do you worry? What causes you to worry? How much sleep do you get? Etc.
Every 10 years or so, the patients would be re-surveyed. And, information would be entered from their visits on their health condition.
With every person who has a doctor included in the survey, this would be an exhaustive survey. The computer would analyze the results, determining trends nationwide, such as: Do those who not eat sugar have fewer health problems? How do patients on almond milk differ from those using whole milk? A computer being a computer, it will be able to pick out trends you are not even asking it to look for.
Opiods? Perhaps more patients are gainfully employed before they start taking them and it affects their employment. The computer will know. What about patients who choose not to take opiods? What other options are there? The computer can help us determine.
With all the millions of people who could be analyzed this way, we might see significant medical advancements. With the computer making the analysis, and with most every person in the nation included, we should be able to determine causes and influences that we are missing due to our antiquated way of compiling and analyzing data.
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