Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Now Have a Cardiologist

joecieplinski.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 189 posts

Re: I Now Have a Cardiologist

#141

Post by inglor »

antirez wrote: post #136

Here in Italy in order to subscribe to a gym you need to bring your ECG (not mandatory by law but a number of gyms will ask for it), and every year you need to make a new one, so I would say that the percentage of "active" population that is not regularly checked is small. How is this matter in the rest of the world?

Israel used to be this way and it used to be a requirement by the government (not an ECG but a doctor note). Like a lot of other regulation it made it less likely for people to work out.

Now it's a questionnaire instead. I think the new system works better here since it's one less hurdle to get over before you can sign up for a gym and work out.

Re: I Now Have a Cardiologist

#142

Post by throwaway9d0291 »

rayiner wrote: post #58
goshx wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that only people who were born in the US "appreciate" paying this much money for health insurance and see someone criticizing it as being negative. The whole health system in the US is horrible. Nobody should need to go through a middle-man (a.k.a. insurance) in the first place. No wonder prices for everything are absurdly high. Edit: and I have an anecdote about this too. Last year I had an episode of…

Many countries rely on privately-managed health insurers (Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, etc.). > Edit: and I have an anecdote about this too. Last year I had an episode of AFib. I've been taking medication since then. So after almost 1 year taking a certain medication, my insurance rejected it, saying they wouldn't pay for it and that I had to switch to something else. Now, why is it OK for an insurance company…

> Switzerland

I moved from the US to Switzerland. The systems can't be compared.

Yes Switzerland has private insurers but the industry is highly regulated:

- Costs of medications and procedures are regulated and capped.

- There's a mandatory level of insurance everyone must have. This covers basically everything except dental.

- The pricing of this mandatory insurance has a cap based on age (younger people pay less), location and deductible (the max deductible is 2500 CHF).

- The excess is capped at 700 CHF/yr (i.e. the max you ever pay in a year is premiums + deductible + 700).

- This mandatory insurance cannot be denied.

- This insurance costs ~230 CHF/month on the low end (from https://www.priminfo.admin.ch/de/praemien)

- (Not related to insurers): If you have very low income, you can receive government assistance with which you can pay for insurance.

As an Australian, the Swiss system feels much closer to the single payer end of the spectrum than the free for all of America.

Re: I Now Have a Cardiologist

#143

Post by ptaipale »

killjoywashere wrote: post #115
microcolonel wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they could meet half way maybe.

Just so people understand, in the present day, what you're proposing involves a $5M mission package with $200M worth of airborne combat control systems and related ground support. Oh, and then the "bring dead guy back to life" bit once they get the intercept. The idea that we're going to start vectoring ambulances to intercept self-driving cars carrying heart attack victims is pretty crazy awesome.

Sending ambulances to cars where a heart attack victim is detected is, however, a feasible use case.

Where I live, in the order of 10 % of road casualties are actually casualties of heart attack or stroke; there is no actual road accident at all except that the car perhaps stops - but yes, the government still counts them as "road casualties" because that validates car and fuel taxes.

Re: I Now Have a Cardiologist

#144

Post by heavenlyblue »

dheera wrote: post #77

I have had a couple instances of ventricular fibrillation. I have an implant which brings me back to life when that happens; I would be dead without it. However, I do go unconscious for a few seconds until I get shocked back to life. Although my case is infrequent enough that it is not thought of as a risk by the medical community, for peace of mind what I would really like to have is a link between a watch of some s…

>> I think we're far enough with self-driving tech that that saved life would far outweigh the risks of the self-driving system having any issues en route.

What if the self-driving tech kills both you and someone else on the route?

Re: I Now Have a Cardiologist

#145

Post by hycaria »

rswail wrote: post #127
dis-sys wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Australia generally has great "free" healthcare No, the Australian medicare system is not remotely close to being great. When a simple CT scan/MRI can take 4 months waiting time [1], I wouldn't jump up and defend such a failed system. It is not great, it is the complete opposite of that. Ever tried to do some dentals using that "free" healthcare you mentioned or ever tried 12-18 months elective surgery waiting time…

OK, so this is Australia's system (from patient's perspective). I'm a T2 diabetic, obese, 55, have had one heart attack, angiogram/stent, second angiogram, quad bypass: 0. Everyone pays a 1.5% "extra" tax for Medicare, but that's actually just a cover. The actual cost to government is much higher, but is paid out of general revenue. 1. GPs and specialists are reimbursed by the government at a govt decided rate for di…

And no gastric bypass yet ?!

Re: I Now Have a Cardiologist

#146

Post by tapland »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #135
tapland wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is response time. If you are currently on the road it's probably faster to head to the hospital than to wait for an ambulance.

Which hospital is nearest? Which can be reached within the self-driving capabilities of the car? Which has Advanced Cardiac Life Support staff and equipment? Which is still open? Which is not already handling another cardiac emergency? Which route has the least traffic? Paramedics and EMTs can work these questions quickly and they have lights and sirens to get through traffic. Your car will probably google "hospitals…

Very location dependent for response times and traffic. Getting to any ER is better than nothing and the device is unlikely to differentiate cardiac arrest from a ton of other issues that might not need that cardiac team.

Re: I Now Have a Cardiologist

#147

Post by Kuinox »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #144
dheera wrote: post #77

I have had a couple instances of ventricular fibrillation. I have an implant which brings me back to life when that happens; I would be dead without it. However, I do go unconscious for a few seconds until I get shocked back to life. Although my case is infrequent enough that it is not thought of as a risk by the medical community, for peace of mind what I would really like to have is a link between a watch of some s…

>> I think we're far enough with self-driving tech that that saved life would far outweigh the risks of the self-driving system having any issues en route. What if the self-driving tech kills both you and someone else on the route?

Seatbelt can already kill you. Statistically it save more life than it kill. The self driving tech of today is enough to do a controlled emergency stop that is statically better than an uncontrolled vehicle.

Re: I Now Have a Cardiologist

#148

Post by Topolomancer »

I love the matter-of-factness of this article. Not only is it a great example of how technology can have unexpected positive outcomes for users, the author also manages to sneak in some extremely relaxed observations about the ACA and having to subsidise healthcare of others. I am impressed!

Re: I Now Have a Cardiologist

#149

Post by bartread »

treis wrote: post #36
maxgee wrote: post #8

> resting heart rate being in the 113-120 bpm That seems insanely high

Yeah, he didn't exactly need an Apple watch to tell him something is going on. That's a bit under double what his heart rate should be. Equivalent to what someone in reasonable shape would have when they're jogging. It's amazing he never got it checked out before.

It's possible he may not have noticed, or may not have realised that his RHR was unusually high. I mean, in day to day living how many of us are really conscious of what our hearts are doing outside of periods of heavy exertion?

Re: I Now Have a Cardiologist

#150

Post by joosters »

barry-cotter wrote: post #55
laurencei wrote: post #4

If you put a popular device, with a medical detection tool into the wider population, it would be logical that the device would pick up on patients who would other not notice the symptoms (at least initially, if any). So then the question becomes what other daily device(s) could be made to do automatic health checks of certain specific indicators, which would give an early indication to the possible condition, thus i…

This will lead to a massive increase in false positives, unnecessary treatment and worry; par for the course for precautionary screening and preventive medicine generally. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/29/upshot/preventive-health-... > Preventive Care Saves Money? Sorry, It’s Too Good to Be True > The idea that spending more on preventive care will reduce overall health care spending is widely believed and often pr…

There's a great (and short) video suggesting why it's not a good idea to run as many medical tests as possible, and it's not because of the cost:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kQk9-KLPfU

Post reply on HN