31–40 of 68 posts
Quite frankly, as a software engineer who works next to a couple medical companies, I won't let automation near me in medical contexts. I've had more than one coworker get hired by a medical device company and peace out a couple months in after seeing their codebase. Stuff like panics on any error that then set morphine pumps to full on. Not the worst way to die, but not the way I want to go...
What's an error in this context?
Cliff notes-- New EMR/ordering system. New physician. New nurse. New pharmacy dispensing system. The physician couldn't order 160mg of Bactrim because per kg dosing was required. They mistakenly ordered 160 "mg/kg" (40x the intended dose of 4mg/kg) on the order screen. The UX on the screen was partly to blame-- dosing mg or mg/kg apparently came down to a just a dropbox. With EMR ordering systems I've used, this mist…
A week later he was mailed the $421,455 bill for the services rendered due to overdosing /joking...unless they really do.
In real life scenarios there must be more than just one robot deciding.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how common this is? And to think that many are led to believe that the medical system is filled with "professionals" who know what they're doing. I see enough people just blinding trusting the "experts", because they must be right, because they were trained by a university/college for many years. Maybe I'm ranting, but I'm sick of blind faith in a system demonstrated more often than not, to be broken in vari…
I suspect it's pretty common. I recently corrected a prescription / dosing issue with my 89-year-old grandfather that was largely the result of the people involved not sanity-checking what was going on. I'm still of the opinion that most people are better off letting doctors and nurses do their job than trying to manage their own health based on stuff they've read on the internet. There's a lot of bad information out…
The populace would be far better off if we all stopped feigning lack of interest for the things that truly matter. Like medicine/biology. It's the study of us. Sure, delegate decisions to those in the day in, day out - that is diligence. But don't just accept to hear jargon. Learn what's going on. Be active. Knowledge isn't agnostic to specific fields..especially when its about your body itself. That is human knowledge. And everybody who is living should at least be half competent in knowing whether 38 pills of an antibiotic makes any goddamn sense. If this nurse had been a knowledge worker first, and a robotic nurse second, she probably would have caught the issue. Over specialization creates idiots following scripts. Meh..
There's a book from the 70s called Technology and Social Shock that my father, a research scientist at NIST (one of the US national labs), gifted to me recently. Given this crazy Internet rabbit hole that I've made the big thing in my life, I think the hidden message is to be careful and to take the time to consider the negative consequences of the "cool stuff" we're working on and giving out to the world on this new…
I don't have much experience in the EMR system we use but we have two teams of about 5-6 people each dedicated to working specifically on the software on the clinical and business sides of it. The clinical side, from what I understand, all have backgrounds in nursing so at least when they're doing interface and other upgrades, they have that experience to draw on.
The article touches briefly on it but the sheer amount of work the nurses and doctors do also have to be a factor. 12 hour or longer days and very rushed.
Anyway, thanks for sharing this.
Cliff notes-- New EMR/ordering system. New physician. New nurse. New pharmacy dispensing system. The physician couldn't order 160mg of Bactrim because per kg dosing was required. They mistakenly ordered 160 "mg/kg" (40x the intended dose of 4mg/kg) on the order screen. The UX on the screen was partly to blame-- dosing mg or mg/kg apparently came down to a just a dropbox. With EMR ordering systems I've used, this mist…
Wow the amount of "blind trust and no check" is staggering in the whole chain.
Makes perfect sense to trust it at that point.
I am more concerned that any medical system allows such a shitty UI, or allows giving something that could be a fatal dose through the system.
Cliff notes-- New EMR/ordering system. New physician. New nurse. New pharmacy dispensing system. The physician couldn't order 160mg of Bactrim because per kg dosing was required. They mistakenly ordered 160 "mg/kg" (40x the intended dose of 4mg/kg) on the order screen. The UX on the screen was partly to blame-- dosing mg or mg/kg apparently came down to a just a dropbox. With EMR ordering systems I've used, this mist…
> The nurse thought it was strange, but ultimately trusted the dispensing system that said everything was correct. How sad. This does lead me to wonder if said nurse, and other nurses, are properly trained to think for themselves. > Poison control was called, but it didn't seem like they were able to give a clear treatment advice. It gets worse... how come they weren't able to? Poor training? By-the-book training? Sh…
I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the first time in their history.