Can a Computer Replace Your Doctor? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can a Computer Replace Your Doctor?

#41

Post by grondilu » Sun, Sep 21, 2014, 8:04 PM UTC

Personally I'd compare it to meteorology. Meteorologists used to interpret images from satellites and I suppose they made predictions based on a bit of science, but also a lot of heuristics. Now (still a supposition, I'm just a layman about this) computers do most of the heavy work. Yet meteorologists still exist : their work consists in choosing the computer, operating it, understanding the output and other stuff like that. You can't just give a supercomputer to someone and expect him to predict the weather. It's still a job for an expert.

Medicine could become kind of like this.

Re: Can a Computer Replace Your Doctor?

#42

Post by spartango » Sun, Sep 21, 2014, 8:08 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #20

This is what stood out for me actually: "... At the Mayo Clinic’s Transform symposium this month in Rochester, Minn., I heard Eric Dishman, a general manager at Intel, explain how he had used data to individualize his own cancer care. More than a decade ago, when he was only partly responding to chemotherapy for a rare kidney cancer, he used a step monitor to help figure out what provoked his pain and then worked wit…

If you find the work in cancer interesting, it's worth looking into a few commercial outfits that are doing this type of testing:

* Genomic Health ($GHDX) with OncotypeDX

* Foundation Medicine ($FMI) with FoundationOne

Both of these companies have tests on the market that analyze tumor genomes (sequencing or microarray-based) and provide information to oncologists to better treat their patients. Information like drug efficacy and tumor aggressiveness (requiring chemo-/radiotherapy).

Re: Can a Computer Replace Your Doctor?

#43

Post by electromagnetic » Sun, Sep 21, 2014, 8:18 PM UTC

grondilu wrote: post #41

Personally I'd compare it to meteorology. Meteorologists used to interpret images from satellites and I suppose they made predictions based on a bit of science, but also a lot of heuristics. Now (still a supposition, I'm just a layman about this) computers do most of the heavy work. Yet meteorologists still exist : their work consists in choosing the computer, operating it, understanding the output and other stuff li…

Extending the metaphor. A computer might not predict a perfect storm developing because the model isn't perfect. Without the human there to see it, you miss something disastrous.

A doctor would be the same thing. Sometimes things just don't follow the rules we expect them to. Medicine is full of instances where diseases cause obscure complications. I mean the series House MD is based on these, there wouldn't be a show without thousands of these instances.

I think taking human error out of mundane doctoring would be great, and allowing people to specialize into the more complex areas where creativity is as much a part of the diagnosis as anything else then I think we would greatly benefit.

What's sad is if you read many of the cases used in the show House, the patients IRL died. The condition was found in the autopsy, because the doctors just kept following routine.

Re: Can a Computer Replace Your Doctor?

#44

Post by fizwhiz » Sun, Sep 21, 2014, 9:59 PM UTC

Are there any startups working on technologies to aid prognosis in a non-trivial way?

Re: Can a Computer Replace Your Doctor?

#45

Post by Ygg2 » Mon, Sep 22, 2014, 1:00 PM UTC

jiggy2011 wrote: post #35

Ygg2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumers can't consume if they don't have the money. Every time you fire someone and he can't get job for time X, you are reducing overall consumption during that time X. Instead the money if concentrated in fewer hands and there is an upper limit to what a human can consume (e.g. a single rich person can't eat more than hundred middle class people).

If someone is spending less on healthcare, they will instead direct that money into buying perhaps restaurant meals. More demand for restaurant meals means that prices and profit margins in that industry will go up which will cause more restaurants to open, who will in turn employ more chefs and waiters causing their wages to go up and causing them to buy more things (like healthcare).

I don't think healthcare expenditure would have reduced cost, because health is not a negotiable goods.

If anyone becomes permanently unemployable, he will become poor. If there is demand for restaurant meals, prices and profit margins will increase and poorer people will be unable to afford it.

Each person that becomes poor, is another consumer less and the rest of people will become richer. Once you have waiters/chefs that have super high wages, they'll be automated and removed permanently from their job. Repeat until there are only few producers/consumers and the rest are living on a fringe.

Re: Can a Computer Replace Your Doctor?

#46

Post by TheCoelacanth » Mon, Sep 22, 2014, 6:27 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #36

bavcyc wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The doctor starts on time. Patient one requires slightly more time than scheduled...repeat for other patients. Also doctors have other tasks than seeing patients: reviewing lab work (part of seeing patients?), pharmaceutical sales reps, signing paperwork, etc. Automation would be nice, but not sure how you could remove all the time sinks in US Medicine. /not a doctor, just observations as an end user.

Unexpected time-sinks are not unique to doctors.

Nor are delays in appointments.

Re: Can a Computer Replace Your Doctor?

#47

Post by Balgair » Mon, Sep 22, 2014, 9:45 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #22

Balgair wrote: post #13

No. Betteridge's Law of Headlines states: Any headline that asks a question can be answered with No.

I'm guessing you're getting downvotes from people who are sick and fucking tired of reading the same trite comment quoting betteridge.

Perhaps the title should be changed then. If it has become something that is so well known and reviled, even when pointed out, then maybe we should change that. Perhaps a script that edits these titles out? I think Betteridge's law is true maybe 80% of the time (sorry no data here). If so, then thats enough to just screen out the bait titles.

Re: Can a Computer Replace Your Doctor?

#48

Post by cscharenberg » Mon, Sep 22, 2014, 9:57 PM UTC

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #28

bavcyc wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The doctor starts on time. Patient one requires slightly more time than scheduled...repeat for other patients. Also doctors have other tasks than seeing patients: reviewing lab work (part of seeing patients?), pharmaceutical sales reps, signing paperwork, etc. Automation would be nice, but not sure how you could remove all the time sinks in US Medicine. /not a doctor, just observations as an end user.

and some patients miss appointments, and nobody plans to be ill so there are last-minute "squeeze-me-in" appointments, etc. etc. Some practices manage this much better than others though.

I think that is the more interesting question: why don't practices get better over time at managing this? There are places I go: hair salon, doctor, the vet that are always 30 minutes behind. As a one-off that makes sense, but as a pattern stretching over years it means they don't adapt to account for this. If, on average, appointments take 2 minutes longer than they think then change the appointment times to account for that. Do _something_.

It annoys me, as a process-oriented thinker, that so many offices never get better at handling average daily volumes.