cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/questions/p/1480838/why-did-no-one-ever-think-about-automating-diagnosis-in-healthcare-instead-of-being-depe
In a lot of health problems, the first steps involve listing symptoms and matching it as needed with blood tests, x-ray and other tests to finally lead to diagnosis and treatment. most if not all of the process could be automated to save time and get the best treatment.
To be clear: The automation I am talking about could be just an online symptoms form that give you the tests you need to have before deciding what to do.
In practice: This could be for example a person suffering from low vitamin D levels. Instead of visiting a doctor to order a blood test and then return to the doctor to prescribe him vitamin D, all that could be:
Filling online symptoms form(with pre-written symptoms database to select from) ➩ visiting any blood tests lab ➩ getting a vitamin D prescription.
Why didn’t any hospital or healthcare facility apply this?
The form to fill out would receive private health information about specific individuals stored as data on some online publicly visible centralized server somewhere, including in large part the impaired and elderly.
This should never happen. This is a horrible idea. It’s not a question of if data leaks but when.
This is the answer.
Your diagnosis are already in a database.
Most hospitals use internal databases to record symptoms, diagnosis and prescription. Which is connected to the internet and is mostly shared with insurance providers and in most cases it’s provided to you online too, so you can access it.
The question is who will fill the form(you via pre-written symptoms or your doctor manually) . Regardless of the answer, there will a database to hold that info.
In my country it is illegal to store such records online without my written consent which I have never and will never provide. It is also in most areas illegal even with the written consent. Even if documents get digitized they go from my doctor’s office directly to the internal records department. They don’t even get transmitted on ethernet or via USB device, outside of the records room, at most they get faxed from the office.
Hospitals are suppose to be very very very strict about this.
How is that any different from just never using the automated online doctor system?
I already don’t do that.
I am 70% sure that you are misinterpreting your country laws.
How could they even provide the needed info to the insurance providers(which includes diagnosis and prescription) offline?
Insurance providers and employers as a matter of fact receive no information on diagnosis or prescription. They receive a bill and the employer a note that the employee cannot attend work. This is the way civilized societies operate.