e-health care, the future of health care?
 

I see a true BSOD in our future....:88)

yeah... unless this is strictly for use within the confines of a hospital, and NUMEROUS fail safes exist to prevent accidental dispersal or overdose...

screw this idea

EDIT:

on the plus side... when hundreds of thousands of doctors are forced out of practice by Obama, this remote control BS will allow one doctor to treat multiple patients all from the comfort of herr doctor's one bedroom efficiency apartment that he can barely afford.

Your device as suffered a 'fatal error'. Please reboot your patient.

"Keyboard error or keyboard not present. Please press F1 to continue"

A BSOD would never be the same again.

A month or so ago I had to interview an engineer researching a similar application for my electrical engineering study. He told me the following:

They're working on small wearable sensors (so small they might even be incorporated in clothes) that can monitor specific things. For example a heart beat sensor. It measures the heart beat frequency and sends it (after simple processing) to a central transmitting device worn, might be as simple as an app for your cell phone. This device collects all sorts of data from a number of sensors if necessary, and either shows the results or transmits it to medical staff.

These sensors can be used by people who already have medical problems, monitor your heart beat for example and in the event of a heart attack relay it to an ambulance.

Or can be used for monitoring a patient. In the past patients had to stay in hospital for monitoring, but using these devices all monitoring can be done from a distance. Meanwhile the patient can do everything he'd normally do, even sporting and such, without interrupting the sensors.

Another possible usage is if you're concerned about your own health - in this case you simply buy a sensor kit in your local supermarket and do your own tests. After some monitoring time the sensors can tell you if there's nothing to be concerned of, or if you need to see a doctor for a follow-up consultation.

So its like an insulin pump but with an internet connection to a doctor instead of just having the different presets for the various dosages.

Scary stuff eh:yawn:

Mr. Patient, we have some good news and some bad news.

Doctor, what's the good news?

The good news is that we have this machine what will automatically issue you the correct dosage of the life saving drugs you need to survive?

Wow, that is good news, what's the bad news Doctor?

The bad news is that the computer that monitors the operation runs on Microsoft Vista.

/facepalm.

Before I get excited about this, I would like to hear about it from a medical doctor and not some politician. :nope:

Yeah, sort of like an insulin pump. This sort of device will clearly have a lot of utility, but they'd clearly not be using it for terribly dangerous drugs, I'd imagine.

Like any other tool, it has specific uses. You don't fix watches with a hammer.

OTOH, you know the first time there is a serious problem, the company will get sued for a bizillion dollars by some ambulance chasing POS.

Don't be too afraid of this:)

It'd be too expensive to include an advanced OS with the package, and the instruments would get too big to include all the necessary hardware.

It'll be a simple embedded system, run on a simple MIPS processor at most.

It's not like you'd be walking around and interference will dose you inappropriately. The doc would likely set up the dosing (or write a script, and the pharmacy would set it up). Then, on the off chance it needed to be changed, you'd call your doc (or whichever doc is on call), explain whatever problem, then he'd have to do something—perhaps put in in a mode that allows an update—and he'd change the dose.

I don't foresee changes on the fly, lol.

I wonder if there will be DRM and a patch? :hmmm::O:

There are always unintended consequences, though. Look at EMR. What a nightmare. Docs are way less efficient with electronic charts. Wife's been doing them for almost a year, and she's still seeing far fewer patients—plus, not writing it by hand means she remembers less, and needs to look at the records MORE.