(Snippets from the frontline)
HAL
The original television show Star Trek takes place 200 years in the future with the eminent Dr. McCoy using advanced technology to body scan patients and make a diagnosis.
In the present day, hospital and insurance administrators believe they can already replace physicians with computers by diagnosing and treating patients using algorithms rather than human intelligence and medical experience.
Their business technology should be dubbed Health Algorithm Liaison (HAL) in homage to the ill-fated computer in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. HAL realized an attempt of disconnection by the astronauts, so he tries to terminate them.
Dr. McCoy’s body scanner might be feasible 200 years from now, but understanding emotional and physical aspects of earthlings are yet too complex for computers today.
We are not ready for HAL, nor the feeble attempts of business to give us unworthy algorithmic care, especially if it might lead to termination.
Gene Uzawa Dorio, M.D.
1. Senator Charles Grassley (Republican; Iowa) cited a “not-for-profit” hospital in Missouri for taking the tax-exemption as. a Nonprofit and then suing indigent patients whose hospitalization-costs (not doctors’ fees) are covered by the tax-exemption. There is now a woman doctor on his Washington staff: Dr. Karen Summar.
2. Virginia gives doctors, dentists, and lawyers a tax-credit for treating indigent people:: See “Donations of Professional Services” Virginia. Why not extend this idea to the I.R.S.?
I have seen physicians talk to their patients through the computer and operate it as he talks. Maybe 20 years from now, the doctor will look directly to the eyes of the patient and that is called “diagnosis”
In the olden times, doctors will even open the eyes, look at the tongue, check if there is any fever. Now, after checking the computer, he tells you to come back after 2 or 3 months for another ” check up”
Compare the financial ethics of “teaching” hospitals once you have a choice of medical schools, internship, residency, etc.
A Comparison Of Hospital Administrative Costs In Eight Nations: US Costs Exceed All Others By Far | Health Affairs