In the past few days, I’ve read two articles that are of particular concern to me because they raise the specter of “physician as God” when it comes to online health records or information. The first article, by Thomas Goetz in the New York Times, discusses a web site called PatientsLikeMe.com where patients can share…
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Ethical treatment of whole genome research participants
Seen on Huliq.com: Recent technological developments have made it possible for scientists to sequence an entire human genome, but these advances may be a mixed blessing. While much has been made of the benefits of whole-genome sequencing, from improved disease diagnosis to rational drug design, the impacts on the privacy and autonomy of individual participants…
Practicing Patients
Thomas Goetz writes in the NY Times: […] PatientsLikeMe started with a single case of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. In 1998, Stephen Heywood, a 29-year-old carpenter, learned that he had A.L.S., a neurodegenerative disorder commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Jamie, his older brother, quit his job to find a cure. An M.I.T.-trained mechanical engineer with…
Can you keep a medical secret?
Daniel Lee has a thought-provoking piece in the Indianapolis Star: Does a doctor treating you for a broken leg need to know you had an abortion 20 years ago? Should your dentist have access to information about your visit to a psychiatrist? Such questions are moving center stage as patients’ medical records increasingly are transferred…
Search Engines Using Your Personal Health Information: Creepy or Cutting Edge?
Vince Kuraitis writes on e-CareManagement Blog: When using a search engine, should results be customized based on your personal health information (PHI)? Should your search engine of choice take into account your previous history of medical searches, or even provide results tailored from data about your personal medical history? Two companies — Aetna and Microsoft…
Hospitals slow to adopt e-records
Bill Toland writes in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: […] American hospitals and doctors have been slow to wholly adopt digital record-keeping and transmitting technology. They spend billions of dollars on the latest MRI machines and CT scanners, and plenty more on billing, scheduling, payroll and so on. Hospitals, obviously, are generally teeming with computers. Why, then,…