A9YorkCilke

A9YorkCilke

To Do

• 1. please work as a group (minimum: 2 members; max: 6 members) and submit one answer as a group (clearly identifying the members of your group)
• 2. Read:
  • Chapter 8 in Ben Shneiderman's book entitled "The New Medicine: E-Healthcare" (lecture on Oct 27)
  • Chapter 9 in Ben Shneiderman's book entitled "The New Politics: E-Government" (lecture on Oct 29)

Question 1

discuss what YOU consider the two major influences of information and computer technology on healthcare with comments on how these developments have changed:

• the healthcare business
• the doctor/ patient relationship (pluses and minuses)

Question 2

assume you need to inform yourself about some medical problem or issue (e.g.: high blood pressure, hip surgery, torn ACL or Achilles tendon, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), attention deficit disorder (ADD), you want to travel to a country in Africa (any precautions needed?), ....) - choose one example from the list or one chosen by yourself and

• explore the WWW about it, and
• describe what you found out and did not find out?

Question 3

as elections are coming up on November 4, 2008:

• identify the major differences between elections in 1980 (before the Internet, Social Networking, blogs, ....existed) and 2008!
• which new possibilities do you personally see as positive or negative developments?

Group response

1. Members of the Group

Dain Cilke Ian York

2. Question 1

Two major influences in health care technology is the introduction of the Tablet patient chart and the internet medical databases such as WebMD.com. The tablet can play a huge role in streamlining patient doctor interactions by creating a more visible and accessible medical chart and reduce medical error by making the doctor more aware of patient history, specifically drug allergies and past treatments. However, with technology becoming more integrated the support overhead becomes more complex. In order for doctors to carry around the tablet, the building has to be networked, servers have to be set up and a IT support team has to be hired to manage all of these elements. This puts extra strain on the cost and complexity of running a health care organization.

Medical databases have a long history on the internet including popular sites such as WebMD and DrKoop. These collections of medical information assist people to become better informed about medical conditions and potential treatments. This can help enrich the doctor patient relationship by facilitating a more informed dialog about illness and therapy options. However, abundant or conflicting information can create confusion, worry, even harm, for individuals who try to self-diagnose or self-medicate. Also, the internet information sources can be leveraged by entities with a vested interest, such as drug companies advocating their treatments for various diseases. A better informed patient does not remove the need for professional medical advice.

3. Question 2

We decided to investigate ADHD and found a variety of information from questions to ask your doctor, various support groups, professional conferences, and online quizzes designed to "diagnose" ADHD. This information can be seen as informative and empowering, empathetic and supportive, bias and exploitative, and/or misguided and harmful. Probably the most questionable are online quizzes, even those backed by medical professionals, which claim to diagnose ADD in as little as 6 questions. Although they may help assure individuals which do not match any symptoms at all, we were both given a diagnosis of borderline or probable ADHD despite a lack of previous diagnoses or medications. However, the contextual demands of school, work, home life are nuances that are not accounted for in this assessment, potentially leading to a high degree of false positives. Again, a strong doctor patient relationship would better allow for a deeper understanding and discussion of factors influencing any potential medical condition. Overall, given the popular attention focused on this condition it comes as no surprise that there are innumerable information sources with diverse opinions, views, and value.

4. Question 3

The fundamental difference between the elections in 1980 versus the election happening later this year is the availability of information. In the 1980's the primary source of political information was found through print or one of the three (ABC, NBC, CBS) major television networks. This information would then be spread through word of mouth to your neighbors and coworkers. This flow of information from authoritative sources to individuals restricted by geography creates a predominately one-way dialog. In contrast, today's society there are as many new information sources as there are political opinions. Also, in addition to the discussion of politics with your local community, politics are being discussed on a global scale, where anybody with an opinion and a web browser can voice their opinion on a blog or forum. This in essences is the greatest strength and greatest weakness of our current political scene. Every opinion has an equal weight regardless of content or bias. The overall collection of views and perspectives could be seen as enabling the greatest degree of freedom of speech, with all its inherent positive and negative impacts.