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Jan 27

Geo-Medicine: Should EMRs Feature A Geographical History?

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Posted by Elizabeth Han

 

“Geography is destiny in medicine.” –Jack Lord, MD

In my undergrad English lit courses, I heard a lot about “character is destiny”. Which is a fancy way of blowing things out of proportion – e.g., Romeo and Juliet didn’t die via the quality of being “star-crossed”, but because they were super emo.

Well, this week, I watched a TED talk by Bill Davenhall (below) that claimed geography is destiny”.

This idea is not so exaggerated. Just watch it (9 min.):


What it says: Where you’ve lived may determine how healthy you are.

There’s the classic equation:

health = genetics + lifestyle + environment

and of the three aspects, Davenhall argues that “environment” has been ignored for far too long by physicians.

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Dec 24

The Search for Better Search in EMR

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Posted by Elizabeth Han

The success of electronic medical records (EMR) depends on much more than the EMR itself, but intuitive, smart software is still important. In this post (Merry Christmas!), I will talk about one tough issue in particular, the search problem, and why a “finder” like Google Wave (June, November) might be a good idea.

Larger electronic record projects may show us what’s needed.

Yesterday, I read an article (National Post) on MyLifeBits, a kind of Electronic “Life” Record. Since 1998, Gordon Bell, a principal investigator at Microsoft, has led a project to “go paperless”, essentially scanning, recording, logging every single thing in his life.

The motivation?:

I’m not cluttered with having to remember any of this stuff. I just have to remember that it’s in there, and that I’ve looked at it.

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