Computer-based aid to managing patients with illness chronic

The ability of the computer-based data bank to provide a quality of information about like patients that is not available in textbooks, journals, and monographs creates a degree of excitement and timeliness in the long-term management of chronically ill patients. The computer provides the physician with a memory extension just as the stethoscope and ophthalmoscope extend his hearing and sight. With the data bank, the notion of diagnosis in chronic disease is lost. It is replaced by the doctor's ability to directly associate the descriptors of a patient with an intervention, if available, leading to a favorable outcome. It gives the doctor information about what he can modify and where he is wasting patient resources. As we have discussed, the success of the data bank is tied not only to computer technology but also to the institution of compulsory followup. Indeed, without followup data, the data bank is dead in the water. The data bank is a necessary step in modifying the cost structure of today's medicine. Computer technology makes this possible. The data bank tells both the doctor and the patient what medicine has to offer in treating a specific illness and also what treatments are ineffective. The movement of patient dollars away from treatment modes known to be non-productive in a particular subgroup will be a significant step toward cost containment. One will have a health care delivery system that is superior to today’s, and one requiring the use of computer technology. © 1975, IEEE. All rights reserved.

Duke Scholars

Author Charles Franklin Starmer Computer Science