Artificial intelligence (AI) is a set of technologies that will profoundly impact healthcare in all dimensions of quality. At times, however, the AI industry and the community of healthcare quality specialists talk past each other. This is because they operate with different epistemologies – the term for descriptions about what we treat as knowledge, how …
Diagnosis is an act of naming: the point at which we are told what kind of health problem we’re dealing with. With a successful diagnosis, uncertainty ends, explanation is offered and appropriate treatment can start. From a biological point of view, however, diagnosis arrives late. By the time a condition like type 2 diabetes is …
The paradox of precision medicine: does disease disappear? Read More »
Albert Invent is a new software platform for chemists and materials scientists – the people who combine substances in the lab to make products for the modern world. The company doesn’t disclose who or what it is named after. Albert Einstein seems the reasonable guess. But an even better fit is someone further back in …
It’s common for private doctors in Mexico City, and across Latin America, to wake up each morning and be greeted by 100 or more WhatsApp messages. The messages typically contain urgent clinical concerns mixed with routine administrative requests. Often, no clinical record is available at the point of review to help the practitioner deal safely …
WhatsApp is part of healthcare: how can it be used safely and reliably? Read More »
Burden and prevalence, life-course impact, research and investment priorities Many people say women’s health is underfunded. This is often framed in moral or political terms linked to patriarchy, historical exclusion or bias within medicine. These forces are real and well documented. But if the goal is to understand how health priorities are actually set, they …
Diagnosis is a classification task: a patient has symptoms, the symptoms map to a list of possible conditions, the clinician selects the best label. This is an appealingly simple way to define how medicine works and in many cases, it’s good enough. In others, quite inadequate. Diagnosis can be straightforward – when the patient presents …
Loud music: the new smoking If you join an exercise class at your local gym, one thing will probably strike you immediately – loud music with a thumping bass, and an even louder instructor. The strike isn’t metaphorical. Noise physically damages one of the human body’s most delicate and precious structures: the inner ear. Many …
Insights from Scandinavia for better, safer hospitals External inspection for quality seems straightforward: set standards, assess hospitals against them, then performance should improve. But three Scandinavian countries – Denmark, Norway and Sweden – show a divergence of philosophies and practices behind that idea. Norway’s DNV model applies systems-oriented, ISO-based accreditation internationally. Denmark ended its national …
If a treatment came along that reduced surgical complications by up to 30%, lowered error rates, and decreased mortality, while also reducing burnout, depression and staff turnover, we would rush to adopt it. If it was simple, cheap and without side-effects, its popularity might rival the latest GLP-1 agonist. The “treatment” actually exists but isn’t …
A HIDden free treatment that improves outcomes for patients and staff Read More »
Artificial intelligence is starting to take on parts of the scientific process that once seemed out of reach – automated analysis of complex data, hypothesis generation, even the drafting of full scientific reports. One system, Kosmos, compresses months of exploratory research into a single overnight run. What is Kosmos? Kosmos is an “AI scientist” capable …
