Patients are not part of the decision making process, and therefore not privy to the analysis, unless there is a decision to be made that requires their input (eg, two reasonable roads forward that depend on their preferences, or on their risk-tolerance.)
The process is made opaque to patients intentionally.
Nothing like that. No continuity between docs or floors/wards. Just everyone kinda making it up as they go.
It just struck me as another reason why outcomes aren't optimized, and costs, relatively, inflating.
I'm not suggesting doctors are replaceable. But the doppelganger approach to (big) data seems to be ideal.
I understand. That’s part of what is intentionally opaque. We don’t speak like that to anyone but other medical professionals. There’s a lot of Dunning-Kruger in what people think of their ability to parse hc information. As someone who grew up with serious chronic disease, I’ve been on both sides of this fence. It’s not something you really “get” until you’ve had to care for patients.
> costs inflating
Several Health Econ studies have shown that about 70% of hc costs are driven by new technologies (implants, procedures, patented meds.) It has nothing to do with how docs communicate with one another.
And how we communicate is also opaque to patients. Not intentionally, it’s just not a conversation for patients, any more than any two technicians in a software company talking/arguing technical details are having a convo meant for the ears of customers.
A couple months ago I spent a good number of hours over a couple week at local hospital waiting for a close friend's mum to recover from a stroke. I could be mistaken but the only "data analysis" I noticed was taking place in the heads of the doctors and nurses.
The same goes for the physical therapy facility. That is, no one - not even the insurance company - was using similar cases as a guide. Yes, at a high general level they were. But using real data didn't seem to be on their radar.
This void made family decision making stressful and difficult.