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Fighting the Number-One Killer In the US With Data

Posted by samzenpus on from the checking-the-chart dept.

mattydread23 writes "Often, the signs of eventual heart failure are there, but they consist of a lot of weak signals over a long period of time, and doctors are not trained to look for these patterns. IBM and a couple heathcare providers, Sutter Health and Geisinger Health System, just got a $2 million grant from NIH to figure out how better data analysis can help prevent heart attack. But the trick is that doctors will have to use electronic records — it also means a lot more tests. Andy Patrizio writes, 'What this means is doctors are going to have to expand the tests they do and the amount of data they keep. Otherwise, the data isn't so Big.'"

5 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Great use of govt money! by kqs · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is the perfect use of government money: projects which are promising (though they may not pan out in the end), which will help many people, and which will not be subsidized by industry because they will not make money in the next three quarters. I don't expect any real results from this study for many years, but I think it's a very important study to do.

    1. Re:Great use of govt money! by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's also the perfect segue into Total Informational Awareness. It's basically data mining. You find a couple of soft indicators - the patient starts complaining of shortness of breath perhaps, has hypertension, is overweight. Then he moves. Starts over again. Doc asks the same question, patient puts down different dates (because they don't remember the doc visit five years ago), rinse lather repeat. If you could track this sort of stuff over time the 'computer' could start making some pretty easy correlations.

      IF you had the data. And only IF you had the data. Which means linked EHRs. Which is an interesting concept and would likely help, except, given the current state of our Panopticon Plus government, you have to wonder exactly who they are trying to help.

      Comrade.

      Oh, AND IT'S HEART FAILURE NOT HEART ATTACK. THEY'RE DIFFERENT. If you're the editor at least glance at TFA. /pedant /normal blood pressure mode

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:Great use of govt money! by mfwitten · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Somalia is the result of a failed state, what was formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic, which was governed under a single-party, Socialist rule. The resulting mayhem has nothing to do with libertarian or anarchist principles, particularly the Non-Aggresion Principle.

      In any case, what actually gives you a functional civilization is a large number of individuals trading voluntarily amongst themselves to better their own situations; profit is not merely the transfer of wealth, but rather the creation of wealth.

      How much is "my share", anway? Only the price mechanism of a free market can figure that out consistently, adapting to the reality at hand rather than the fantasies of a "noble" bureaucrat.

      So, what is "Government", anyway? Any organization—any organization at all—that confiscates resources by threat of strike-first violence is a "governmental" organization. When one such organization becomes a monopoly, we call that organization "Government".

      Government is simply a bad company that doesn't go out of business because it is able to confiscate your resources by threat of violence; it doesn't give you the goods and services for which you personally think you are paying, but you have to pay them anyway—it's totally absurd and unconscionable.

      It is not a modern value to coerce resources from people by threat of violence. So, in fact, governments are actually the last barbaric vestige of a pre-modern civilization.

  2. Waste of money by katz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you want to prevent heart disease, stop eating saturted fat and cholesterol and stick with a low-fat whole-plant-based diet. This knowledge is not new; this stuff has been known for almost a hundred years now, yet we're still spending money dancing around the fact that eating animals and their byproducts leads to heart disease.

    Source: http://www.plantpositive.com/

    1. Re:Waste of money by rubycodez · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Utter rubbish. The French eat meat and have a high fat diet, but have a very low incidence of heart problems

      Your link is to a fad-diet site.