Are we protecting patient information more than the patient?
We are living an era of disruption in which exponential technologies have the potential to change dramatically the way medicine is practiced but in order to do so certain regulations need to also do so.
As other Medical Google GLASS explorers, I am disappointed and frustrated on the concern of incorporating such technology in a faster pace in the hospital. Yes, there are pros and cons but let me mention what is the most important pro, PATIENT OUTCOMES!
Every time I stumble with people asking me about what GLASS can do, I am happy to do so. In addition I tell them about my projects in medicine as well as how colleagues are using them in telemedicine and telementoring like Rafael Grossman. Needless to say they are all impressed. After talking with them I go ahead and describe a scenario.
“Imagine you are in the cathlab or in the operating room and your doctor is performing a particular procedure.Suddenly he/she faces a situation in which he would like a second opinion from a colleague to make sure he is making the right call. In order to do this your doctor could use Google GLASS and communicate via HANGOUTS. Your information could be intercepted by wandering eyes in the transfer, but at the end your doctor will get relevant feedback. If this impacted your outcome, would you care about your privacy in this point in time?
So far, out of approximately 50 people I have asked this question, 100% said they could not care less. If this will help the doctor GO AHEAD! It is the patient’s data! Shouldn’t he/she decide how it is going to be used?
The reader may argue on this but, If I am the patient, and my doctor wants a second opinion from another doctor, and this implies him using google glass in a non secured network to impact outcome. I could not care less…
Thoughts?
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Christian Assad, MD Interventional Endovascular Cardiology
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Yes, it always seem very odd to me that there was so much attention paid to both security and privacy, without thinking about involving the patient, to see what they think. Isn’t it the patients security and privacy we are talking about? Sometimes it seem that we are talking privacy and security of the government agency, or doctor.