We are All Going to Die! Just not at once!

I had dinner at a diner late last night. The server had a tattoo on each arm. He told me one was done during a dark period of his life (grandmother died, and he broke up with his girlfriend). The other recently and was the Chinese symbol for "wisdom" indicating he had learned from these bad times. Overall, I thought this was good. Bad things happen to all of use and we should learn from them. But as I talked with him more I found that he believed in prophecy and the end of the world.

Well, prophets predicting the end of the world have had a terrible track record. So far, the world has not ended. I told him that it is hard to even come up with any measurable thing that has not improved over time. The starvation rates around the world are going down. We produce more food for less cost per person. The standard of living is going up in most places. We can extract more materials for less cost. Not everything is getting better, but most things are. The progress of science is amazing.

I left him by telling him this: "I study science and technology. You simply have to hang around for the next twenty years, since the wonders you will see will astound you. People think video games and iPhones are cool, but the things that will happen in our lifetimes will be nearly magical. And one more thing...when you get depressed, try listening to a happy song. It works for me"

Fixing Medical Care

I just spent three weeks visiting a friend in the hospital. He was hit by a large SUV while riding his bicycle. I spent about 10 days visiting his sedated body in the ICU and 10 days in an "in between" care unit after they fixed his aorta and broken leg. What I found was that to an engineer's mind, the place is a mess.

First thing to fix: reveal costs. At no time was I or the patient told how much anything would cost. Since the patient was a visitor from Europe and had only $50k of medical insurance, I am pretty sure this was exceeded, but no one at any time seemed to know how much anything cost! I asked several doctors and nurses and they simply did not know. Name one other service provider who runs by not telling the client the costs! Since he was no conscience when he arrived at the hospital, he did not even sign anything that promised he would pay. I saw some accountant type come by the ICU several times with papers to sign, but once she saw he was not conscience, they eventually gave up. And who in their right mind would sign the papers they present, that basically say you will pay whatever it costs and not hold them responsible if the work is bad, and you are mained for life? You want to control medical costs in the USA? Put a price take on each treatment, drug, and procedure the patient can clearly see. I am frankly sick of getting insurance statements in the mail that have cryptic codes and almost no descriptions on them. I see no way I can determine if my own doctors are ripping off the insurance companies!

Next thing I noticed is a lack of simple orderly procedures. I did see one nurse whose job it was in ICU to double check that each patient was getting the proper drugs doctors prescribed. This was good. But much of the rest of the technology seemed way to man-intensive and fraught with possible errors. Some examples: my friend's blood pressure needed to be kept down to prevent a transected aorta from rupturing. One machine monitored blood pressure. Another dispensed (pumped) a beta blocker (blood pressure lowering drug) into his veins. But there was no cable connecting them together. What could have been a simple cable and bit of software to regulate the drug (just like a thermostat regulates the temperature in your home) was instead a manually process. A nurse would have to adjust the drug flow based on the measured blood pressure. If this was automated then adjustments could be made every minute instead of every few hours.

Another example: my friend had about 10 hoses connected to his IV with blood thinners, blood pressure medicines, sedation medicines, paralyzing medicines, etc in them. Over and over again I saw nurses hand trace clear hoses all the way to the various pumps and bags. Some would put hand made labels on the hoses trying to keep track of them, but the labels kept coming off. How about a drawer of colored markers? When a new hose is connected it would take about 2 seconds to mark it and allow easy visual tracing instantly?

Paying one engineer about one weeks salary could come up with many simple ideas to improve efficiency and improve health care, plus save a bundle of money! If anyone knows someone in the industry, let me know. I would glady do this for cost!

The Idea

This blog is about an idea to make the world a better place. Problems exist all around us. You can find suggested solutions on the web, but how many of them work, and does anyone gather information on the effectiveness of the solutions people suggest? Maybe there are cures for diseases and life's problem all around us, but we just do not know them or cannot prove they work.

So, I am recruiting an "army" of testers. People can propose a problem, say "Back Pain". People can scour the web for solutions...say exercises that are supposed to relieve the pain. Then you all can try them out and give me your honest opinion if they help or not. I will collect the data and run statistics on them to see if the proposed solution is helpful or not, and report the results. With everyone working a little on these proposed solutions, we all can benefit.

So lets start. How about "Back Pain"? Here is one web site with a few exercises that are supposed to help with back pain?

http://www.egoscue.com/htdocs/index.asp

Do they work? If you have regular back pain, you can try them out, then report back to me with a number from 1-10. 1 means they do not help, and 10 means total relief. I will run this survey until I get enough data to make some kind of judgment.

Look for a survey here in a few weeks.

Engineer Mark