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Having worked in this space - dialysis - sometimes it’s better to let the patient gracefully decline versus degrading their quality of life with treatments that

by eismcc 9y ago

Having worked in this space - dialysis - sometimes it’s better to let the patient gracefully decline versus degrading their quality of life with treatments that will not lengthen life and mage what time they have miserable. There’s a few companies already using ML to predict when a patient is a candidate for hospice / palliative care. It’s often cheaper, which is why it’s kind of a taboo topic.

AstralStorm 9y ago
Obviously it is cheaper. Nobody can count days of life lost due to forgone treatments without a real trial with a control group. Which means using these tools is unethical if not outright criminal.
- fixermark 9y ago
  Why is it unethical / criminal? This is already a calculus doctors, patients, and loved ones have to do. How does adding historical statistics to the discussion introduce an unethical / criminal aspect?
phkahler 9y ago
>> It’s often cheaper, which is why it’s kind of a taboo topic. That's a very strange point. Sometimes people think the doctors want to do everything they can "to save you" just to run up the bill. With that thinking, patients and their families would want to "save money". OTOH one may also interpret saving money as giving up and be angry that the doctor would put a price on life. You just can't win. Ultimately people and physicians need to put aside all of that and be able to objectively assess the situation. That's really hard to do particularly for the patient and family - I have no idea what it's like from the doctors side, but we had one that had his eyes wide open but couldn't drive the point home enough for the soon-to-be widow to get it.
- hughes 9y ago
  I feel like this AI is an attempt at making death marketable. And I mean that seriously. I think you and eismcc are right, that it is taboo even when it is arguably the best option for the patient. It would be difficult for a doctor to say "this multivariate optimization found a global maximum by stopping treatment" in a way that sounds ethical. But by attributing it to an AI that is mysterious enough to sound divine, the message might have a chance at being received.

by eismcc 9y ago

AstralStorm 9y ago

Obviously it is cheaper. Nobody can count days of life lost due to forgone treatments without a real trial with a control group. Which means using these tools is unethical if not outright criminal.

fixermark 9y ago
Why is it unethical / criminal? This is already a calculus doctors, patients, and loved ones have to do. How does adding historical statistics to the discussion introduce an unethical / criminal aspect?

phkahler 9y ago

>> It’s often cheaper, which is why it’s kind of a taboo topic. That's a very strange point. Sometimes people think the doctors want to do everything they can "to save you" just to run up the bill. With that thinking, patients and their families would want to "save money". OTOH one may also interpret saving money as giving up and be angry that the doctor would put a price on life. You just can't win. Ultimately people and physicians need to put aside all of that and be able to objectively assess the situation. That's really hard to do particularly for the patient and family - I have no idea what it's like from the doctors side, but we had one that had his eyes wide open but couldn't drive the point home enough for the soon-to-be widow to get it.

hughes 9y ago
I feel like this AI is an attempt at making death marketable. And I mean that seriously. I think you and eismcc are right, that it is taboo even when it is arguably the best option for the patient. It would be difficult for a doctor to say "this multivariate optimization found a global maximum by stopping treatment" in a way that sounds ethical. But by attributing it to an AI that is mysterious enough to sound divine, the message might have a chance at being received.