Privacy laws and regulations restrict what doctors can do with technology. I'm mostly happy about that obstruction, just because I know who has the greatest in

Privacy laws and regulations restrict what doctors can do with technology. I'm mostly happy about that obstruction, just because I know who has the greatest interest and ability to influence medical IT (the insurance companies) and what their motivations are (sell private information, deny claims, only cover healthy people.) A guy in the oil business once told me a story about why Bangladesh's gas fields have not been thoroughly exploited yet. Basically it was a big tangle of political crap -- and according to him, Bangladeshis are very happy not to have the gas fields exploited, because they assume that both the current leadership and the opposition party are so corrupt that all the money would be stolen anyway, so it's better if the gas is not exploited until the far future when some of the money might go to the people. I have no idea if that's true or not, but it captures why I'm mostly glad that the use of technology in medicine is stuck in the dark ages. Until there is some stakeholder involved who gives a crap about patient rights and privacy (the doctors care about effective treatment, but not rights or privacy) it's best if nothing changes at all.