4 ms·

What is it the OP got backwards? They're not really disagreeing with anything you said, though you give more color with regards to drug interactions.

ng12 7y ago
Because it's not the case that the pharmacist is automatable. A small fraction of the work is completely un-automatable and the easily automatable stuff is just busy work. Even if you automated it they'd still have to hire a pharmacist, he would just have less to do.
- creddit 7y ago
  Drug interactions are basically the perfect type of thing to automate. It's just a lookup. For usage questions, how many parameters does that vary on? Amount, frequency symptomm? Seems very easy to automate as well. The only thing not able to be automated is law abidance. This would require changing of the law.
  - Double_a_92 7y ago
    > For usage questions, how many parameters does that vary on? Amount, frequency symptomm? Seems very easy to automate as well. The pharmacist couldn't even know exactly. That is probably mostly to check for order of magnitudes errors (missed commas, additional 0s).
  - bluGill 7y ago
    Drug interactions are not a lookup. Some people have problems some do not. We don't even have interaction data on all possible combinations of two different drugs, much less all the 6+ different drugs that some people are taking. There is a lot of "Educated guesswork". For someone only taking one drug for a couple weeks and the a year latter a different drug for a few weeks it is easy.
    - anthonypasq 7y ago
      Ok? So its a data problem, not a technical problem. Just get the data from pharmacy textbook into a computer. Its not that hard.
    - creddit 7y ago
      Seems like there would be the possibility of WFH pharmacists whose job is to do the educated guesswork on any newly observed combo. Log it into the system after some validation and voila we have timeless knowledge for all who come later, automated at low costs.

ng12 7y ago

Because it's not the case that the pharmacist is automatable. A small fraction of the work is completely un-automatable and the easily automatable stuff is just busy work. Even if you automated it they'd still have to hire a pharmacist, he would just have less to do.

creddit 7y ago
Drug interactions are basically the perfect type of thing to automate. It's just a lookup. For usage questions, how many parameters does that vary on? Amount, frequency symptomm? Seems very easy to automate as well. The only thing not able to be automated is law abidance. This would require changing of the law.
- Double_a_92 7y ago
  > For usage questions, how many parameters does that vary on? Amount, frequency symptomm? Seems very easy to automate as well. The pharmacist couldn't even know exactly. That is probably mostly to check for order of magnitudes errors (missed commas, additional 0s).
- bluGill 7y ago
  Drug interactions are not a lookup. Some people have problems some do not. We don't even have interaction data on all possible combinations of two different drugs, much less all the 6+ different drugs that some people are taking. There is a lot of "Educated guesswork". For someone only taking one drug for a couple weeks and the a year latter a different drug for a few weeks it is easy.
  - anthonypasq 7y ago
    Ok? So its a data problem, not a technical problem. Just get the data from pharmacy textbook into a computer. Its not that hard.
  - creddit 7y ago
    Seems like there would be the possibility of WFH pharmacists whose job is to do the educated guesswork on any newly observed combo. Log it into the system after some validation and voila we have timeless knowledge for all who come later, automated at low costs.