3 ms·
My wife is a physician—she says that nearly every single drug she prescribes gets flagged by the computer for some kind of contraindication.
by sarchertech 4y ago
My wife is a physician—she says that nearly every single drug she prescribes gets flagged by the computer for some kind of contraindication.
- throwaway098328 4y agoVery true in retail and hospital pharmacy setting as well.
- petra 4y agoWhat types of contradictions fail in the computer but pass the doc ? Why does this difference exist?
- alphabettsy 4y agoThe computers flag many moderate contradictions and allow the human to decide. Humans can ask questions or have information about the patient that the very rudimentary algorithms don’t.
- Spivak 4y ago> moderate contradictions and allow the human to decide It's so much worse than that. The standard for side effects is pretty low and relies mostly on patient reports. So there ends up being a long tail of extremely rare or misattributed side effects.
- sarchertech 4y agoDrug interactions are complex, graduated, and probabilistic. It’s generally not “drug A and drug B combined with definitely kill you” it more of “there’s a small study that shows that people who take drug A while taking drug B have a higher chance of experiencing side effect C”, or “patients taking drug A who have condition D, might experience problem E”. It’s about managing risk, making judgement calls, and accepting responsibility. There also just isn’t data for every possible drug combination or patient problem combination out there.