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While I agree in principle. She didn't know she had low platelet count. The AI spotted it after it asked for blood works. This should become standard. When blo

While I agree in principle. She didn't know she had low platelet count. The AI spotted it after it asked for blood works. This should become standard. When blood works or whatever exam results are available they should go through some kind of automated system that can flag critical situations like this, without waiting for a doctor.

p_ing 2y ago
When I go for labs, I always am notified via txt/email that the results are ready. Every lab I've used has a scale system for a given test along with notes from the lab techs about a particular result. While this might not be standard everywhere in the world, and probably isn't, if one was concerned about their health and had access to their results themselves, wouldn't you look at them? This reminds me of the redditors who post questions about mundane government services where it would be quicker to simply call the agency in question and ask.
- giancarlostoro 2y ago
  > it would be quicker to simply call the agency in question and ask. Depends on the service / agency. Some have long wait times. Heck ChatGPT might be quicker than both reddit and the agency at this point, and I'm not an "AI bro" by any means... But I gotta accept when its usefulness actually works.
- HelloMcFly 2y ago
  > This reminds me of the redditors who post questions about mundane government services where it would be quicker to simply call the agency in question and ask. Wow oh wow does this depend on the agency, and depend on the question, and assumes you even know how to ask the question the right way. And I think considering that, the analogy operates quite well. People often don't know how to ask about medical things, they just describe symptoms ("platelet count" probably isn't a highly googled term for self-diagnosis). People do similar things when they have a problem with government and don't know where to turn, may not know which agency to contact, or how navigate that agency's phone trees, etc.
  - p_ing 2y ago
    I constantly see in a couple of locale-specific subreddits that say "Does <agency_name> do this? how long will it take?". And funny enough, most of the responses are "Did you call <agency_name>?". Usually it's the DOL which around here is quick to get a hold of via phone.
- jackstraw14 2y ago
  I know what you're talking about, and the last lab results I got contained more data than I've ever seen before on one of those things. There were one or two results outside of the normal range, which my doctor addressed with me directly, and now everything is mostly normal. Are you saying that the doctor failed to take action on something that was at a concerning level on her labs? Or that she should have scanned her labs for anything that was on the edges of those normal ranges? I generally agree that more data is a good thing, but simple blood work can be kind of a large amount of data now that's not immediately recognizable to the average person. However, this is exactly the case where I want more assistance with AI... there's simply too much data for me to reliably tell what's meaningful and what's not anymore. AI can process a bunch of data and tell me what I need to know in about a second or two.
  - nytesky 2y ago
    I have stopped looking at my lab results because all it does most the time is caused me extreme anxiety. I have a rare disease which causes an obscure blood marker to basically jump two orders of magnitude. If you google this jump marker, basically all the links you find are about a deadly leukemia that you will be dead of in six months. My appointment with my doctor was two weeks away. Those were very very dark two weeks. I definitely think you should go over the results with your doctor, but Google or even ChatGPT is not a doctor
    - jackstraw14 2y ago
      Wow, I'm glad you figured it out and I bet those two weeks were hell. With anything health related, I think information found online and information from AI tools should just be considered helpers toward determining something more specific that you can address. I certainly would not vouch for all AI assistance, and you shouldn't just give more weight to an AI system more than an article from a supposed expert necessarily. But, if you know you are working with good tools (like Claude Sonnet, which I would recommend for this particular case we're talking about) they shouldn't steer you too far in the wrong direction. Claude specifically has been the gentlest, most helpful general assistant I've ever had, but I don't ever lose sight of the fact that these are simply tools helping me, a non-perfect human with a lot still to learn, and I wouldn't recommend using them as any kind of "authoritative" solution, just something that's about the best help I've had with this kind of stuff so far. The final decision should be between you and your doctor.
lm28469 2y ago
I'm 99.9% certain that every single blood work results out there provide your measurements in relation to what's considered low/normal/high
- thomasfedb 2y ago
  Generally yes. Sometimes what’s “normal” is highly dependant on other factors. In that case you might get a table or other comparative information provided. That said, some results are still concerning if they’re “high-normal” or “low-normal”, and some results are not that worrying even if they’re slightly abnormal.
thomasfedb 2y ago
These systems likely vary around the world, this is an Australian perspective. > When blood works or whatever exam results are available they should go through some kind of automated system that can flag critical situations like this, without waiting for a doctor. We already have this. Based on either individual results or how results relate to each other. Labs will detect critical results and then a range of things happen: - a scientist may repeat or check the result if the value is extreme, to ensure it isn’t an error - a scientist may alert a pathologist to the result immediately - a scientist or pathologist may contact the referring doctor/hospital by phone to provide the result immediately - in some cases, the lab will contact the patient directly (if they need to go directly to hospital for example) This also gets done with radiology. This then gets followed by the official report in hours to days depending on how much confirmation is required.

p_ing 2y ago

When I go for labs, I always am notified via txt/email that the results are ready. Every lab I've used has a scale system for a given test along with notes from the lab techs about a particular result. While this might not be standard everywhere in the world, and probably isn't, if one was concerned about their health and had access to their results themselves, wouldn't you look at them? This reminds me of the redditors who post questions about mundane government services where it would be quicker to simply call the agency in question and ask.

giancarlostoro 2y ago
> it would be quicker to simply call the agency in question and ask. Depends on the service / agency. Some have long wait times. Heck ChatGPT might be quicker than both reddit and the agency at this point, and I'm not an "AI bro" by any means... But I gotta accept when its usefulness actually works.
HelloMcFly 2y ago
> This reminds me of the redditors who post questions about mundane government services where it would be quicker to simply call the agency in question and ask. Wow oh wow does this depend on the agency, and depend on the question, and assumes you even know how to ask the question the right way. And I think considering that, the analogy operates quite well. People often don't know how to ask about medical things, they just describe symptoms ("platelet count" probably isn't a highly googled term for self-diagnosis). People do similar things when they have a problem with government and don't know where to turn, may not know which agency to contact, or how navigate that agency's phone trees, etc.
- p_ing 2y ago
  I constantly see in a couple of locale-specific subreddits that say "Does <agency_name> do this? how long will it take?". And funny enough, most of the responses are "Did you call <agency_name>?". Usually it's the DOL which around here is quick to get a hold of via phone.
jackstraw14 2y ago
I know what you're talking about, and the last lab results I got contained more data than I've ever seen before on one of those things. There were one or two results outside of the normal range, which my doctor addressed with me directly, and now everything is mostly normal. Are you saying that the doctor failed to take action on something that was at a concerning level on her labs? Or that she should have scanned her labs for anything that was on the edges of those normal ranges? I generally agree that more data is a good thing, but simple blood work can be kind of a large amount of data now that's not immediately recognizable to the average person. However, this is exactly the case where I want more assistance with AI... there's simply too much data for me to reliably tell what's meaningful and what's not anymore. AI can process a bunch of data and tell me what I need to know in about a second or two.
- nytesky 2y ago
  I have stopped looking at my lab results because all it does most the time is caused me extreme anxiety. I have a rare disease which causes an obscure blood marker to basically jump two orders of magnitude. If you google this jump marker, basically all the links you find are about a deadly leukemia that you will be dead of in six months. My appointment with my doctor was two weeks away. Those were very very dark two weeks. I definitely think you should go over the results with your doctor, but Google or even ChatGPT is not a doctor
  - jackstraw14 2y ago
    Wow, I'm glad you figured it out and I bet those two weeks were hell. With anything health related, I think information found online and information from AI tools should just be considered helpers toward determining something more specific that you can address. I certainly would not vouch for all AI assistance, and you shouldn't just give more weight to an AI system more than an article from a supposed expert necessarily. But, if you know you are working with good tools (like Claude Sonnet, which I would recommend for this particular case we're talking about) they shouldn't steer you too far in the wrong direction. Claude specifically has been the gentlest, most helpful general assistant I've ever had, but I don't ever lose sight of the fact that these are simply tools helping me, a non-perfect human with a lot still to learn, and I wouldn't recommend using them as any kind of "authoritative" solution, just something that's about the best help I've had with this kind of stuff so far. The final decision should be between you and your doctor.

lm28469 2y ago

I'm 99.9% certain that every single blood work results out there provide your measurements in relation to what's considered low/normal/high

thomasfedb 2y ago
Generally yes. Sometimes what’s “normal” is highly dependant on other factors. In that case you might get a table or other comparative information provided. That said, some results are still concerning if they’re “high-normal” or “low-normal”, and some results are not that worrying even if they’re slightly abnormal.

thomasfedb 2y ago

These systems likely vary around the world, this is an Australian perspective. > When blood works or whatever exam results are available they should go through some kind of automated system that can flag critical situations like this, without waiting for a doctor. We already have this. Based on either individual results or how results relate to each other. Labs will detect critical results and then a range of things happen: - a scientist may repeat or check the result if the value is extreme, to ensure it isn’t an error - a scientist may alert a pathologist to the result immediately - a scientist or pathologist may contact the referring doctor/hospital by phone to provide the result immediately - in some cases, the lab will contact the patient directly (if they need to go directly to hospital for example) This also gets done with radiology. This then gets followed by the official report in hours to days depending on how much confirmation is required.