by Matthew Rehrl MD | Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Creativity
Many people think we are in the thick of the Information Age, where Big Data and AI rule, and Creativity and Connection serve them. But I believe the near future will be just the opposite. I believe we are in the early stages of the Creativity and Connection Age, and...
by Matthew Rehrl MD | AI Ethics, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Natural Language Processing, Physician Career
Microsoft recently purchased the speech recognition software company Nuance (Microsoft completes acquisition of Nuance, ushering in a new era of outcomes-based AI) for 16 billion dollars. At first glance, this looks like a good thing for both healthcare and...
by Matthew Rehrl MD | AI Ethics, Big Data, EHR
I am not necessarily opposed to a healthcare institution acquiring high volumes of data from my electronic health record (EHR), even without my explicit consent. Data harvesting often results in public health benefits and sometimes results in patient population...
by Matthew Rehrl MD | AI Ethics, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Healthcare Ethics, Physician Career
When applying for a healthcare job, I expect that acceptable data for a potential employer to collect would include such things as prior employment history, educational history, email address, etc. And I certainly believe in many healthcare jobs, background checks are...
by Matthew Rehrl MD | Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Deontology, EHR, Philosophy
I am fascinated by the questions surrounding the ethics of data mining a patient’s electronic health record (EHR) after they die. Consider this: From a healthcare corporation’s point of view, the EHR of a patient, after they die, becomes extremely valuable. Why?...
by Matthew Rehrl MD | Big Data, Deontology, EHR, Healthcare Ethics, Philosophy
No, says the Deontologist. Yes, says the Utilitarian. Consider the following question: We know that bariatric surgery offers significant benefits to patients with diabetes and obesity. These benefits include a 68% lower cardiovascular mortality. (Ref: Association...
