Shedding our illusions: a better way of medicine

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The holy grail of clinical medicine is the ability to assimilate the ever-increasing volume of medical knowledge and apply that knowledge to detailed patient data without error or omission. But can even the best of us achieve that goal with consistency? Dr. Lawrence Weed argues that all of us can by rigorous use of properly designed software tools. Those tools identify detailed patient data for a given medical problem, and then couple the data with comprehensive medical knowledge. The tools developed as an outgrowth of his earlier development of the electronic problem-oriented medical record. He believes it can transform not only medical decision making but also medical education, credentialing, and the development of medical knowledge itself. Some of us will disagree with the scope of Dr. Weed’s vision for the information tools that he has developed. Most of us, however, will agree with his premise that reliance on the physician’s unaided mind is imperfect. Read on for a medical odyssey into the future of computers in medicine. — Editorial Comment by Machelle Seibel, M.D. Caregivers are constantly trying to organize their collective efforts in a way that serves the needs of individual patients. And patients themselves seek active involvement and control in their own care. Disorder in medical practice frustrates achievement of all of these goals. Escaping that disorder requires using information tools designed for two purposes: (A) combining patient data with medical knowledge more effectively than the unaided human mind permits, and (B) organizing the multiple processes involved in patient care.