Skip to main content

You are not logged in. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed.

We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because community members review edits, please try to make the post substantially better than how you found it, for example, by fixing grammar or adding additional resources and hyperlinks.

7
  • 11
    I once was in the hospital and had to wait for treatment. They hooked me up to a heart rate monitor which kept alarming the staff, their comment: "are you an athlete?" Apparently my resting heart rate is around 40, which was the threshold for the alarm going off. Commented Feb 17, 2021 at 12:18
  • I can confirm that I would not want to be that doctor! It definitely comes across like a terrible idea, except I'm now not sure whether it's worse than increasingly automated systems registering Mr SFARP for a chicken pox jab because someone mistakenly entered his age as 6, instead of 36? I'm sure there are some possible scenarios out there which are somewhat scarier, based on automated systems and incorrect patient data. Commented Feb 17, 2021 at 12:23
  • 2
    @SphaericaPullus It's not like the doctor is required to follow whatever the system recommends. Commented Feb 17, 2021 at 16:28
  • @user253751 Oh, of course not, that's absolutely the silver lining. And any system which didn't take full advantage of the doctor as trained human, and their superior ability for spotting nonsense, would be really silly. But it's clear that doctors aren't always involved - I guess the point here is that I'm a little scared about the idea of it potentially being software developers who are making the medical decisions by proxy... Commented Feb 17, 2021 at 17:42
  • 6
    It would make a lot of sense for the system to prompt. "Unusual resting heart rate. Click here to confirm, click there to go back and edit." Commented Feb 19, 2021 at 12:11