Science and a Hunch?

Unfortunately there is a lot of junk information that exists in the world today. The internet has proven a perfect breeding ground for some of it. It is difficult, as an ordinary citizen, to parse through the barrage of information and make critical life choices. From food, to health care, the environment, education, where to live, what to major in at college and every other conceivable item, we have the world wide web at our fingertips to help us, right? Google conquered search but they haven't come close to conquering what to do with all the data. In fact, search engine opitmization and sponsored link results seem to kind of taint those results for which we have googled.

So it is with optimism that I participate in an online community at hunch.com. The concept is that the information users supply to the system will make it smarter and more able to provide users with more targeted and helpful information about whatever topic. I hope the site is wildly successful and it allows them to parlay that success into bigger and broader areas.

In my particular field, health care, we are in dire need of this kind of data collection and analysis generated by patients and providers, "users." Of course, patient data is extremely important. No one would argue against that. Studies look at patient outcomes all the time. Research by scientists at academic institutions is not enough though. Because of technology and the web, we have the ability to harness data like never before. But first, let me explain why I think academic research is not enough. For starters, if you read the news, you know that research from trusted scientists and institutions has lately been in a bit of trouble. Pharmaceutical companies have been fined, taken to court and ruled against and a top researcher has recently revealed that his data was fabricated. I guess this is kind of like a Bernie Madoff scheme in clinical research. One of the biggest reasons this kind of thing happens is a lack of transparency in the process. Too often, collected data is protected from public view under the veil of "proprietary" claims. Full disclosure of financial arrangements are not so full. Also, clinical research is rarely an accurate reflection of medical treatments and practices in communities across the country. Clinical research definitely has value but it is just one piece of the puzzle.

As I alluded to earlier, another huge piece of the puzzle is provider data. The daily, recurring practices of clinicians throughout the country and possibly the world can be collected and evaluated. Not just to correct bad practice but to give credibility to those that are good practices, even if they don't fit within the context of any clinical research.

How in the world can actual patient and provider data be collected and analyzed? Well, we are supposed to be on a trajectory toward a comprehensive, interoperable health information and electronic medical records system. How's that going? Not so quickly. Full scale adoption of this kind of system has lots of hurdles to overcome. I still can't access to a patient record from a hospital across the street (even though that hospital uses the same EMR system my hospital does, huhh!?!). I know I am painting a dire picture of this without facts to back it up. But I think those are easy enough to find on the web. But suffice to say, penetration of EMRs are still very low. And none of the systems communicate fully with each other.

What can be done? Hopefully, a hunch-like system for "user" data generation can be brought to bear on health care. Actual data is extremely valuable, as is being found out in all the social media and networking websites. I look forward to the actuality of what is portrayed in this GE commercial. Subtly, at the start of the commercial narration, GE itself admits to the present reality and what could be in one of their frequently used words, imagine!

The word hunch implies a certain lack of scientific backing. If you go to thesaurus.com and look up antonyms for the word hunch, here are the results: proof, reality, truth. Yet, it is in this very word made into a website where I see a lot of promise for the exact antonyms of the word.