At 2:28 PM 9/25/96, Phil Fraering wrote:

Of course, one area where the doctor will continue to hold a patient's records, instead of the patient, due to the nature of the current system:

Prescription medication.

Digitally signed prescriptions from qualified doctors. (Not that I support this system...I rather like the "anarchy" of Mexico, where one walks into a pharmacy in Tijuana and can buy purt near anything).

Of course, with the really big problems with this stuff, drug interactions, there's still no system for a doctor to find out what you're on thanks to another doctor. Which is why it's very important to always use the same pharmacist.

The lesson of the last decade has been that _interested patients_ often do more research about their conditions and various drug effects than their doctors can. (This happened with a friend of mine, who ultimately died, and a similar case was recently detailed about Andy Grove, of Intel, who did exhaustive research on the Net about his condition...making him (finally) a real user of the Net. There was also a movie, "Lorenzo's Oil," about this exact situation.) In any case, the issue of which drugs one may be taking and maintenance of "drug interaction databases" is not a core issue. One can selectively release the list of drugs being considered to an "oracle" machine, and check for dangerous interactions. Or tell the physician, which is certainly no worse than the current situation. --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."