EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 6/22/23

I continue to receive emails from multiple vendors addressing me as “Hey Jayne” and demanding that I schedule a call, or alternatively, respond to the email to tell the sender I’m not interested. I can guarantee I’m not going to respond to an email with that salutation, nor am I going to respond to bullying.

I keep trying to block the senders, but they’re somehow still getting through from at least two organizations. You might think that continued non-response would also be a ticket to be taken off of their marketing list. I’m also getting hit with solicitations for speaking engagements at dubious “conferences” that sound decidedly pay-to-play, but those seem to be a little easier to block.

In his recent Healthcare AI News roundup, Mr. H mentioned the inclusion of skin conditions in the Google Lens visual search tool. I decided to give it a whirl and ran three pictures of known dermatological findings through it. The tool scored zero out of three, so I think there’s still some opportunity for improvement. Granted, one of the conditions isn’t super common and it suggested a condition that is often confused with the actual diagnosis, but the other two submissions were very common, and I was surprised it didn’t do a better job with those.

When technology companies are marketing directly to consumers, it’s hard for primary care physicians and others who have the patient’s interests at heart to get ahead of the messaging and explain how these tools might or might not be used. It’s one more thing that overburdened clinicians need to add to their list of anticipatory guidance for upcoming patient visits.

AI continues to be a hot topic both within the US and around the globe. Various European consumer protection organizations are calling for investigation of AI systems in the interim before European Union regulations on the systems go into effect. Concerns range from the risks involved when AI generates content that mimics human work to the risk that AI could manipulate humans into doing things that will harm them. The European Union is creating rules for technology use, but they won’t go into effect for a couple of years.

Other countries are addressing the issue on a case-by-case basis, with Italy ordering OpenAI to stop processing user information during the investigation of a data incident. Nations such as France, Spain, and Canada are also looking into the technology. The next few months will be interesting as far as the continued discussion of AI and how it can best be used for the greater good.

I started doing some clinical work with a new organization and they’re eager to get my informaticist opinion on their EHR and how they might improve it. The first thing I recommended was some optimization to improve usability by putting the most commonly selected items on various menus in positions where they will be the easiest to select for the greatest number of patient visits. The EHR analyst couldn’t figure out how to do it, so he had to open a ticket with their vendor. It turns out that the EHR doesn’t allow this level of configuration, but rather forces items on the menu to be displayed in the order in which the menu items were built in the system’s back-end utility.

I remember seeing that kind of nonsense on a system I implemented back in 2009, but I thought that vendors had moved beyond that. It’s no wonder that physicians are complaining about scrolling since they are having to do more of it than they should.

Registration is open for the LOINC conference being held October 17-20 in Atlanta. Sessions will focus on health data interoperability issues. Attendees include providers, patients, laboratory organizations, government entities, software vendors, device manufacturers, researchers, and students. The first day will be “devoted to LOINC learning,” with educational sessions to support newer users of LOINC and grow expertise in advanced users. Subsequent days will include public meetings of the LOINC committee as well as presentations from the LOINC community. Proposals are still being accepted, and for those unable to attend in person, there is an option for online participation.

Speaking of conferences, one of my favorite readers is attending a meeting this week and sent some musings about his experiences. The meeting is the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies annual Psychedelic Science conference,  being held in Denver. Organizers estimated the potential attendance at 10,000 and continuing medical education credits are being offered. The conference agenda is fascinating, and my reporter has found it to be “wildly informative” and full of information about topics he had not previously been aware of.

Based on his reports, it feels like the event was pretty mellow and lower key than some other conferences. There was at least one EHR vendor was exhibiting although I didn’t catch which one it was. I imagine the vendor has to have either some highly specialized content, or alternatively, a fairly significant ability for clients to customize to meet their needs.

Other interesting offerings included sessions on the convergence of wearables, neuroscience, and psychedelics; a history of the discipline; discussion of rituals; practical techniques for prayer practice; the use of psychedelics in alcohol use disorder; and a stomp class.

The use of drugs like ketamine and psilocybin also features prominently in the agenda. I have worked with a handful of patients who have had life-changing experiences with ketamine treatment, so I hope people are open minded when considering some of these non-mainstream treatments. The website’s chatbot told me the conference was sold out except for single-day passes for Friday, so it sounds like plenty of people are interested in learning more.

I don’t have any conference travel planned for a while, so I’ll just have to live vicariously through my readers. If you’re attending a meeting we haven’t historically reported on, feel free to send your thoughts and observations. Or if you have ideas of meetings that you think HIStalk should be covering, please pass those along as well. As I put together my conference plan for the rest of 2023 and the first half of 2024, nothing is off the table.

Do you have any work-related travel that you’re looking forward to? What makes it unique or appealing? Leave a comment or email me.

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