Comment by devbent | Hacker News Reader

Comment by devbent | Hacker News Reader

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> Hospital computers should not be connected to the internet.

Scheduling an urgent care appointment is connected to my account at the hospital network. When I step into the hospital and get tests done, everything is automatically uploaded to a web portal where I can view it and doctors can easily forward my test results to other facilities. Lot of the imaging work is actually done at third party facilities but they still show up in my medical records , presumably having been forwarded.

When my appointment begins my doctor can look up any comments I left when scheduling the appointment so she knows why I'm there.

Is it possible all the different buildings and facilities that are part of the hospital Network I belong to which extends across multiple counties across my state could all be running on their own private isolated network that is air gapped with medical records manually transferred over to the web portal via sneaker net?

Sure, but no one is going to do that.

When my appointment begins my doctor can look up any comments I left when scheduling the appointment so she knows why I'm there.

Or, you could… you know… talk to her.

I work for a healthcare company that runs several hospitals and primary care clinics. When you become a patient, you're given a little notebook and a branded pen so that inbetween appointments, the patient writes down every little health question and problem they have. When the patient shows up for the appointment, the little notebook is reviewed by the doctor.

Convenience should not always trump security.

That sounds like an absolute nightmare. I'd lose the pen and paper within 30 seconds. I much prefer being able to send a quick message to a healthcare provider on my phone and have them get back to me same or next day. Especially for the "should I come in for this rash?" types of questions. (I got MRSA at the gym one time!)

At my child's pediatrician I can upload images through the web portal and have a nurse call me back anytime of the day or night. If there's any follow-up questions at my child's next appointment, his doctor has full access to all communications that happened through both text message and the web portal.

This kind of 24-hour digitally connected healthcare access with a huge boon as a first-time parent and made life a lot easier, especially when incidents like when my son woke up at 3:00 in the morning screaming and then projectile vomited 6 ft across his room (which by the way, was nothing to worry about and apparently completely normal... So long as it just happened once.)

I'd lose the pen and paper within 30 seconds.

We should reduce the security of the entire healthcare system because you can't adult?

I much prefer being able to send a quick message to a healthcare provider on my phone and have them get back to me same or next day.

Goalposts moved.

This kind of 24-hour digitally connected healthcare access with a huge boon as a first-time parent and made life a lot easier

Your moved goalposts pretend that we don't also offer a 24-hour medical hotline.

> We should reduce the security of the entire healthcare system because you can't adult?

I commented that my hospital network has the ability for me to see test results, communicate with medical providers asynchronously, and lets healthcare providers communicate what I said to them with each other.

Your counter proposal was a notepad and a pen.

Those two things have very different feature sets.

A site not directly hooked up to the main hospital system where I can add notes of things I want to talk to during my next visit, sure, maybe that is a decent proposal to trade off security vs convenience.

> We should reduce the security of the entire healthcare system because you can't adult?

Do you expect patients dealing with depression or anxiety to be able to keep track of that notepad? How about patients who don't have secure housing, or who live with an abusive partner?

Or anyone who is elderly and just forgets things now and then.

Or anyone who is not neurotypical and has issues with memory?

That sounds awful. If I went to a doctor that did that, I would immediately find a different doctor.

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