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Show Family Weekly May s, mo Revolutionizing Medical Care family doctor, but they are dramatically changing the course of modern medicine By Dr. ARTHUR S. FREESE ities in the human brain at the Michigan Department of Mental Health's Lafayette Clinic in Detroit The computer tracks injected radioactive substances, studies the human knee reflex and the changes in the heart and breathing rate under different emotional conditions, scores and interprets psychological tests. It will soon be running the laboratory equipment to study closely the effects of different drugs on behavior. It can even sample the electrical changes in 16 areas of the brain every five milliseconds (thousandths of a second), providing 1,600 samples every memory. The Information is filed in the memory bank in layers, each with more detailed information three levels now but this can be expanded to 60. The first level has basic identification; the second, such critical medical data as drug allergies, vaccinations, and past illnesses. The third laye'r covers hospital visits and information. Akhovgh everyone has an identification number, the person's record can still be found from his name or even just his physical description in an emergency. Only hospital staff members with a status have keys that can turn on the display terminals which in turn are coded to the computer by locations. The department, for example, can get only information. In addition, such ultrapersonal information as psychiatric or venereal-diseas- e treatments can only be obtained by certain physicians who must insert a special code number into the machine. The computer also keeps track of those who requested such confidential displays. But the really major vital changes introduced by the medical computers ara in the area of patient diagnosis and treatment An IBM computer is now being used to detect abnormal X-r- ay "need-to-kno- half-secon- - X-r- ay - d. patients whether the patient would survive surgery! In Paley's own words, "In this kind of study the computer is indispensable . . . there's no other way of finding how 60 or 60 or 70 different variables relate to each other or to the at hand." problem Others have used computerized monitoring systems to protect vulnerable newborn infants by helping the hospital head off outbreaks of infection. Computers have made it pos- " J",Jt ' i " - " teat at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dal-luses data fed from rewired tv set to IBM computer to detect eye diseases. Field-of-viti- on i' i il if. ".- I . ljiS...,:--..- l : - x'; .. . . -- .'v.. if - - v'vy '; ' vVv-- ." ! " V'-- a ' v , ..-.- ' a A' rv . v. ink, .Asa..:k- A Honeywell computer accumulates data compiled by this scintiscanner at Long Island Jewish Hospital, N.Y., allowing doctors accurately to pinpoint tumors. Ti mi t ot sible to dip your fingers into two tiny cups of salt water and get your electrocardiogram read by a computer with a better than 95 accuracy and in 16 seconds. They can spot tumors by teaming a Honeywell computer with a device which spots radioactive substances in the body. A medical team at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, uses a computer to carry out special eye tests (a "visual field": the space you can see while looking at a fixed object). The results are better than a i 3 - y heart-surger- ,V K i In thb same area; Dr. Aaron Paley, Denver's National Jewish Hospital chief of psychiatry, has used psychological tests to predict in 24 of 27 X-r- ay - NI well-train- ed technician or doctor can obtain with standard manual testing. At th recent 118th annual meeting of the American Medical Association, computers demonstrated their skill at diagnosing some 263 diseases, including 78 mental and emotional disorders. Over 1,760 different symptoms of gastrointestinal, urinary, and emotional diseases were handled by the computer, providing almost instantaneously a differential diagnosis based on the various combinations fed in by the participating physicians. The system has been compared to an encyclopedia of medical knowledge which opens itself at the appropriate page. I saw one psychiatrist walk away from the machine, shaking his head in sheer amazement at the way a series of problems some of which were phonythat he had thrown at it ! The latest use of computers has been for matching available transplantation organs to patients. In Europe, a book the size of a large city telephone directory lists some SOO potential recipients for kidney transplants. Their tissue type, age, sex, the' machine had flawlessly fielded address, blood type and reactions, and disease state are all fed into a computer. At least once a month, the computer prints an updated readout of the recipient list which is then distributed to the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, Switzerland, and West Germany. Here in the United States various versions of the same system are being carried out Dr. 6. Octo Bonwtt, director of the laboratory of computer science at the Massachusetts General Hospital, after pointing out the impact of computers on commercial and industrial activities, said : "The modern hospital with its divergent functions is badly in need of its own revolution in automation." Dr. Caceres' words clearly sum up the whole matter: "Automation of medical and laboratory tests can change the course of modern medicine. It is inevitable in the long run, it is feasible now." 4 ... Family Weekly, May S, 1970 7 |