The Other Exam Room: When Doctors 'Google' Their Patients 231
theodp writes "Writing in the NY Times, Dr. Haider Javed Warraich shares a dirty little medical secret: doctors do 'Google' their patients, and the practice is likely to only become more common. And while he personally feels the practice should be restricted to situations where there's a genuine safety issue, an anecdote Warraich shares illustrates how patient search could provide insight into what otherwise might be unsolved mysteries — or lead to a snap misdiagnosis: 'I was once taking care of a frail, older patient who came to the hospital feeling very short of breath. It wasn't immediately clear why, but her breathing was getting worse. To look for accidental ingestions, I sent for a drug screen and, to my great surprise, it came back positive for cocaine. It didn't make sense to me, given her age and the person lying before me, and I was concerned she had been the victim of some sort of abuse. She told me she had no idea why there was cocaine in her system. When I walked out of the room, a nurse called me over to her computer. There, on MugShots.com, was a younger version of my patient's face, with details about how she had been detained for cocaine possession more than three decades earlier. I looked away from the screen, feeling like I had violated my patient's privacy. I resumed our medical exam, without bringing up the finding on the Internet, and her subsequent hospital course was uneventful.'"
Go Ahead, Google Me (Score:5, Funny)
I don't care if my doctor Google's me. They'll have to weed through millions of results for Anonymous Coward.
Re:Go Ahead, Google Me (Score:5, Funny)
I don't care if my doctor Google's me. They'll have to weed through millions of results for Anonymous Coward.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder [wikipedia.org]
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:As House Says (Score:5, Funny)
That explains why he failed to diagnose that guy with chronic truth-telling syndrome.
Re:As House Says (Score:5, Funny)
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Including Google.
It's the sign of our times (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's the sign of our times (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's the sign of our times (Score:5, Funny)
You know what a good thing is? Paragraphs, dude. Paragraphs.
I was momentarily autistic when I wrote that, you insensitive clod!
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Autism is not an acute illness
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Autism is not an acute illness
I know...it was sort of a joke ;)
But point taken, autism is no joke, no joke at all. In fact, some of my best friends are autistic, and very intelligent btw.
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Re:It's the sign of our times (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is like a knife: neither inherently good nor inherently evil.
Some people will do the equivalent of SEO and actually create lies about themselves that people will find. Literally, if you're smart about it when people google your name all they will see is that you are some sort of awesome human being. Link to press releases of you donating a kidney to some poor schmuck who couldn't afford it. Link to how Jesus washed your feet. Link to positive stuff.
Other people won't get it and the picture your ex girlfriend posted of you pissing yourself will make the front page of google.
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Google is like a knife: neither inherently good nor inherently evil.
This is slashdot. I need a car anlogy.
Re: It's the sign of our times (Score:3)
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Everyone google everyone. When someone is asking for employment, seek a job, seek a position, ask for marriage, new neighbors etc...you'll get googled. This isn't good, in fact - it's very bad, for everyone, including yourself...
That implies everyone has loads of information about them online for all to see. If you google my name (and I imagine it's the same for most people) you'll get links to a few moderatly famous people with the same or similar names. The usual batch of profile sites with a few people with the same name none of which are actually me. I looked through the first few pages of images and I'm not there either.
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Yeah, but those of us with fairly unique names are boned if we have anything bad online, real or manufactured.
This is why I have to have a facebook account, a linked-in account, etc. that I do NOTHING with except maintain a vanilla profile. I don't want someone setting up an account in my name. 15 years ago someone sent a stupid, highly ungrammatical "letter to the editor" of a local paper (which maintains an online presence) using my name as a joke. They printed it in the online edition and the damn thin
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Would your friends son have found out about that blog without Google? Would he have been able to take any actions against that blog?
Re:It's the sign of our times (Score:4, Insightful)
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Well, there's good reason to not put information about yourself on the internet. I've been on since about '92, and thankfully googling myself comes up very little pointing to me. I don't do FB or twitter, etc.
You don't have to
Re:It's the sign of our times (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, fuck that guy, and all the other hypocrites parroting similar views. Either mankind is doomed, or those bootlickers will be identified and despised as such - funny how they never get over that, huh? As in, fuck you, you chose your bed, now sleep in it. Forever.
--Richard Stallman
-- Jacob Appelbaum ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3h46EbqhPo&t=7m46s [youtube.com] )
-- Noam Chomsky
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Don't mention it :) I'm happy when I can stick them somewhere and they get read. You can find more here [sandboxx.org], but I got a bit lazy with tagging them, so it's currently a bit of a mess.
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False analogy... rape is an act of violence against a person, and causes harm against that person, while the mere act of knowing something about someone else which they may not have wanted anyone else to know is not, and does not really infringe on their rights in any way. What a person *does* with that information might hurt somebody, but the mere fact that they know it does not, and privacy only covers what people simply know about, not necessarily what they do with the information.
The fact that there IS freely-available information about me is annoying. It dates back to my teenage years and I'd like them gone. Luckily I've been cited and Google-crawled enough that these have slowly disappeared (death of Geocities for instance) or moved to page 2 of Google results (best place to hide a body by the way, nobody ever goes there).
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Privacy in itself is a right, so how does that work?
Patients Lie (Score:5, Insightful)
And it could kill them.
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Only if the doctors and nurses are incompetent. Unless they are sure, they have to assume HIV and the like anyways and be careful.
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And it can harm doctors. With the spread of viral diseases like hepatitis, patient deception can lead to infection of medical personnel.
Doctors should always wear gloves. The patient himself might not even know yet that he has an infection.
Or the patient may actually have told it to the secretary, who marked it on the form, but the doctor didn't take time to read the form.
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Re:Patients Lie (Score:5, Insightful)
Patients don't lie. They just don't have a medical professional's understanding of what is and isn't important.
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If she tells her doctor, the topic may end in his records, and be mentioned on the phone. State authorities steal medical records and break into confident communication. She'll likely not survive getting "busted".
Why the fuck should she put the rest of her life on the line to make her doctor happy? It's probably bad enough as it is with the tests being on medical record.
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Or, you know, maybe she has been clean for 30 years, doesn't touch the stuff any more, and literally has NO IDEA of why it's in her system.
Reading that I almost got the impression the doctor realized there could be residual cocaine, and that it was likely a false hit.
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and literally has NO IDEA of why it's in her system
All she did was bake some cookies using the baggie of sugar she found in the sugar jar.
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I don't know enough about it to know how long it stays in your system ... but I gather from TFS that the doctor decided that the information he had wasn't what he needed and moved on from it, and didn't pursue it.
So, for all I know cocaine is fat soluble and persists for a very long time.
Totally not qualified to speak to the medical stuff.
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And yet, the doctor seems to have determined that it had nothing to do with the current stuff and moved on:
Re:Patients Lie (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet, the doctor seems to have determined that it had nothing to do with the current stuff and moved on:
So, depending on the kinds of tests he was doing, he apparently concluded it was a red herring.
Let me give you some insight as a doctor.
Patient comes in, lies, is actually abusing cocaine. Cocaine is a stimulant, and can cause overexertion of the heart through either chronic use or acute overdose, leading to shortness of breath and weakness, which the patient came in with. Additionally, smoking cocaine and all its impurities can damage the lungs.
It had everything to do with the "current stuff", as the patient lying and abusing cocaine as an elderly person ties everything together logically. Medical mystery solved, the doctor goes about his day. Seeing gramps come into the hospital after shooting up or smoking some dope is uncommon, but not unheard of.
Now, elderly person comes in, unknown care situation at home or what passes for home. Tests positive for drugs in their system. This explains why they came in with their symptoms, but not how it got there. That possibility requires further investigation, and may be cause for a call to adult protective services.
TL,DR: Not a red herring. The doctor reacting as they did was because they got the answers they needed, not because it wasn't relevant.
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And yet, the doctor seems to have determined that it had nothing to do with the current stuff and moved on:
So, depending on the kinds of tests he was doing, he apparently concluded it was a red herring.
Let me give you some insight as a doctor.
Patient comes in, lies, is actually abusing cocaine. Cocaine is a stimulant, and can cause overexertion of the heart through either chronic use or acute overdose, leading to shortness of breath and weakness, which the patient came in with. Additionally, smoking cocaine and all its impurities can damage the lungs.
It had everything to do with the "current stuff", as the patient lying and abusing cocaine as an elderly person ties everything together logically. Medical mystery solved, the doctor goes about his day. Seeing gramps come into the hospital after shooting up or smoking some dope is uncommon, but not unheard of.
Now, elderly person comes in, unknown care situation at home or what passes for home. Tests positive for drugs in their system. This explains why they came in with their symptoms, but not how it got there. That possibility requires further investigation, and may be cause for a call to adult protective services.
TL,DR: Not a red herring. The doctor reacting as they did was because they got the answers they needed, not because it wasn't relevant.
The problem is that they didn't get any answers at all -- just because she used Cocaine 30 years ago doesn't mean she still does. I used a number of drugs 20 years ago that I literally haven't touched in decades.
If he suspects abuse, then he shouldn't dismiss that suspicion just because she once used the drugs. If she associated with people 30 years ago that had access to cocaine, there's a good chance that she still comes into contact with people today that have access to cocaine, so if anything, the fact
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And yet, the doctor seems to have determined that it had nothing to do with the current stuff and moved on:
So, depending on the kinds of tests he was doing, he apparently concluded it was a red herring.
Let me give you some insight as a doctor.
Patient comes in, lies, is actually abusing cocaine. Cocaine is a stimulant, and can cause overexertion of the heart through either chronic use or acute overdose, leading to shortness of breath and weakness, which the patient came in with. Additionally, smoking cocaine and all its impurities can damage the lungs.
It had everything to do with the "current stuff", as the patient lying and abusing cocaine as an elderly person ties everything together logically. Medical mystery solved, the doctor goes about his day. Seeing gramps come into the hospital after shooting up or smoking some dope is uncommon, but not unheard of.
Now, elderly person comes in, unknown care situation at home or what passes for home. Tests positive for drugs in their system. This explains why they came in with their symptoms, but not how it got there. That possibility requires further investigation, and may be cause for a call to adult protective services.
TL,DR: Not a red herring. The doctor reacting as they did was because they got the answers they needed, not because it wasn't relevant.
The problem is that they didn't get any answers at all -- just because she used Cocaine 30 years ago doesn't mean she still does. I used a number of drugs 20 years ago that I literally haven't touched in decades.
If he suspects abuse, then he shouldn't dismiss that suspicion just because she once used the drugs. If she associated with people 30 years ago that had access to cocaine, there's a good chance that she still comes into contact with people today that have access to cocaine, so if anything, the fact that she once used the drug makes it more likely that someone may be giving it to her now.
Which is a valid point, too. But the response to that is complicated. It may have been an incomplete story given to us - when I ask a social history on substance use, I usually ask a variation of, "Are you using any illegal or street drugs? Have you done so in the past?"
Most people who are steadfastly lying about current use will say no to both. People who have fallen off the wagon may lie about the first question in the beginning and tell the truth on the second, but if you come around again the patient w
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Patients don't lie. They just don't have a medical professional's understanding of what is and isn't important.
I have a bridge I'd like to sell you...
Everyone lies, even when it's to their detriment. Shame (among others) is a very powerful emotion.
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Bollocks. I don't do coke. I don't do drugs. I don't do anything I'm ashamed of.
If my doctor asks me something, I tell him truthfully. Sometimes though what I tell him is not what he wanted to ask. That's not due to my lying. It's due to my not understanding the question asked, or at least, not understanding what is important in regards to the question.
Re:Patients Lie (Score:5, Interesting)
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MD here. They lie. They lie all the time. Usually not all that important, sometimes it is. We almost always know anyway.
The patients pretend not to lie, and the doctors pretend that they don't know.
Honestly, I think half of that problem would go away if we didn't treat doctors like gatekeepers. If somebody wants a prescription for anything other than an antibiotic they should be able to just go to the store and buy it. I could see not forcing insurers to cover it, but I think that if we treated doctors less like gatekeepers we'd see fewer adversarial relationships.
If people went to the doctor solely because they wanted the
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MD here. They lie. They lie all the time. Usually not all that important, sometimes it is. We almost always know anyway.
This.
I'm not a doctor, but the last time I went to one I got the weirdest look after a brief examination. I asked him what the problem was and all he said was he doesn't get many patients who tell him the truth. I've worked in tech support, so I know when a user lies to me it just makes the whole thing longer and more painful for everyone. So I dont lie to people who I'd like to help me (especially when I'm in pain).
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And sometimes doctors assume the patient is lying when their moral judgement of the person conflicts with what they're being told by them.
Such as the non-sexual transition of chlamydia. But no let's take kids away for their parents and throw the pervs in jail, it's statistically not likely they're telling the truth so they must be lying.
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Patients don't lie. They just don't have a medical professional's understanding of what is and isn't important.
A little bit like computer users then, hehe... How possible can a noob know that having rebooted the computer is somehow important to the analysis to the problem?
So.... (Score:5, Insightful)
... adoctor will fondle and touch and examine your most intimate body parts, yet they shouldn't look at publicly available information? STUPID.
Yes, they shouldn't jump to conclusions based on what they find, but otherwise, fair game.
Re:So.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I feel more confident in a Doctor having more information than a for-profit insurance company -- which already KNOWS MORE than the doctor in many cases.
Re:So.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Except when doctors look at this publicly available information, the fact that they looked at it also becomes information which, while not publicly available, is still available to Google and, by extension, the government. Because the search engine knows who did the search (possibly exactly who if you're logged in) and where it came from.
The simple act of the search allows someone to say "this doctor's office looked for this person, and they also looked at this information". You don't think big data can't then determine that "this person has that condition and is being treated by that doctor"?
And then you've violated HIPAA laws and your obligation to patient confidentiality.
Unless you can prove no 3rd party could glean information from you doing that search (and I assure you, the doctors can't), you pretty much have to assume that someone actually could.
Which means the default position here has to be "no, you can't do that". Because it has more potential to cause harm than people realize.
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I'm more concerned with doctors being able to find medical records from other doctors. You see one quack and get a misdiagnosis, and it can haunt you for years to come. With electronic records, almost all of the hospitals are linked here, and a simple search turns up everything. Its impossible to correct things in your medical files as well. All you can do is add a statement to them.
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Uh, no. This is a feeble understanding of HIPAA. HIPAA would only be involved with the information in the medical record, and violations occur when information in the medical record is shared in a way that HIPAA does not allow. There are many exemptions.
Googles records of a person's search, even a doctor's search, would not constitute sharing a patient's personal medical information(PMO) in a way prohibited by HIPAA.
The idea that google knows something has been searched, then by extension 'the government kn
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That's idiotic. First, Google doesn't know who the doctor is, second, he's only looking you up, not putting your medical records out there.
This HIPPA shit goes too far if there's any way a HIPPA-cryte case could be made from a Doctor Googling info ANYONE could Google...
Really, you people need to change your tinfoil hats, I think your brains rotted clean through...
Re:So.... (Score:5, Informative)
Bullcrap. Even if doctors all had the technical sophistication to do this, which I assure you, they don't -- if you can identify the IP address of the VPN (or some of the TOR exit nodes) then you can still determine that 'a' doctor, and possibly 'this group of doctors' is doing searches about people.
When I see this:
I immediately think, "yup, the, the nurses are just googling and finding everything about you, and they're probably doing it with zero anonymity". My impression of the standards of IT and security in the average medical context is that it's barely there (if at all), managed by people who don't know or care, likely woefully out of date and missing security updates, and probably on a network which has been compromised by malware.
Sorry, but the interwebs pretty much guarantee that unless you took some pretty extraordinary measures, determining that a specific doctors office had the mugshots.com up for a patient isn't all that tough, which tells you that patient is associated with that doctor.
I do not believe the average doctor's office has the technical skills, resources, or inclination to be able to do this in a way which would be safe, stay within HIPAA laws, and guarantee you aren't leaking out patient information in the process.
Which means they have no business doing it in the first place, but being doctors, think they know everything and have no idea of the ramifications of this.
"feeling like I had violated my patient's privacy" (Score:5, Interesting)
To me, if a doctor can find something about a patient without going to crazy lengths to do it then he shouldn't feel bad about it. It would be like me telling my doctor I've given up smoking and he sees me smoking in front of my local Starbucks a month later. On my next visit should he really ignore that I'm smoking again or should he ask about it or come outright and say "I caught you in the act."
Granted, I'm an adult and I can decide but for medical guidance to be accurate and worthwhile you have to be honest with your doctor and his pointing out the embarrassing truth might be what it takes to get a patient to straighten up and fly right.
Re:"feeling like I had violated my patient's priva (Score:5, Insightful)
It's public info, and it could help the doc make a decision, so let them use it.
BUT, make them spell out the patient what data they used to make their diagnosis if it was not provided directly by the patient.
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Well, look at the current case. The medical test was used to make the diagnosis, the social networking data was only used to determine whether the person had likely been drugged without their knowledge. In this case, it suggested that she probably hadn't been (since she had a history of cocaine use) in spite of her protestations to the contrary.
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We give doctors a lot more trust than car mechanics, and we expect them to act professionally. If a doctor thinks that I'd be better off taking a drug, I'll probably take her advice and medicate myself. If she feels like she needs more information that I've given and googles it, then I think that's still a good thing.
Going back to your analogy: if the mechanic googles me and sees that I am a fan of F&F, so he replaces my oil with a higher performance blend, that would also be a good thing.
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Oops, bad analogy, but you get the point..
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Granted, I'm an adult and I can decide but for medical guidance to be accurate and worthwhile you have to be honest with your doctor and his pointing out the embarrassing truth might be what it takes to get a patient to straighten up and fly right.
This is probably accurate in many cases.
The geriatric coke addict in the summary not withstanding.
Re:"feeling like I had violated my patient's priva (Score:4, Interesting)
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+1
My doctor is now refusing to continue issuing a prescription (innocuous [not a substance restricted by anything other than requiring a prescription], but moderately expensive) because the insurance company has instructed otherwise. The problem (for me) is that the alternatives either don't work or have bad side effects. This is all documented as the insurance company has kept changing the prescription to anything else under the sun. The doctor now refuses to write the script at all and was plainly afraid
Re:"feeling like I had violated my patient's priva (Score:4, Interesting)
Wait, so this doctor now knows that his patient has a decades old history of drug abuse, at least one near overdose, and the rest of her stay was uneventful and he never brought it up... Am I the only one who says "WTF" to that? That seems like a much, much larger failure on the part of the doctor than googling a patient.
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It's only fair (Score:3, Insightful)
After all patients google the doctors too.
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It would be fair if doctors paid the paid the patients tons of money as well. As they do not, this is not a symmetric relationship.
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Does that mean you get to examine them too?
What surprises me is that... (Score:3)
tests can detect cocaine many, many years later. How is this so?
Re:What surprises me is that... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I thought of that too. The summary implies, though, that the doctor dismissed that possibility (patient too old).
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And that is a major failing on the doctor's part. Old people can be addicts too.
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And that is a major failing on the doctor's part. Old people can be addicts too.
I replied about this above this thread, too.
The doctor responded the way that they did, because the rest of the medical picture falls into place once it becomes known that the patient is still abusing cocaine. The doctor didn't dismiss the possibility, treating cocaine addicts for their health issues is commonplace.
The question that was nagging the doctor was, how did the drugs get into the patient's system in the first place? Elder abuse takes many different forms.
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We're talking human body here. Unlike pieces of paper or plastic, human bodies have metabolism that removes various toxins from the body with time.
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We're talking human body here. Unlike pieces of paper or plastic, human bodies have metabolism that removes various toxins from the body with time.
Not all the trace chemicals are metabolized. In the case of THC it can be detected years later when it's released from body fat. Also drugs can be detected from other trace chemicals that aren't toxins and can stay in the body much longer.
Here's two. I trust the NIH is acceptable. (Score:2)
Haven't done any reviewed work in years, I kinda miss it! I'm not going to bother doing full citations, just title and link, if that's OK with you.
"With a 50 ng/mL cutoff concentration and following low doses of 10 to 45 mg cocaine by multiple routes, detection times extended up to 98 h." - Urinary Excretion of Ecgonine and Five Other Cocaine Metabolites Following Controlled Oral, Intravenous, Intranasal, and Smoked Administration of Cocaine, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3159558/ [nih.gov]
"In serum, in
Hmmmm ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Wouldn't doctors googling their patients essentially violate HIPAA rules?
Because you've now let the fact that you are a doctor treating a specific patient bleed out around the corners, and since Google is keeping track of who you are and what you searched for, they know it too.
Unless you are doing this in such a way that you can guarantee you're not causing patient confidentiality to be breached (which Google sure as hell isn't), I'm of the opinion you've demonstrated a lapse in ethics, and a breech of the law.
And, even if you search in a manner you know was anonymous, if those searches come from something which is identifiable as being the anonymous search of doctors, the content of those searches can still leak information out.
Because when Google see that Dr. Joe Quack has searched for Bob Skippy Smith followed by a quick refresher on the symptoms of herpes .... Google knows (or can infer) that Bob Smith has Herpes.
Doctors are not information theorists, and quite possibly not well educated enough about this technology to be using it in conjunction with their medical practice. Because clearly, if they understood this a little better, they'd realize they've more or less violated their ethics (and possibly the law) by doing this.
Doctors Googling their patients is a terrible idea, and has every possibility of violating the privacy of the patient, as well as the laws meant to protect it.
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Wouldn't doctors googling their patients essentially violate HIPAA rules?
They have a legal expectation of privacy that the search metadata won't be used for illegal purposes. The illegal acts of others are not their responsibility unless they had reason to believe that they would be committed. If they were googling the information of a political refugee, there would perhaps be more grey area.
Re:Hmmmm ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a doctor.
Wouldn't doctors googling their patients essentially violate HIPAA rules?
No.
Because you've now let the fact that you are a doctor treating a specific patient bleed out around the corners, and since Google is keeping track of who you are and what you searched for, they know it too.
Unless you are doing this in such a way that you can guarantee you're not causing patient confidentiality to be breached (which Google sure as hell isn't), I'm of the opinion you've demonstrated a lapse in ethics, and a breech of the law.
Violating HIPAA takes intent. And you're taking the doctor's responsibility to protect patient information way too far.
For example, Doctor X discusses Patient Y's case with Friend Z, with specific identifying information. HIPAA violation.
Doctor X discusses Patient Y's case with consulting Doctor A in a suitably private conversation over the telephone. Unknown to the parties, the NSA / and/or the phone company is wiretapping the line, and just learned all about Patient Y. Not a HIPAA violation on either Doctor's part. Doctors have to take reasonable precautions to protect their patient's privacy. Guarding against every possible outlet that snooping intelligence agencies and snooping internet companies could use is too much, and we'd never get anything productive done.
And, even if you search in a manner you know was anonymous, if those searches come from something which is identifiable as being the anonymous search of doctors, the content of those searches can still leak information out.
Because when Google see that Dr. Joe Quack has searched for Bob Skippy Smith followed by a quick refresher on the symptoms of herpes .... Google knows (or can infer) that Bob Smith has Herpes.
Doctors are not information theorists, and quite possibly not well educated enough about this technology to be using it in conjunction with their medical practice. Because clearly, if they understood this a little better, they'd realize they've more or less violated their ethics (and possibly the law) by doing this.
Doctors Googling their patients is a terrible idea, and has every possibility of violating the privacy of the patient, as well as the laws meant to protect it.
This would be an incredibly bad idea on Google's part to try to gather accurate information this way on patients. Because I assure you, doctors are neither linear nor subject related in their internet searching. Just because I google "gstoddart" and then a few minutes later "UpToDate: complications of inserting foreign objects in anus" does not mean the two are anywhere related, despite what you're thinking. I may have 20 different patients on my service at any given time, and I frequently have to be thinking about multiple cases at any given time during a workday. Hell, just to make things more confusing for google, maybe I googled "best place to order roses nearby" in between those two google searches, because I'm taking my girlfriend out to dinner after work.
Sorry, while I hate it, no one, not me, not you, has privacy anymore online or electronically. While we can fight against it, get used to it.
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Further examples of HIPAA violations and nonviolations and why.
Doctor X discusses Patient Y's case with Doctor Z, also involved in the case, at the supermarket. This is a HIPAA violation, as long as there are bystanders and he used specific identifying information. The Doctor intended to have the conversation in a place where he could have reasonably assumed there were unrelated people overhearing.
Now, Doctor X discussing Patient Y as a generic stroke case in public that could be one of a million just like
They better get the right person or bad stuff may (Score:3)
They better get the right person or bad stuff may happen like (up to death with big law suits)
Just have to have the right name. (Score:3)
This will only work on a few people. When I google myself, William Douglas, I get a pile of hits and none of them are for me. Additionally, people can still change their name if they want to distance themselves from their past. Will not hide you from government agencies but will be good enough for everyone else.
On a side note, a question to the grammar Nazis. When using the word "Google" as a verb, should the first character be capitalized? And as a website that supposedly stays neutral, should it even be used as a verb within headlines?
Now if you would please forgive me, I must go monitor Bing to see if their is a sudden spike in searches for "William Douglas".
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On a side note, a question to the grammar Nazis. When using the word "Google" as a verb, should the first character be capitalized?
Not usually. However in the title it's correct to capitalize each word.
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On a side note, a question to the grammar Nazis. When using the word "Google" as a verb, should the first character be capitalized?
Seems to me capitalization in current English is used for proper nouns.
I don't know that we've ever Had proper verbs.
To google or not to Google, that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous liars or search for info about them on the web (because we know everything on the web is absolutely true.)
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...including their education and work history, making it much harder to find a job.
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This will only work on a few people. When I google myself, William Douglas, I get a pile of hits and none of them are for me.
Well I really am "Mr Anonymous Coward", so it's much worse for me.
I told Noel he should give his kid a normal first name, but no, he had to be cute about it.
I figured it was going the other way (Score:2)
I figured the Doctors were googling patients info to see how much they could overcharge for their service.
The Poor Man's Background Check (Score:2)
In a world constantly screaming for "moar" information it's a shame there's not enough reflection on how valuable or correct it is.
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Yup! When I self-googled, I got a whole page of MyRealName, none of which was me. The first real "me" I found was some dumb question I asked on a mailing list 15 years ago, and I have plausible deniability for that one.
Decision to Treat at All (Score:2)
i think doctors should be permitted to use the search to decide whether they want to treat a patient at all, based on certain criteria. For instance, if you find the patient ranting about three other doctors and claiming to be in litigation with hospitals over various perceived slights... maybe they want to steer clear. Maybe the person really has a terrible track record of bad doctors and hospitals, but I fear the loss of physicians because of false accusations and public airings of disagreements.
However,
Re:A snap misdiagnosis (Score:5, Informative)
So, essentially, Dr. Haider Javed Warraichis is suggesting patients to lie, because doctors are more prone to misdiagnose if they have more information?
See what I read is that the Doctor was sharing a mistake they made with a snap judgement, based on getting MORE INFORMATION -- but out of context. I think our take-away could be; "If you are going to use this internet-based information, take it with a grain of salt and find some context." There's nothing about lying, that I'm reading.
It's a good thing he didn't ask her if her parents were embarrassed about her drunken sexy behavior on spring break.
FTA;
To me, the only legitimate reason to search for a patient’s online footprint is if there is a safety issue. If, for example, a patient appears to be manic or psychotic, it might be useful to investigate whether certain claims the patient makes are true. Or, if a doctor suspects a pediatric patient is being abused, it might make sense to look for evidence online.
That to me means; "limit your searches to investigate psychosis or abuse, and double-check conclusions."
Re:A snap misdiagnosis (Score:5, Informative)
So, essentially, Dr. Haider Javed Warraichis is suggesting patients to lie, because doctors are more prone to misdiagnose if they have more information?
Erm... because doctors would never make a misdiagnosis based on wrong information.
Has Dr. Javed Warraichis been self prescribing a wee bit too much?
One of the big reasons doctors (or anyone) turns to other sources of information beyond the horses mouth is because the horse fucking lies.
Those of us who've survived their time in tech support know that what the user tells you is never to be trusted. The same is true for patents. The big difference is that doctors dont have the luxury of finding out what is actually wrong from another source. So they have to rely on their intuition, external observation and the ability to tell what someone isn't saying.
I'm willing to bet that in the case of 95%+ of all misdiagnosis the cause was the patient either didn't tell the doctor what was actually wrong or worse, lied about it.
Re:A snap misdiagnosis (Score:4, Insightful)
My opinion is that doctors are busy, and they're combating declining profits by pipelining more patients. If a doctor googled me I'd be shocked that he found the time or interest. I'm not sure I could consider it a breach of privacy...if it's on google it's hardly private, no matter what I may personally prefer.
In the small window of time they do give me, I think think my doctor at least attempts to give my family the best care he can. He just has to restrict himself to about 15 minutes of care. Honestly given the cost of doctor visits I'd try cutting out the blow before I ever showed up, but I suppose if you could afford the drugs then the visit may not be so bad.
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