Originally published August 6 2005
Medicine goes high-tech
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A new chip inserted into a person's shoulder can help doctors treat patients more effectively. It can list the patient's health records and who to call in case of an emergency.
Picture this: A tiny microchip embedded in a patient's shoulder that contains data on their identity and where to access their medical record in case of emergency.
Or a high-tech in-hospital pill dispensary, where each pill rolls down a Willy Wonka-like assembly line and is stamped with a bar code that enables nurses throughout the hospital to match the right drug to the right patient.
Advocates -- including former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, who will soon have a medical chip implanted in his arm -- believe the technologies, if properly used, will make health care more efficient and safer.
Wright and Katz are both residents at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, which has introduced its own bar coding system.
They penned one of two journal perspective articles focused on the increasing role of high technology in the world of medicine.
The other article, by Dr. John Halamka, chief information officer of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, provided a first-person account of being "chipped" -- having a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip implanted into his upper right arm.
Granted, the technology is expensive ($200 for the chip and $650 for a reader) and there are ethical issues around implanting the chip in people who can't provide informed consent (such as an Alzheimer's patient).
Back at Brigham and Women's in Boston, Wright and Katz liken the hospital's venture into bar coding to a futuristic factory spitting out specially packaged, bar-coded pills.
Like Halamka's chip, this technology is designed to improve patient safety, specifically through making sure medication is dispensed correctly.
A 1999 report from the Institute of Medicine found that 44,000 to 98,000 Americans die each year because of mistakes made by health care professionals.
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