"Dr. Data" – likely for SEO reasons it has yet another name in its online version – asks if statistical analysis of databases of historical medical data can be more useful than clinical trial data for diagnosing patients. It recounts the story of Dr. Jennifer Frankovich, a Stanford Children's Hospital rheumatologist, who encountered the young girl symptoms of kidney failure, with possible lupus. Frankovich suspected blood clotting issues, but had to research the matter in order to convince colleagues. Scientific literature comprising clinical trial data did not offer clues. Instead, Frankovich found evidence of connection of clotting and lupus, given certain circumstances, by searching a database of lupus patients that had been to this hospital over the last five years.
The story by Veronique Greenwood tells us she wrote of her experience in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, and was subsequently warned by her bosses not to do that kind of query again. Assumedly HIPPA privacy concerns are involved.
It stands to reason that data on all the medical cases in any given hospital could have some good use. It leads me to wonder. Shouldn’t the 'anonymouzation' or masking of individuals' identities within such databanks be a priority? Is the hegemony of the clinical trial era due to ebb, especially when taking into account the momentum of the World Wide Web?
Frankovich's work could come under the aegis of Evidence-Based Medicine. The expanded Web-borne appoach a'brewing here is sometimes called Digital Experimentation. –Jack Vaughan
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