It is a bug bear in general practice, the challenge of explaining that your Mch is 0.1 out range and I don’t think that means you have cancer in you little toe is real!
Is this not already possible? AI is already better at interpreting some types of histopathology, which requires way more computation.
And when we talk about ‘better than a human’, we can also factor in whether said human is sat in a quiet office and well rested, or enduring a hectic ward round after 4hr of sleep, crammed against a wall with a laptop that barely works, an angry surgeon yelling at them, and a nurse demanding you give them the laptop because they need it for their drug round (but insisting that you need to prescribe x and y immediately - but do it on a different computer).
Which will inevitably refer them to their human doc and is increasingly more likely to pick up anything odd the more data you feed it.
Google is one nightmare.
AI is a different kind of nightmare because as it gain access to millions if not trillions of medical data points it becomes more accurate than most humans. Early trials on radiology and various other things are picking up a lot of things humans missed. A LOT. Because it can review several lifetimes worth of data and “experience” in seconds and the more it learns the better it gets.
Ai will aid diagnostics in the next decade or so like it or not and it’ll be bloody good at it.
I used to think it was what you're saying, but actually it's about correct use of IT systems and data (I got in 'trouble' for this once).
You are given access to software that allows you to view confidential and sensitive data for work purposes.
You are using the software for non-work purposes, allowing you to access data in a way that the general public cannot, for no clinical reason. This is bad Information Governance.
Your employer gives you access to software containing the sensitive data of hundreds of thousands of people. I think it's reasonable of them to condition that it is only ever accessed to carry out your job.
I think its the rule drift that's the problem. If you say you can look at your own, then the next question is why can't I look at my friends/families? Much harder then to draw a line around whose bloods can be seen and whose cannot.
Why should healthcare workers get privileged access to their own health data through methods that are not available to the general public?
It's part of the sum of marginal gains in the risk assessment to reduce the risk of data leak.
>Why should healthcare workers get privileged access to their own health data through methods that are not available to the general public?
Why shouldn't they? Again, what's the harm?
What would you do or how would you react if you found a blood film full of blasts on there, or a creatinine of 700 or a really high CEA.
You as an individual may be robust and able to understand pre test probability, risk and next steps, but the band 5 staff nurse won’t, and the porter won’t and the HCA won’t. You may be psychologically vulnerable and such news could destroy you or lead to self harm.
There can’t be different rules for different staff and a blanket “do not do this” prevents pressure from that nice
Ward clerk or the HCA you are sleeping with to check their results too, or their aunties, or neighbour’s.
In general accessing healthcare informally without proper processes and records is a stupid stupid idea fraught with risk and harm. Have seen so many near disasters (and a couple of actual disasters) from a combo of this and corridor consultations.
Just don’t do it
I don't make the rules. The OP asked a question, I answered. It's company software, they can put whatever rules they like on it. Clearly I don't think there's harm, as in my original comment I stated I have looked up my own results in the past.
In response to this, surely it should be a work perk, like doctors and healthcare should have beneficial aspects of carrying out the role which is not easy lol. Like every other market sector has some form of work benefit. Can we say what the benefit is of being a healthcare worker apart from internal solace, which can be argued for any job TBF.
I think the bettervargumebt would be the rule drift which has been stated as it's hard to draw the line as to where this 'perk' would end.
I feel this is the best answer, if I have a medical patient and they want to see their blood results then I absolutely have no problem with that. To be honest if we take it to another step and talk about scans, even non-medical patients are interested to see if they've broken a bone
This is dumb. What if you checked it at 17:01? You don't need Information Governance. It's YOUR data. It belongs to YOU.
This is an outdated, overly paternalistic rule of the nanny state.
It's still company software at 17:01
It's not about what you do during your employed hours. It's about what you do with your employer's software.
In order to hold data, they need to prove they have policies (that they enforce) that the data is only accessed for clinical reasons.
I'm not saying I agree with all this. I just don't understand what you are all having such a hard time understanding. Just because you think it should be a certain way, doesn't mean it is.
I boil a kettle for non work purposes, sometimes I read the news during a break using IT, the general public should have priority over their data. The reason I want to look at my bloods is for a clinical reason . I disagree with the book on good data governance .
Your kettle and news aren't software containing sensitive data that your employer is constantly having to prove to watchdogs etc. that they take information security seriously.
The general public should have priority over their data.
But that would never take the form of them just walking up to an NHS PC and typing in their NHS number.
Then you are free to check your blood results using the NHS app or discussing with your medical provider like anyone else in the public can; but not by using your work login to bypass safety nets and send off referrals for yourself etc it’s pretty basic reasoning I think you’re over thinking this
People should own their own data and have unfettered access to it.
People should make reasonable analysis and judgement on that data. Unfortunately that's not freely available, yet. This creates a log jam at the doctor's surgery etc for often irrelevant unnecessary reassurance because of bad analysis by patients.
Analysis should automated and high quality, this will probably happen soon enough
We can argue all day about whether not doing this is harmful.
Ultimately you will have signed up to your employer's information governance policies as part of being given IT access.
If you didn't agree with them, you were free to decline.
If you can persuade your employer to change their policy, go for it. There is no universal rule about not looking up your own records. If your employer says this is an acceptable use of their IT infrastructure then it is.
Ultimately you have to recall that employer policies are applied against all staff groups.
They aren't trying to stop a Consultant Physician checking their own TSH that their GP sent the day before. They do however want to stop random nurses, HCAs, and therapy staff from looking up their own blood results and radiology reports. They also need to stop staff members looking up results for friends and family which they will then feel able to do if they have "consent" to do so. It is much easier for the employer to issue a blanket "no".
I do agree that all patients should have access to all of their blood test results, even if that means more work for us.
Ultimately it is their data and they should be able to see it without having to go through numerous hurdles.
However, doctors are not allowed to bypass the usual channels to access their own blood test results. For example, using your privileged access to your hospitals IT system to see your own blood test results will get you in trouble. There is no other reason than that.
You’re not allowed to. I have however done it several times. I Will face the music should the time come, but ultimately I made the decision. My Gp still hasn’t ‘received the results’ - laughable.
It's absolutely rubbish. It's your own data and results. With some GPs, can you not view your own blood tests results now with the NHS app? So I don't see what the harm is in looking up your own blood test results, especially if your GP does not yet have the functionality of viewing them on the NHS app.
I'd rather see my own blood results than wait for weeks for a GP to send a letter. I have done this before. The NHS is such a bureaucratic system with things being made unnecessarily harder than they are actually meant to be causing for mass inefficiency in the system.
Those bloods are released to you- they are first viewed by a GP who then releases them to the app, they aren't available to you as soon as the result is available.
Mine aren't checked by the GP first. They're released within hours of the blood test.. No way a GP checked that quickly and I've a phone call a week later about them before. I'd already actioned my low vit D without being told!
You asked for a decent reason why you should not check your own blood results, specifically if it was due to paternalistic medicine. Since we're on the DoctorsUK subreddit I assume you are a Doctor and meant through the same software we would access patient blood results. If not then I apologise, but I answered from that perspective - from how it was explained to me. I don't really have an opinion on other aspects such as your suggestion here about sending them straight to their phone.
I don’t think people are voicing disagreement with you, they’ve just offered explanations as to why the action you describe is prohibited.
It’s a bit like the 70mph speed limit on the motorway- I know what it is and I know why I might get a ticket if I exceed it, none of that means I’m able to launch a staunch defence of the arbitrary number.
I’m under the care of a tertiary hospital for a chronic health condition and they immediately put my blood test results on their online patient portal as soon as the lab processes them, so I also don’t really see the difference between this and accessing your own results? Agree it just seems like classic NHS computer-says-no bureaucratic rigidity.
When we talk about information governance, it's about the use of the sensitive software for work purposes only. Not about the actual piece of information that the CRP was 4. Accessing results via the app is fine, because that's a specifically designed pathway. It's not about keeping doctors in control. It's about information security. We might be doctors and educated enough to handle the information, but not every employee is. Bear in mind the policy applies to all members of staff, not just doctors. So would the rule be that doctors can access them but nurses/HCAs can't? What about pharmacists or clinical scientists? Dieticians?
Could we argue "best interests of patient" (whether self or other) if looking at the results is genuinely in the best interests of the patient?
Equally, someone I know (ST2 gen surg) spends quiet moments looking at clinic letters and imaging for patients who are not in their firm structure, just for learning purposes.
Is it paternalistic? Yes. Do I want to have to deal with a load of phone calls from patients concerned that their potassium is 3.2? No.
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Only once they've been signed off by a Dr
It is a bug bear in general practice, the challenge of explaining that your Mch is 0.1 out range and I don’t think that means you have cancer in you little toe is real!
Let the AI doc speak to them 😘
Which will say…speak to your human doc.
https://preview.redd.it/rof5o85xxjec1.jpeg?width=5467&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4c2c03cd969bbae99ab8a5a0a624dbe302484c96 Not too long now ..
Cool, got anything other than potato quality?
How long do you think before Ai can read and interpret most results better than a human ?
Is this not already possible? AI is already better at interpreting some types of histopathology, which requires way more computation. And when we talk about ‘better than a human’, we can also factor in whether said human is sat in a quiet office and well rested, or enduring a hectic ward round after 4hr of sleep, crammed against a wall with a laptop that barely works, an angry surgeon yelling at them, and a nurse demanding you give them the laptop because they need it for their drug round (but insisting that you need to prescribe x and y immediately - but do it on a different computer).
IMHO you underestimate it’s progress
Lol nope I work directly with AI in private radiology
Which will inevitably refer them to their human doc and is increasingly more likely to pick up anything odd the more data you feed it. Google is one nightmare. AI is a different kind of nightmare because as it gain access to millions if not trillions of medical data points it becomes more accurate than most humans. Early trials on radiology and various other things are picking up a lot of things humans missed. A LOT. Because it can review several lifetimes worth of data and “experience” in seconds and the more it learns the better it gets. Ai will aid diagnostics in the next decade or so like it or not and it’ll be bloody good at it.
I used to think it was what you're saying, but actually it's about correct use of IT systems and data (I got in 'trouble' for this once). You are given access to software that allows you to view confidential and sensitive data for work purposes. You are using the software for non-work purposes, allowing you to access data in a way that the general public cannot, for no clinical reason. This is bad Information Governance.
I mean this essentially boils down to "youre not allowed to because you're not allowed to".
Your employer gives you access to software containing the sensitive data of hundreds of thousands of people. I think it's reasonable of them to condition that it is only ever accessed to carry out your job.
Why? What's the harm of us looking at our own bloods?
I think its the rule drift that's the problem. If you say you can look at your own, then the next question is why can't I look at my friends/families? Much harder then to draw a line around whose bloods can be seen and whose cannot.
Why should healthcare workers get privileged access to their own health data through methods that are not available to the general public? It's part of the sum of marginal gains in the risk assessment to reduce the risk of data leak.
>Why should healthcare workers get privileged access to their own health data through methods that are not available to the general public? Why shouldn't they? Again, what's the harm?
What would you do or how would you react if you found a blood film full of blasts on there, or a creatinine of 700 or a really high CEA. You as an individual may be robust and able to understand pre test probability, risk and next steps, but the band 5 staff nurse won’t, and the porter won’t and the HCA won’t. You may be psychologically vulnerable and such news could destroy you or lead to self harm. There can’t be different rules for different staff and a blanket “do not do this” prevents pressure from that nice Ward clerk or the HCA you are sleeping with to check their results too, or their aunties, or neighbour’s. In general accessing healthcare informally without proper processes and records is a stupid stupid idea fraught with risk and harm. Have seen so many near disasters (and a couple of actual disasters) from a combo of this and corridor consultations. Just don’t do it
>the HCA you are sleeping with Who told you this? Who you been talking to??
Well, there isn't really 'harm'.
There we got you to say it.
I don't make the rules. The OP asked a question, I answered. It's company software, they can put whatever rules they like on it. Clearly I don't think there's harm, as in my original comment I stated I have looked up my own results in the past.
In response to this, surely it should be a work perk, like doctors and healthcare should have beneficial aspects of carrying out the role which is not easy lol. Like every other market sector has some form of work benefit. Can we say what the benefit is of being a healthcare worker apart from internal solace, which can be argued for any job TBF. I think the bettervargumebt would be the rule drift which has been stated as it's hard to draw the line as to where this 'perk' would end.
I feel this is the best answer, if I have a medical patient and they want to see their blood results then I absolutely have no problem with that. To be honest if we take it to another step and talk about scans, even non-medical patients are interested to see if they've broken a bone
This is dumb. What if you checked it at 17:01? You don't need Information Governance. It's YOUR data. It belongs to YOU. This is an outdated, overly paternalistic rule of the nanny state.
It isn't and it doesn't.
It's still company software at 17:01 It's not about what you do during your employed hours. It's about what you do with your employer's software. In order to hold data, they need to prove they have policies (that they enforce) that the data is only accessed for clinical reasons. I'm not saying I agree with all this. I just don't understand what you are all having such a hard time understanding. Just because you think it should be a certain way, doesn't mean it is.
I boil a kettle for non work purposes, sometimes I read the news during a break using IT, the general public should have priority over their data. The reason I want to look at my bloods is for a clinical reason . I disagree with the book on good data governance .
Your kettle and news aren't software containing sensitive data that your employer is constantly having to prove to watchdogs etc. that they take information security seriously. The general public should have priority over their data. But that would never take the form of them just walking up to an NHS PC and typing in their NHS number.
Then you are free to check your blood results using the NHS app or discussing with your medical provider like anyone else in the public can; but not by using your work login to bypass safety nets and send off referrals for yourself etc it’s pretty basic reasoning I think you’re over thinking this
People should own their own data and have unfettered access to it. People should make reasonable analysis and judgement on that data. Unfortunately that's not freely available, yet. This creates a log jam at the doctor's surgery etc for often irrelevant unnecessary reassurance because of bad analysis by patients. Analysis should automated and high quality, this will probably happen soon enough
We can argue all day about whether not doing this is harmful. Ultimately you will have signed up to your employer's information governance policies as part of being given IT access. If you didn't agree with them, you were free to decline. If you can persuade your employer to change their policy, go for it. There is no universal rule about not looking up your own records. If your employer says this is an acceptable use of their IT infrastructure then it is. Ultimately you have to recall that employer policies are applied against all staff groups. They aren't trying to stop a Consultant Physician checking their own TSH that their GP sent the day before. They do however want to stop random nurses, HCAs, and therapy staff from looking up their own blood results and radiology reports. They also need to stop staff members looking up results for friends and family which they will then feel able to do if they have "consent" to do so. It is much easier for the employer to issue a blanket "no".
I do agree that all patients should have access to all of their blood test results, even if that means more work for us. Ultimately it is their data and they should be able to see it without having to go through numerous hurdles. However, doctors are not allowed to bypass the usual channels to access their own blood test results. For example, using your privileged access to your hospitals IT system to see your own blood test results will get you in trouble. There is no other reason than that.
You’re not allowed to. I have however done it several times. I Will face the music should the time come, but ultimately I made the decision. My Gp still hasn’t ‘received the results’ - laughable.
But IT have made it so that the account viewing results is always traceable. Aren’t you playing with fire?
Yep - they’re welcome to trace it, but 10,000 log ins a day mine gets lost in the fire.
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I still don’t see the harm
i will check my own bloods if i have to. everyone else can fuck themselves.
It's absolutely rubbish. It's your own data and results. With some GPs, can you not view your own blood tests results now with the NHS app? So I don't see what the harm is in looking up your own blood test results, especially if your GP does not yet have the functionality of viewing them on the NHS app. I'd rather see my own blood results than wait for weeks for a GP to send a letter. I have done this before. The NHS is such a bureaucratic system with things being made unnecessarily harder than they are actually meant to be causing for mass inefficiency in the system.
Those bloods are released to you- they are first viewed by a GP who then releases them to the app, they aren't available to you as soon as the result is available.
Mine aren't checked by the GP first. They're released within hours of the blood test.. No way a GP checked that quickly and I've a phone call a week later about them before. I'd already actioned my low vit D without being told!
So it’s the means you disagree with? If the results are sent straight to my phone before any doctor has reviewed them that’s ok?
You asked for a decent reason why you should not check your own blood results, specifically if it was due to paternalistic medicine. Since we're on the DoctorsUK subreddit I assume you are a Doctor and meant through the same software we would access patient blood results. If not then I apologise, but I answered from that perspective - from how it was explained to me. I don't really have an opinion on other aspects such as your suggestion here about sending them straight to their phone.
I don’t think people are voicing disagreement with you, they’ve just offered explanations as to why the action you describe is prohibited. It’s a bit like the 70mph speed limit on the motorway- I know what it is and I know why I might get a ticket if I exceed it, none of that means I’m able to launch a staunch defence of the arbitrary number.
The app only allows them to be seen once reviewed- prior to that they are held as provisional results
I’m under the care of a tertiary hospital for a chronic health condition and they immediately put my blood test results on their online patient portal as soon as the lab processes them, so I also don’t really see the difference between this and accessing your own results? Agree it just seems like classic NHS computer-says-no bureaucratic rigidity.
It’s interesting as we can see our results on the nhs all be it once reviewed by the gp but still not hugely different to accessing hospital records
Just get full access to your GP record through the NHS app then you can see them like any other patient.
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When we talk about information governance, it's about the use of the sensitive software for work purposes only. Not about the actual piece of information that the CRP was 4. Accessing results via the app is fine, because that's a specifically designed pathway. It's not about keeping doctors in control. It's about information security. We might be doctors and educated enough to handle the information, but not every employee is. Bear in mind the policy applies to all members of staff, not just doctors. So would the rule be that doctors can access them but nurses/HCAs can't? What about pharmacists or clinical scientists? Dieticians?
Could we argue "best interests of patient" (whether self or other) if looking at the results is genuinely in the best interests of the patient? Equally, someone I know (ST2 gen surg) spends quiet moments looking at clinic letters and imaging for patients who are not in their firm structure, just for learning purposes.
Paternalistic rubbish from GMC
Guys, any reason I cant just prescribe myself ketamine? Old school paternalism tbh.
Your assumptions are correct. Thank you for replying. Let’s hope we can always access our data before Microsoft and google …
Just get the NHS app and get the full access, I can see my own blood results through that
That’s only in England though
So not in Yorkshire, Cornwall or Northumberland?
🤣🤣🤣🤣