Medical Snapshot System

The Medical Snapshot System is a way to improve medical systems using IT systems to isolate patients and staff from information that would trigger an ethical review. In 2023 we can safely and cheaply obtain patient data that cannot ethically be seen by the patient or the patient's doctor today, but could be vital to the patient tomorrow.

The concept is derived from the idea of sequestering a jury in a court case. It is unethical for the jury to use information known today, they can only decide on the facts as known at a certain point in the past.

See the Full proposal version 4.1 here.

I have validated this in discussion with patients, medical systems researchers, doctors and nurses.

The next step is to design a trial in a real-life medical system. There are plenty of organisations with incentive to participate, starting with the patients and including manufacturers of medical monitoring devices.

Since this was written we have got closer to a tricorder-level of technology: insulin levels can be measured from body sweat, LED laser photonics can detect many viral and bacterial infections, and there are two handheld devices on the market offering accurate genomic results. All of this supports the basic premise.

The Not Before Time service is highly relevant.