This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

I have been around health care systems for many years, first as a lobbyist in Oregon as I represented the largest system in the state, and, second, as a recipient of services near where I live in Salem, Oregon.

I enjoyed both roles, or perhaps the word “enjoyed” is not best one to use in these cases.

But, recently, I have noticed several things that give me a positive view of health care, even, on occasion, an exclamation of “can you believe this.”

Examples:

MY WIFE’S RECENT CARE:  My wife had been having a few minor pains in her arm and, when she got checked by a cardiology doctor, it turned out that she needed a stress test, then an angio-gram.

Then, an incredible result!

In the angio-gram, the cardiologist inserted a device in her wrist – yes, her wrist – and traveled through a blood vessel to her heart.  There, he saw the need immediately for a stent, and so, in the same procedure, he inserted it to start blood flowing normally again.

And, all this – conducting an angio-gram and inserting a stent through the wrist – was routine activity for this cardiologist and others like him at the Oregon Heart Center in Salem.

COMMENT:  All I can is “wow,” and express thanks for the great daily work of cardiologists.

A-I AND HEALTH CARE:  Then, I read this in the Wall Street Journal this week:

“Now, in an advance that shows the potential of artificial intelligence to aid medicine, researchers at Children’s National have developed a new AI-powered tool for diagnosing rheumatic heart disease long before a patient needs surgery.

“Collaborating with staff at the Uganda Heart Institute, the team designed a system that will allow trained nurses to screen and diagnose children early on, when they can still be treated with penicillin for less than $1 a year.  Early treatment could save thousands from having to undergo surgery.”

COMMENT:  I know just enough about A-l in general to be dangerous, but the words above illustrate one of the great uses of this new tool – uses for good.

FROM THE NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH:  “There is great optimism that the application of artificial intelligence (AI) can provide substantial improvements in all areas of healthcare from diagnostics to treatment.

“It is generally believed that AI tools will facilitate and enhance human work and not replace the work of physicians and other healthcare staff as such.  AI is ready to support healthcare personnel with a variety of tasks from administrative workflow to clinical documentation and patient outreach as well as specialized support such as in image analysis, medical device automation, and patient monitoring.

“Precision medicine provides the possibility of tailoring healthcare interventions to individuals or groups of patients based on their disease profile, diagnostic or prognostic information, or their treatment response.

“The tailor-made treatment opportunity will take into consideration the genomic variations, as well as contributing factors of medical treatment such as age, gender, geography, race, family history, immune profile, metabolic profile, microbiome, and environment vulnerability.

“The objective of precision medicine is to use individual biology rather than population biology at all stages of a patient’s medical journey.  This means collecting data from individuals such as genetic information, physiological monitoring data, or EMR data and tailoring their treatment based on advanced models.

“Advantages of precision medicine include reduced healthcare costs, reduction in adverse drug response, and enhancing effectivity of drug action.”

COMMENT:  The writers of the above paragraphs obviously know more than I do about medicine.  But their optimism is striking.  If AI contains only some of the benefits the writers describe – including the ability to design treatments for individuals, not groups – then AI is good.

And, I said good for that.