By Dr. Nick van Terheyden aka Dr. Nick
LinkedIn: Nick van Terheyden, MD
Host of News You Can Use on Healthcare NOW Radio
The Last Spin
I am going to date myself a little here as I reminisce about my old music collection accumulated over many years. In this case, we are talking Vinyl records (link included for those who are wondering what I am talking about!). I can remember buying my first album and playing it repeatedly – I only had one album! But over time I managed to add to the collection by buying individual albums often from others who were moving on or had copied the album to a cassette tape (yes here’s the link!). I did that too once I had the equipment.
Each album was a collection of tracks or singles and while you could scan ahead to play just one track, it was more typical to play the album from start to finish, with a break in the middle to turn over the vinyl record to play side 2. Each album came with inserts, memories, and sitting around with friends or on my own listening to and relishing the sounds. I still enjoy the sounds but have long since gotten rid of my record player (link!).
This past weekend I got rid of the last of my vinyl collection at a local store “Trax on Wax”. On the one hand, I still have most of the music digitally, but visiting the store full of vinyl albums reminded me of what a different experience it was to play music then and now, and I was really torn as I walked out. Physically looking through the varied covers in your collection, extract the album, clean it, and then set the needle at the beginning to play.
And as for the collection of music with albums from the Beatles, Clash, Jam, Meat Loaf. Supertramp, ELP, AC/DC, Michael Jackson, Madness, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, Joe Jackson, Kim Wilde INXS, Police, Stones, Queen, Bowie, Madonna, Depeche Mode, Blondie, Kate Bush, Deep Purple, Peter Gabriel, Tears for Fears, Genesis ….ohh the list went on.
AI Will Not Replace Everything
But that digital collection does not quite replace everything the same as AI does not replace everything. We still need the human touch and pattern matching and decision-making while differences remain important. Sure if I was willing to stump up for a subscription to one of the music platforms I could play much of this easily. But when I purchased my albums I bought the right to play that music forever without having to keep paying every month. But more importantly, the process of deciding is different it comes with visual and tactile inputs which all stimulate different parts of our brains. You could pick and choose but more often you played the record to experience the music the way the artist had intended. Sometimes it included some
like BA Robertson’s Initial Success.
Embracing Technology in Healthcare Decision-Making
In healthcare, I need increasing amounts of help to get to the right details and I am certain I am not the only one. The data might be present in my brain but as I often say
“It is not a data problem but a search problem”
I would go one further and say not just search but the correct association to the inputs. So it is no good just recalling the data and presenting it but actually using it and distilling out the relevant from the irrelevant remains a human activity. Not exclusively but certainly in higher-order thinking. Might we see an all-out replacement of human function by technology – possibly, but I am not betting on that anytime soon. The AI automation tools have long been in use in Radiology as far back as 1992 (Artificial Intelligence in Radiology: A call for Thoughtful Application) and maybe even further but here we are 24 years later and we have not seen the disappearance of the specialty and radiologists being replaced by technology and an AI bot.
In the meantime, help prepare yourself by immersing yourself in the technology. There is no failure just new ways of learning as Thomas Edison pointed out. If you have not tried the technology, do so. If you have, great. Now what else can you do with it? How else can it help you? Where does it not help you? As Mark Schaefer pointed out – using it to write your book…not so much. But I have found it good a summarize long documents – thinking those big legal documents you are forced to sign under the vague notion that this suggests your consent.
What about medical bills – we know companies are using technology to deny care – but that means it can be used to help you understand and justify why you should receive care, and why you should not be held liable for excess cost.
I know I am borrowing from another company and brand but I can’t say it any better than
Just Do It (Using AI that is)
Letting Go of Vinyl in the Age of Digital Dominance
So while I can reminisce about the loss of my albums and the experience of listening to a complete album I can also embrace the ready access to hundreds, thousands even millions of tracks readily available and even served up based on my prior tracks that have opened a whole new world of bands, sounds and tracks that I would never have discovered were it not for Pandora and Shazam amongst others.
I’ll still play some of those classic albums in order like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, maybe skipping the odd track or two but I also have whole new playlists that have morphed and changed over the years to be surprising in their variety even to my family.
Now I’m off for a musical sojourn through my memory banks and digital collection to relive some great memories and fantastic tunes.
This article was original posted on Incremental Healthcare.