Also, this is Ben Goldacre's second big data project in the NHS (that I know of): the first was OpenPrescribing (https://openprescribing.net/), which gave an overview down to GP level of what was being prescribed where.
James, spare a thought for poor Samuel Pepys who, without anaesthesia, had a bladder stone the “size of a tennis ball” removed using a scoop inserted into a cut in his perineum (which was never stitched up). The only good news about this tale is that tennis balls were a bit smaller back then.
I share (in the proper sense, not the social media usage of the word) Eliot Barrass' view that if data about me has value, that should be mine to realise. I have copyright in it. It should not become free of charge an instrument for pharmaceutical companies (especially not those in the USA) to develop new potions and sell them back to the NHS at monopoly prices.
I think, James, you have glossed over the 'unease' element of this. I don't think people are wary of sharing data on privacy grounds alone, I think there's also a moral/fairness wariness as well - "it's my data, and not anyone else's; why should you use it get rich"?
I suspect Ben G is one of the good guys, but I wouldn't extrapolate to assume people are 'pro' data sharing in general.
If the data this service is pulling from is anything like what i use at work (in a hospital) it would be a very incomplete dataset.
Much of the useful information is buried in free text entries or worse in images or scans of old paper documents. There is no way of searching for patients with asthma as a significant proportion won’t be coded as such or any data about their treatment does not show up in a database. It js about as useful as having paper records as you manually need to read each set of notes if you want to do an audit or research as I have found to my frustration - despite the software costing millions of pounds.
I don't consider myself a "tin foil hat wearer", but something about the Palantir business leaves me feeling uneasy still.
I've always felt that having all of my medical records in one place, shared between GPs and hospitals is a good thing. I still feel that way, but I'm only really comfortable with it if I don't think about "how the sausage is made" so to speak.
Also, this is Ben Goldacre's second big data project in the NHS (that I know of): the first was OpenPrescribing (https://openprescribing.net/), which gave an overview down to GP level of what was being prescribed where.
James, spare a thought for poor Samuel Pepys who, without anaesthesia, had a bladder stone the “size of a tennis ball” removed using a scoop inserted into a cut in his perineum (which was never stitched up). The only good news about this tale is that tennis balls were a bit smaller back then.
I share (in the proper sense, not the social media usage of the word) Eliot Barrass' view that if data about me has value, that should be mine to realise. I have copyright in it. It should not become free of charge an instrument for pharmaceutical companies (especially not those in the USA) to develop new potions and sell them back to the NHS at monopoly prices.
I think, James, you have glossed over the 'unease' element of this. I don't think people are wary of sharing data on privacy grounds alone, I think there's also a moral/fairness wariness as well - "it's my data, and not anyone else's; why should you use it get rich"?
I suspect Ben G is one of the good guys, but I wouldn't extrapolate to assume people are 'pro' data sharing in general.
If the data this service is pulling from is anything like what i use at work (in a hospital) it would be a very incomplete dataset.
Much of the useful information is buried in free text entries or worse in images or scans of old paper documents. There is no way of searching for patients with asthma as a significant proportion won’t be coded as such or any data about their treatment does not show up in a database. It js about as useful as having paper records as you manually need to read each set of notes if you want to do an audit or research as I have found to my frustration - despite the software costing millions of pounds.
I don't consider myself a "tin foil hat wearer", but something about the Palantir business leaves me feeling uneasy still.
I've always felt that having all of my medical records in one place, shared between GPs and hospitals is a good thing. I still feel that way, but I'm only really comfortable with it if I don't think about "how the sausage is made" so to speak.