The Mayo Clinic Life Sciences System is a brand new research database
containing the medical records of 4.4 million Mayo Clinic patients dating back
to 1997. The Clinic has been routinely obtaining written permission from
patients to use clinical data for research purposes since Jan. 1, 1997, and
satisfies HIPAA privacy rules. The records may be de-identified or not,
depending on the research need.

Physicians can access it during an office visit to search for evidence of the
best diagnosis and treatment for the patient. Future enhancements may include
concurrent queries of external databases such as Medline, and the addition of
patients’ genetic information. When this happens, medicine will reach a new
level of sophistication and quality, at least at Mayo.

Reference: Snow, David (2003) “Mayo Amasses
Mounds of Data.” Wired News, December 22.

Robotic Malpractice

A woman whose husband died after a doctor accidentally cut two of his main
blood vessels while attempting to remove a cancerous kidney using a da Vinci
surgical robot is suing the hospital for allowing doctors inexperienced with the
sophisticated robot to perform the surgery. The plaintiff’s attorney said “The
conventional surgery was basically jettisoned and this robotic surgery was not
only suggested but really pushed.”

Reference: Associated Press (2003). “Tampa
hospital sued over robotic surgery that killed teacher.” St. Petersburg
Times, December 17.