Brian's Musings
  • Home
  • Brian's Blog
  • Musings
    • Brian's 2020 Newlsetters >
      • 28th June 2020 – Mulling a Covid Afterlife
      • 31st May 2020 - Unlocking your mind while in Lockdown
      • 19th April, 2020 – More stimulants for lockdown contemplation
      • 3rd April 2020 - PLanning Ahead in a Time of Plague
      • 19th March 2020 – More to Mull on in Splendid Isolation
      • 24th February, 2020 - The Corona Virus and Much More
      • 24th January 2020 - What changes likely in the new year?
    • Brian's 2019 Newsletters >
      • 23rd November 2019 - Another fascinating mix from around the world
      • 30th October 2019 - Where are we headed now?
      • 10th October 2019 - Another tour of the issues
      • 27th August 2019 -Brighter than usual
      • 2nd August 2019 - Mostly more gloom and doom
      • 5th July 2019 - Not much improvement anywhere
      • 19th June 2019 - Better late than neverNew Page
      • 27th April 2019 - More to make you think about the future
      • April 2019 Letters to the Editor of Business Day
      • 2nd April 2019 - Another Month of Mixed News
      • 27th February 2019 - More good news than bad
      • 4th February 2019 - Trying to make sense of it all
    • 2018 >
      • 29th December 2018 - Preparing for 2019
      • 3th November 2018 - Death by Hot Air and Other Cautionary Tales
      • 26th October 2018 – The Case of the Treacherous Till Slip and Other Interesting Tales
      • October 2018 - Feedback on Draft Integrated Resource Plan for South Africa
      • 21st September 2018 - The Information Flow Continues
      • 31st August 2018 - Reading for the first weekend of spring / autumn
      • 31st July 2018 - Watching the World
      • 13th July 2018 - Energy Update 2018
      • 31st May 2018 - Grime and Punishment
      • 20th April, 2018 - The Equaliser Conspiracy
      • 3rd April, 2018 - More Fascinating Facts and Figures
      • 28th February, 2018 - World Update
    • 2017 >
      • 29th November 2017 - Guessing Our Future
      • 29th July 2017 – Basic Income Grant
      • 26th July 2017 – Ideas for a Brighter South Africa
      • 3rd July 2017 - Another Energy Update
      • 8th May 2017 – Trucking and Selling
      • 12th April 2017 - False News Today
      • 22nd March 2017 - Predicting Speed of Change
      • 27th February 2017 - Growing Inequality
      • 11th January 2017 - Medical Data Mining
    • 2016 >
      • 13th December 2016 - American Irony
      • 25th November 2016 - Global Decision Making
      • 30th October 2016 - Climate Changes
      • 11th October 2016 - Musing Investments
      • 19th September 2016 - The Inexorable Five
      • 2nd September 2016 - Driving Forward
      • 17th August 2016 - Innovationv Update
      • 19th July 2016 - Powering Along
      • 4th July 2016 – An Eye to the Future
      • 10th June 2016 - Reverse Education
      • 20th May 2016 - More Minding P's and Q's
      • 5th May 2016 - A Leisurely Future
      • 17th April 2016 - More Food for Thought
      • 29th March 2016 – America’s Digital Colonisation of the World
      • 11th March 2016 - Measuring Life
      • 26th February 2016 - Growing Older, Growing More
      • 12th February 2016 – Retirement Reflections
      • 29th January 2016 - Just Four More Years to 2020 >
        • 15th January 2016 - A Taste of Red and White
  • Books

medical data mining

Medical Data Mining

For practically all of my adult life I have been a member of a medical aid scheme. In the beginning our relationship was simple: each month I would send them a cheque to cover my membership. As and when I incurred medical expenses, I would submit my receipts and they, in return, would send a cheque of reimbursement. No doubt they kept a record of each member’s claims so that each year end they could adjust their fees accordingly – just standard cost accounting really.




As time went by our relationship became more sophisticated. My membership fee was deducted from my salary by my employer and my monthly tax payment adjusted automatically. My claims were submitted by E-mail and the refunds were paid directly into my bank account. So far so modern.


Somewhere along the line - and not really noticed by us members - hospitals, doctors and pharmacies started being required to record a standard code against each item on their invoices as well as provide details of all medication in a standard format. All this information was fed into a vast databank.


But it didn’t stop there. The scheme entered into an agreement with the major supermarket chains so that members participating in a so-called healthy food program would have the full details of all their supermarket purchases siphoned back into the databank. Members who opted into this scheme were rewarded with a monthly healthy food dividend paid directly into their bank accounts. So now the scheme not only knew about my medical ailments and medication, but also how many bunches of bananas or tubs of yoghurt, as well as the brand, I bought. They also knew about all my other supermarket purchases from toilet paper and household cleaners to stationery, crockery and lawn fertiliser. If they were really clever they could even have noted my supermarket absences as signs of travelling outside the country.


The healthy food program then became just one part of a healthy living program where members were encouraged to exercise and undergo regular health checks. Subsidised gym membership was offered – and monitored. Participating members were rewarded with discounted airfares and other nice perks. Once personal health monitors were added to smart phones and wearables, you could achieve even further rewards by feeding back your daily exercise regime. So each time my adult children go running, it knows where they ran, how fast they ran and, depending on the sophistication of the device, their heart rate, blood pressure and a whole of other things we never even knew ourselves in the old days of just taking the dog for a stroll.


My guess is that the next item in their healthy lifestyle plan is going to be an offer to decipher my DNA for a few bucks, something most people will be unable to resist. We all want to know if we are descended from Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great or even Helen of Troy.


Now, the big question is, what is the medical aid scheme doing with all this data they have purchased for a song? So far, they don’t seem to have passed it onto greedy marketers keen to flog me all manner of things in a targeted way. Or maybe they have and the marketers have just got cleverer at covering their tracks. I also hope and pray they haven’t willy nilly passed my data onto the pharmaceutical companies in exchange for a fat fee.


In the medical academic world, researchers come up with a hypothesis, design a research program and then go out and collect and analyse data. It’s a process that could take months or even years. However for the medical aid scheme to conduct similar research all they need is a clever algorithm writer who can code a program to mine their ever growing databank of millions upon millions of records and come up with an answer in days – or possibly just in minutes if they’re really smart.


It won’t be long for a super algorithm writer decides to throw hypotheses out of the window and writes a supermining program that will sift out all key relationships. Some, like older people are more likely to have Alzheimers disease than young people, with be obvious. But they might find that people who buy brand A of soap and have a certain strand of DNA are less likely to incur skin cancer or that purchasers of brand B of household cleaner are more likely to be asthma sufferers or that people in small villages who eat raisins live longer – the sky is the limit on what they could deduce – and all at the click of a mouse!


And even that’s not the end. There’s all that juicy data stored publicly on the Internet just waiting to be trawled. Then there are all the private databases held by everyone from Facebook to the credit card companies and from cell phone operators to private security companies and stock exchanges. Those clever algorithm writers must be smacking their lips at the challenge of merging and mining it all.


My medical aid scheme is just one example of a company to whom I have unwittingly donated my personal information without fully thinking through the implications. How many more are out there watching my every move. As my near namesake Brian Patten writes in the final line of his lovely poem Little Johnny’s Confessions, “the sniffer dogs will hunt me down – they have my lollipops!”


Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Brian's Blog
  • Musings
    • Brian's 2020 Newlsetters >
      • 28th June 2020 – Mulling a Covid Afterlife
      • 31st May 2020 - Unlocking your mind while in Lockdown
      • 19th April, 2020 – More stimulants for lockdown contemplation
      • 3rd April 2020 - PLanning Ahead in a Time of Plague
      • 19th March 2020 – More to Mull on in Splendid Isolation
      • 24th February, 2020 - The Corona Virus and Much More
      • 24th January 2020 - What changes likely in the new year?
    • Brian's 2019 Newsletters >
      • 23rd November 2019 - Another fascinating mix from around the world
      • 30th October 2019 - Where are we headed now?
      • 10th October 2019 - Another tour of the issues
      • 27th August 2019 -Brighter than usual
      • 2nd August 2019 - Mostly more gloom and doom
      • 5th July 2019 - Not much improvement anywhere
      • 19th June 2019 - Better late than neverNew Page
      • 27th April 2019 - More to make you think about the future
      • April 2019 Letters to the Editor of Business Day
      • 2nd April 2019 - Another Month of Mixed News
      • 27th February 2019 - More good news than bad
      • 4th February 2019 - Trying to make sense of it all
    • 2018 >
      • 29th December 2018 - Preparing for 2019
      • 3th November 2018 - Death by Hot Air and Other Cautionary Tales
      • 26th October 2018 – The Case of the Treacherous Till Slip and Other Interesting Tales
      • October 2018 - Feedback on Draft Integrated Resource Plan for South Africa
      • 21st September 2018 - The Information Flow Continues
      • 31st August 2018 - Reading for the first weekend of spring / autumn
      • 31st July 2018 - Watching the World
      • 13th July 2018 - Energy Update 2018
      • 31st May 2018 - Grime and Punishment
      • 20th April, 2018 - The Equaliser Conspiracy
      • 3rd April, 2018 - More Fascinating Facts and Figures
      • 28th February, 2018 - World Update
    • 2017 >
      • 29th November 2017 - Guessing Our Future
      • 29th July 2017 – Basic Income Grant
      • 26th July 2017 – Ideas for a Brighter South Africa
      • 3rd July 2017 - Another Energy Update
      • 8th May 2017 – Trucking and Selling
      • 12th April 2017 - False News Today
      • 22nd March 2017 - Predicting Speed of Change
      • 27th February 2017 - Growing Inequality
      • 11th January 2017 - Medical Data Mining
    • 2016 >
      • 13th December 2016 - American Irony
      • 25th November 2016 - Global Decision Making
      • 30th October 2016 - Climate Changes
      • 11th October 2016 - Musing Investments
      • 19th September 2016 - The Inexorable Five
      • 2nd September 2016 - Driving Forward
      • 17th August 2016 - Innovationv Update
      • 19th July 2016 - Powering Along
      • 4th July 2016 – An Eye to the Future
      • 10th June 2016 - Reverse Education
      • 20th May 2016 - More Minding P's and Q's
      • 5th May 2016 - A Leisurely Future
      • 17th April 2016 - More Food for Thought
      • 29th March 2016 – America’s Digital Colonisation of the World
      • 11th March 2016 - Measuring Life
      • 26th February 2016 - Growing Older, Growing More
      • 12th February 2016 – Retirement Reflections
      • 29th January 2016 - Just Four More Years to 2020 >
        • 15th January 2016 - A Taste of Red and White
  • Books