{"id":113,"date":"2015-04-04T12:54:33","date_gmt":"2015-04-04T12:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthcare.davidstates.net\/?p=113"},"modified":"2015-04-05T22:03:18","modified_gmt":"2015-04-05T22:03:18","slug":"in-defense-of-mark-cuban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/healthcare.davidstates.net\/?p=113","title":{"rendered":"In Defense of Mark Cuban"},"content":{"rendered":"
Mark Cuban recently suggested that people should be doing quarterly blood tests<\/a>, a proposal for which he has been roundly criticized<\/a> and even ridiculed. \u00a0His specific proposal may be off base, but there is not universal consensus that increasing the frequency of medical testing is a bad thing. \u00a0E.g. From Eric Topol\u00a0https:\/\/twitter.com\/erictopol\/status\/584144448067674112<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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Much of the argument against increased testing frequency is prefaced by the assumption that a single abnormal result will trigger an expensive and morbid workup, but the reality is that if you are testing more frequently, you learn about fluctuations and variance. \u00a0Among physicians, the near universal response to a single abnormal test result is to repeat it. \u00a0If, as is usually the case, it comes back normal, you dismiss the abnormal result. \u00a0If it still comes back abnormal, you are much more confident that something is going on.<\/span><\/div>\n
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There are reasons to think that more frequent testing might be a good thing. \u00a0When on a diet many people check their weights daily. Do we really think our weight will change significantly in a day? \u00a0No, it is a quick inexpensive test. \u00a0Do people\u00a0panic if their weight goes up or down a couple of pounds on any given day, no. \u00a0But the trend does provide useful feedback and motivation. \u00a0Back in the day of mechanical pedometers, activity tracking was strictly for geeks and not viewed as terribly useful. Now that smartphone and FitBits have made tracking convenient and\u00a0widely accessible, we are realizing that activity tracking can be useful, perhaps especially so in managing\u00a0chronic disease.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Transistors got so cheap because we make so many of them (8 trillion transistors a second<\/a>!). \u00a0Medical tests remain expensive in part because we have locked in a low volume high cost mode of operation. \u00a0If we did daily cholesterol checks, the market would be there to support much lower cost higher volume solutions. \u00a0And yes, many people would learn that a donut in the morning really does play havoc with their blood lipids.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Medical testing is driven by \u00a0technology that is not all that different from what we use in computers. Opto-electronics, robotics, microchemistry, etc. \u00a0In the 1970s, a complete blood count (CBC) cost about $20 and a chem 20 panel was maybe $100. \u00a0If these tests had followed Moore’s law, falling in price by a factor of 2 every couple of years, they would now be so cheap that we would not even bother billing for them. \u00a0DNA sequencing<\/a> has in fact blown Moore’s law away because it has gotten so cheap so fast.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Not saying Mark Cuban has proposed the magic bullet, but we need to explore the options that technology makes possible.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Mark Cuban recently suggested that people should be doing quarterly blood tests, a proposal for which he has been roundly criticized and even ridiculed. \u00a0His specific proposal may be off base, but there is not universal consensus that increasing the frequency of medical testing is a bad thing. \u00a0E.g. From Eric Topol\u00a0https:\/\/twitter.com\/erictopol\/status\/584144448067674112 \u00a0 Much of … Continue reading In Defense of Mark Cuban<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthcare.davidstates.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthcare.davidstates.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthcare.davidstates.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthcare.davidstates.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthcare.davidstates.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/healthcare.davidstates.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121,"href":"http:\/\/healthcare.davidstates.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions\/121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthcare.davidstates.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthcare.davidstates.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthcare.davidstates.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}