Google Can Now Read Doctors' Bad Handwriting (techcrunch.com) 61
An anonymous reader shares a report: A large number of doctors write medicine prescriptions in haste, making it nearly impossible for their patients to understand what they scribbled. This problem has been around for decades and many tech firms have attempted to solve it with little to no success. Now Google is having a go at translating those unfathomable texts.
The search giant announced at its annual conference in India Monday that it is working with pharmacists to work out the handwriting of doctors. The feature, which will be rolled out on Google Lens, will allow users to either take a picture of the prescription or upload one from the photo library. Once the image is processed, the app detects and highlights the medicines mentioned in the note, a Google executive demonstrated.
The search giant announced at its annual conference in India Monday that it is working with pharmacists to work out the handwriting of doctors. The feature, which will be rolled out on Google Lens, will allow users to either take a picture of the prescription or upload one from the photo library. Once the image is processed, the app detects and highlights the medicines mentioned in the note, a Google executive demonstrated.
jeopardy can use this as well! (Score:3)
jeopardy can use this as well!
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I've tried using those credit card processor machines that make you "sign". Ha! I get Jeopardy! now.
Well damnit, there goes my... (Score:2)
...Manual cryptography.
I'm gnona hvae ot rosret to sarbclbe tcenhiuges.
Who will be responsible? (Score:2, Insightful)
Who will be responsible if google gets it wrong and the patient gets his fill so wrong it kills him?
Previously it was the pharmacist, who could always call the doctor when in doubt. But now, with google automatically and "authoritatively" giving a straight, but possibly disastrously wrong answer?
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that will be covered by the $25-$45 service fee per prescription billed to the patients health care plan.
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Who will be responsible if google gets it wrong and the patient gets his fill so wrong it kills him?
I'm sure this has happened but can't find the event so I'll say "I bet this has happened". Just remember that "A.M.A." does not stand for "Americans Poisoned by Their Physician's Wretched Handwriting Protection Act". From there, use the old trick from the Nixon era and "follow the money".
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Related (quote from Cialdini - Influence):
reported by Cohen and Davis in an interview. A physician ordered ear drops to be administered to the right ear of a patient suffering pain and infection there. Instead of writing out completely the location “Right ear” on the prescription, the doctor abbreviated it so that the instructions read “place in R ear.” Upon receiving the prescription, the duty nurse promptly put the required number of ear drops into the patient’s anus.
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Who will be responsible if google gets it wrong and the patient gets his fill so wrong it kills him?
Previously it was the pharmacist, who could always call the doctor when in doubt. But now, with google automatically and "authoritatively" giving a straight, but possibly disastrously wrong answer?
Where did you get "authoritatively" and "automatically" from?
"This will act as an assistive technology for digitizing handwritten medical documents by augmenting the humans in the loop such as pharmacists, however no decision will be made solely based on the output provided by this technology," the company said in a statement.
It's still on the pharmacist just as before.
Additional fun fact:
Did you know it is the pharmacists job to look up and detail drug interactions?
Dispensing medication is only a coincidence of that.
I don't know about India, the topic at hand, but other countries have recently even had legal cases where the fault of drug interactions *even with a doctors explicit verbal instructions* still falls completely on the pharmacist.
Unintuitively, it is not th
Re:Who will be responsible? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Why are we doing this? (Score:4, Insightful)
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dammit jim i'm a doctor not an writer.
Re:Why are we doing this? (Score:4, Informative)
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Yep. Given that doctors have recognized the problem for...ever, practically, it should be standard practice for them to *print* prescriptions and other medical orders. Your time is not so valuable that after all the time you spent *getting paid* to diagnose a patient, you can't spend 3 extra seconds writing the prescription clearly.
Can't be bothered? Fine, surrender your medical license. Without a legible plan of action you contributed nothing anyway, and might even kill your patient.
Re:Why are we doing this? (Score:5, Insightful)
The purpose of this is for Google to have direct access to your prescription records, to add to their database of information about you for purposes of "targeted advertising."
I shouldn't need to explain this, because that is the purpose of everything Google does, and by this point, everyone should know it.
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That would be illegal in many, if not most countries.
This is just part of their effort to read handwriting in general. Doctors have notoriously bad handwriting, and there were centuries of notes written by them.
I use Google handwriting recognition often, to translate notes. It's incredible how well it works. Better than I can read sometimes.
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That would be illegal in many, if not most countries.
Can you point me to specific laws - anywhere - that prohibit the patient from sharing their medical information with whomever they please?
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Using that information for targeted ads would be against GDPR rules, even if there were not medical privacy laws in European countries regulating what can be done with such information.
There's this weird idea in the US that once you have some info you can do what you like with it. It's like there is no concept of ownership of personal data at all.
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So no, you can't.
Re: Why are we doing this? (Score:2)
How about (Score:2)
Being better than the average fan TL is a low bar I am pretty Google could manage.
Challenge accepted! (Score:2)
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Yeah, my German writing is often interpreted as French as well.
Why (Score:1)
Why do you think Google is doing this. Not just to brag about their AI. How about collecting even more personal data about you for their advertising?
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hipaa violation
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Hand-written? (Score:5, Informative)
And an even larger number of doctors do all of their prescribing through computers or call it in directly to the pharmacy. I have several doctors that are close friends of mine. They do dozens of scripts per day, and most of them don't even have a prescription notepad.
And even if you don't know much about how doctors do things these days, ask yourself: when was the last time you were handed a hardcopy prescription to give to a pharmacist?
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ask yourself: when was the last time you were handed a hardcopy prescription to give to a pharmacist?
Two weeks ago :P
Although that was indeed a rather special exception, and overall you're correct.
The last somewhat regular handwritten script I had was 7-8 years or more ago.
When you restrict your scope to certain places such as the USA, there are additional reasons for using automated prescription submissions. It no longer matters much if a doctor wishes to do so or not, they have little choice without accepting major negative changes to their business.
Restricted substances will simply not be dispensed by
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And an even larger number of doctors
You sound like someone who lives in a highly technologically advanced first world country. Your doctors are in a vast minority.
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You think Google is targeting this technology to the 3rd world?
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Your doctors are in a vast minority.
I sincerely doubt that.
Those highly technologically advanced first world countries also have between 5 and 10 times the amount of doctors per capita as the rest.
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Unfortunately, in Quebec (Canada) 100% of all prescriptions are still sent by hardcopy. Except those that are sent by fax... Yes, that's right, these highly-paid people still use a fax :(
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The last time I saw him, actually. He handed me the scrip with the prescription on it.
Not that he's old fashioned - I can have my pharmacy fax his office in order to get refills, as well as the office has faxed my pharmacy the prescription (this was during COVID so the less need to go into his office to pick up a prescription, the better
What,s the accuracy (Score:2)
What? No way! (Score:2)
That prescription here was good for 10 different medications so far, you can google-read it over my dead body!
"in haste" seems like an euphemism (Score:2)
solution not needed (Score:4, Insightful)
A problem that does not need a solution, because the vast majority of prescriptions are now electronically submitted and/or printed by a computer.
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A problem that does not need a solution, because the vast majority of prescriptions are now electronically submitted and/or printed by a computer.
In your country.
AI's cannot reliably handle easy tasks for humans. (Score:2)
AI's don't even work that well at tasks that are easy for a human to do, and this is a hard task for a human to do, doubtful the AI will be able to do it reliably.
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AI's don't even work that well at tasks that are easy for a human to do, and this is a hard task for a human to do, doubtful the AI will be able to do it reliably.
Ummm, just because an "AI" can't do something human brains are good at, doesn't mean the AI can't do things that humans are bad at. (Or that they can't do things, hard or easy, in general. It totally depends on the task you're talking about.)
Handwriting recognition is not easy for either humans or computers, but it's been a favorite task to try to computerize since the first graphical input devices (light pens, tablets, etc.) It is not a surprise that modern NNs are getting good at it.
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It's well past humans, now.
How well an AI does at a particular task is a function of how well developed and trained the said model is.
AI have blown past human capabilities in many tasks. Why on Earth would you think they wouldn't eventually surpass us at something we're not good at?
- there is a more important application - (Score:4, Insightful)
Google's software can meet another need. In many schools today, handwriting is no longer taught. Already many young people have never learned to read or write longhand script. Much of what is written is in such script, such as the Declaration of Independence, and of course medical prescriptions and instructions, and intimate advertising messages and letters from loved ones, and signatures on legal documents . . . (which of those is of no concern?)
If a smartphone could accurately scan and translate handwritten text, it will be a blessing for many illiterate humans.
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Intimate advertising messages?
And To The Republic For Which It Stands (Score:2)
Already many young people have never learned to read or write longhand script. Much of what is written is in such script, such as the Declaration of Independence
Aypledgli ianectu flaggen tupep kile for stahn
(Worst Episode Ever, though.)
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As someone with arthritis in his hands since childhood, I've always hated long form hardwiring. Much prefer to type. I'm glad the age of writing stuff by hand is slowly coming to an end.
So this is a world wide problem?!! (Score:1)
I thought it would be only on my country (brazil)
Why?!!! This makes no sense!
Liability and regulations? (Score:1)
It won't be able to read my handwriting (Score:2)
My Doctors cheated (Score:2)
They've been printing out scrips for decades.
Well at least something can acually read it! (Score:1)
Lets see how long until they kill somebody (Score:2)
Because all this AI crap is often right, but sometimes so badly wrong it is staggering.
Oh NO! (Score:1)
Western medicine has always been a sham - mostly, that is.