where's necessity's kid now?

super-interesting article about how to behave to avoid the flu epidemic from killing everyone, and how that behavior is modeled

wish we could apply more nerds to medicine. also, programmers - where are you? IT in medicine SUCKS. for example, at the community hospital (rich, white, upper-class community, though), there are 3 separate systems: ED, outpatient, and inpatient. The best part - these systems DON"t talk to each other. So if you come to the emergency department tell them your whole medical history, all the medications you are taking and the dosages, great! But when you get admitted we will have to ask you all over again cause we don't have that info. not only that but a nurse and doc will both ask you separately. And all that info was already at your doc's office as an outpatient, but we can't access that either. Which really sucks because half the time it's
"well, i take a medicine for my headaches"
"what's it called?"
"i don't know, it's a little pink pill"
"hmm"
"i think it starts with a p"

oh brother.

calling all geeks - we NEED you. bad. there's gotta be a better way. i mean, what's the point of super-fancy medical implantable devices if we can't even figure out what medication you are on?

we put a man on the moon last century, for god's sake.