A revolution in healthcare is coming Welcome to Doctor You Feb 1st 2018NO WONDER they are called “patients”.When people enter the health-care systems of rich countries today, they know what they will get: prodding doctors, endless tests,?baffling jargon, rising costs and, above all, long waits. Some?stoicism?will always be needed, because health care is complex and diligence matters. But frustration is boiling over.This week three of the biggest names in American business—Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase—announced a new venture to provide better, cheaper health care for their employees. A fundamental problem with today’s system is that patients lack knowledge and control.?Access to data can bestow both. The internet already enables patients to seek online consultations when and where it suits them. You can take over-the-counter tests to analyse your blood,?sequence your genome?and check on the bacteria in your gut. Yet radical change demands a shift in emphasis, from providers to patients and from doctors to data. That shift is happening. Technologies such as the smartphone allow people to monitor their own health. The possibilities multiply when you add the crucial missing ingredients—access to your own medical records and the ability easily to share information with those you trust. That allows you to reduce inefficiencies in your own treatment and also to provide data to help train medical algorithms. You can enhance your own care and everyone else’s, too. jargon: the language used for a particular activity or by a particular group of people stoicism: the quality or behavior of a person who accepts what happens without complaining or showing emotion 現(xiàn)在病人走進(jìn)一家醫(yī)院，都能預(yù)料到會(huì)是什么樣的：倉(cāng)促的醫(yī)生，數(shù)不清的檢測(cè)，看不懂的病例，漲不停的費(fèi)用和無(wú)盡的等待... 病人的問(wèn)題就是他們不清楚狀況和缺乏對(duì)自己病情的控制 所以亞馬遜和JPMorgan還有Berkshire Hathaway 成立了一個(gè)新的公司，為他們的員工提供更好更廉價(jià)的醫(yī)療 The doctor will be you now Medical data may not seem like the type of kindling to spark a revolution.?But the flow of information is likely to bear fruit in several ways. One is?better diagnosis.?Someone worried about their heart can now buy a watch strap containing a medical-grade monitor that will detect arrhythmias. Apps are vying to see if they can diagnose everything from skin cancer and concussion to Parkinson’s disease. Research is under way to see whether sweat can be analysed for molecular biomarkers without the need for an invasive blood test. Some think that changes in how quickly a person swipes a phone’s touchscreen might signal the onset of cognitive problems. A second benefit?lies in the management of complex diseases. Diabetes apps can change the way patients cope, by monitoring blood-glucose levels and food intake, potentially reducing long-run harm such as blindness and gangrene. Akili Interactive, a startup, plans to seek regulatory approval for a video game designed to stimulate an area of the brain implicated in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (see article). 醫(yī)療數(shù)據(jù)可能不會(huì)帶來(lái)一個(gè)偉大的變革，但是會(huì)有非常多的好處，這四段分別講了四個(gè)有用的地方，看經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人重要的是看清楚文章的邏輯！ 第一個(gè)好處是：更好地診斷 第二個(gè)好處是：管理復(fù)雜的疾病 Patients can also?improve the efficiency of their care.?Although health records are increasingly electronic, they are often still trapped in silos. Many contain data that machines cannot read. This can lead to delays in treatment, or worse. Many of the 250,000 deaths in America attributable to medical error each year can be traced to poorly co-ordinated care. With data at their fingertips, common standards to enable sharing and a strong incentive to get things right, patients are more likely to spot errors. On January 24th Apple laid out its plans to ask organisations to let patients use their smartphones to download their own medical records (see article). A final benefit of?putting patients in charge stems from the generation and aggregation of their data. Artificial intelligence (AI) is already being trained by a unit of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, to identify cancerous tissues and retinal damage. As patients’data stream from smartphones and “wearables”, they will teach AIs to do ever more. Future AIs could, for instance, provide automated medical diagnosis from a description of your symptoms, spot behavioural traits that suggest you are depressed or identify if you are at special risk of cardiac disease. The aggregation of data will also make it easier for you to find other people with similar diseases and to see how they responded to various treatments. 第三個(gè)好處是提高醫(yī)療效率 第四個(gè)好處是病人掌控自己的數(shù)據(jù)整合等 講完了好處接下來(lái)講壞處... An Apple a day As with all new technologies,?pitfalls?accompany the promise. Hucksters will launch apps that do not work. But with regulators demanding oversight of apps that present risks to patients, users will harm only their wallets. Not everyone will want to take active control of their own health care; plenty will want the professionals to manage everything.Fine. Data can be?pored?over by those who are interested, while those who are not can opt to share data automatically with trusted providers. The benefits of new technologies often?flow disproportionately to the rich.?Those fears are mitigated by the incentives that employers, governments and insurers have to invest in cost-efficient preventive care for all. Alphabet has recently launched a firm called Cityblock Health, for example, which plans to?trawl?through patients’ data to provide better care for low-income city dwellers, many of them covered by Medicaid, an insurance programme for poorer Americans. pitfall: a danger or problem that is hidden or not obvious at first pore over: to read or study something very carefully trawl: to search through something in order to find someone or something 很多先進(jìn)的技術(shù)都是益了富人，因此這需要納稅人，政府和保險(xiǎn)公司一起想出保障到所有人的醫(yī)療制度 Google在這方面有做出了努力，成立了一各公司Cityblock Health，為低收入人群提供更好的醫(yī)療！（真心覺(jué)得googlers 是為了人類進(jìn)步而發(fā)展的公司...) Other risks are harder to deal with.Greater transparency may encourage the?hale and hearty?not to take out health insurance. They may even make it harder for the unwell to find cover. Regulations can slow that process—by requiring insurers to ignore genetic data, for example—but not stop it. Security is another worry. The more patient data are analysed in the cloud or shared with different firms, the greater the potential threat of hacking or misuse. Almost a quarter of all?data breaches?in America happen in health care. Health firms should face?stringent?penalties if they are?slapdash?about security, but it is naive to expect that breaches will never happen. Will the benefits of making data more widely available outweigh such risks??The signs are that they will. Plenty of countries are now opening up their medical records, but few have gone as far as Sweden. It aims to give all its citizens electronic access to their medical records by 2020; over a third of Swedes have already set up accounts. Studies show that patients with such access have a better understanding of their illnesses, and that their treatment is more successful. Trials in America and Canada have produced not just happier patients but lower costs, as clinicians fielded fewer inquiries. That should be no surprise. No one has a greater interest in your health than you do. Trust in Doctor You. hale: healthy and strong, usually used in the phrase hale and hearty? 一個(gè)壞處就是讓那些身體情況良好的人不會(huì)再買保險(xiǎn)，而讓那些身體不好的人很難買到保險(xiǎn)；還有分享的數(shù)據(jù)越多，就越有可能發(fā)生數(shù)據(jù)泄露和被黑客黑的可能 stringent: very strict or severe slapdash: quick and careless 那分享這些醫(yī)療數(shù)據(jù)到底是不是利大于弊還是弊大于利？種種跡象標(biāo)明是 利大于弊的！ 總結(jié)：科技改變生活，本文是這期經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人雜志的封面文章 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Results Lexile?Measure: 1100L - 1200L Mean Sentence Length: 16.04 Mean Log Word Frequency: 3.16 Word Count: 1030 這篇文章的藍(lán)思值是在1100-1200L， 適合英語(yǔ)專業(yè)大二的水平學(xué)習(xí)，是經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人里比較簡(jiǎn)單的使用kindle斷斷續(xù)續(xù)地讀《經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人》三年，發(fā)現(xiàn)從一開(kāi)始磕磕碰碰到現(xiàn)在比較順暢地讀完，進(jìn)步很大，推薦購(gòu)買！ 點(diǎn)擊這里可以去亞馬遜官網(wǎng)購(gòu)買~