Depending on how you interface with which compartment of my mind and web publication, you know that I've had some maddening medical problems this year. They were merely annoying in every respect. I threw out my back twice and I fell down a flight of stairs. It was annoying that I couldn't play volleyball or use a keyboard for various periods of time, and it was annoying that I had to go to five different medical service providers these past six months. And now that I think about it, I've had three different insurance providers in the past 12 months. Annoying.
Well, in the latest incarnation of annoyance, I had to get the spinal X-ray my chiropractor took of me over to my regular doctor. Why? Because it was unlikely that my insurance would pay for two different x-rays of the same injury. It turned out that they couldn't run the damned thing next door - I had to pick it up personally and hand deliver it. Radiological sneakernet, thanks to HIPAA, I'm sure. So I did that, but then my doctor wasn't in. So I made an appointment and ended up seeing another doctor instead, got on the drugs she prescribed and set up another appointment with my real doctor. When he finally saw me, all the drugs had done their work and I was 95% pain free with full mobility and strength. He told me that his radiologists have no respect for the x-rays that chiropractors take, so thanks but no thanks. Then he has set me up to complete my cholesterol check from last year when we talked and then set up an appointment with a physical therapist - because his examination suggested that I didn't need to see the specialist for arthritis or the surgeon.
At that moment, I saw a triple branching from that visit, and the roads not taken. It began to remind me of something I worked on 8 years ago with a programmer named Jay and my recent infatuation with tabletop computing which appears to be going nowhere fast.
Can you visualize medical diagnoses and treatment regimins with a weighted graph? I can. Can you visualize a medical supply chain of services in a tabletop computing metaphor? I can. Can you build that? I can't. But I suppose I should try to squeeze more hours out of my day so that I can learn how, because this could be huge.
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