Targeted junkmail "from" your GP?

[Alun Harford]

Roland Perry wrote:
> In article <4868EF0E.5080403@defoam.net>, Adrian Midgley 
> <amidgley2@defoam.net> writes
>>> I very much doubt my medical records include my occupation (which is in
>>> any event so obscure that I have difficulty categorising it even when
>>> someone *is* gathering the information).
>>
>> There is a field for it with a qualifier for detail.
> 
> Maybe we need things like "Teacher" (field) "in a 1960's 
> comprehensive"[1] (qualifier) so everyone can excited about
> exposure to asbestos?

Actually you can just SNOMED code it, because you can calculate the 
required code. (Which itself causes more problems because you can 
quickly find yourself doing something as hard as NLP to decode your 
codes...)

That said, I can't really see a hospital routinely asking patients for 
data even using the pre-defined codes. "Are you a pure mathematician 
(26755008) or an applied mathematician (59559001)?" "Are you allergic to 
crunchy peanut butter (227508007) or smooth peanut butter (227507002)?" etc.

Alun Harford