Hacker News Reader

Even simple charts for numerical variables would be helpful though. For example, evaluating growth over time is important in pediatrics. In my country, mothers receive a booklet with all the charts and pediatricians are supposed to fill it with data during consults. When I open one of these, I usually find only two or three data points. Surely EMR software could do the same thing automatically.

https://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/index.htm

View on HN

In the US, growth charts for peds are already built into every EMR I know of. But even that isn't particularly nuanced: I want different charts at different ages based on, for instance, whether the kid is bottle or breast-fed. The difference will impact an interpretation of being under- or over-weight, and using the wrong ones can create the appearance that the kid is dropping off the growth curve at around two years old (which is to say, without context you can't even interpret just the trend itself). The EMRs aren't even at the "IF feeding==bottle, display.curveA; ELSE display.curveB" level of sophistication.

Which is another way of saying "even where it looks like the numbers matter unto themselves without context, nope, you still can't meaningfully interpret them without context."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com