Response to “Doctors Raise Doubts on Digital Health Data”
S. Lohr NY Times
By STEVE MCKINNEY
1410 Cambridge, England. Minor Canon Thomas Rangle did a final count of the books at Trinity Hall. He counted 122. Most of the books are biblical in nature or celebratory of our good and righteous benefactor Pope Urban V. Few have access to these fine artifacts because of their enormous value (costing as much as a farm or vineyard) and the cloistered clergy and Master of the university are unwilling to share their contents.
1448 Mainz, Germany. Goldsmith and known spendthrift Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press with move-able type. It is known in town that he has printed school book texts and some indulgences; although, word is out that he is working on a fine bible. Cost is 30 Florins or the equivalent of three years working wages.
1450 NEJOM Nether regions somewhere west. A noted study commissioned by Pope Nicholas the V and carried out by some real smart folks revealed that the offspring of this new invention, what are called books, are a dubious way of disseminating knowledge. The study also concluded that because of the cost, and lack of adoption in the Holy Empire, there was likely no good that would come of them. A well respected scribe, Penman R. Best, noted that Gutenberg’s press is rather clunky and has many parts that would seem to obstruct further uses and indicate a contraption of vast complexity that might corrupt what it seeks to advance – the minds of the people.
1950 William Faulkner “The past is not dead, in fact it is not even past.”
This was the clearest way I know of countering our clinicians (scribes) deep-seated reluctance to change.
Steve McKinney is a President with Advance Decisions LLC. He is based in San Francisco.
