why Arbor Medicus was founded...

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Arbor Medicus™ is the first step in this proposed solution. It is true that our proprietary application of the FloBase® expert system is very powerful... and that we have been writing expert history taking systems for decades.

We seek the cooperation and ideas of every patient and physician who uses this system so we can continue to polish it and improve it. We are always seeking recognized medical experts to contribute their approaches to taking and correlating patient symptoms.

The FloBase® expert system allows us to make changes in our program in a matter of hours, so we are well positioned to remain up to date, as defined by our medical colleagues.

At present the general history which is seen in the first visit and return visit sections is based on published standards and guidelines. The newly added sleep disorders section, which addresses obstructive sleep apnea, is tightly imbedded in the overall program.

 

As more illnesses have the potential for earlier recognition and even cure, the pressure is on the primary physician to think about every possible symptom. Every specialty society and academy has recommendations for questions which should be asked by the primary physician. Patients are going online and looking up their symptoms and placing undue pressure on the primary physician with self diagnoses.

This problem can, at least in part, be solved by improving the transfer of relevant patient information to the physician. A good expert system can be driven by new complaints or monitor existing symptoms or conditions. A properly designed system would ask the patient only questions relevant to their personal needs. This system should also be able to correlate and combine symptoms according to guidelines to produce a set of suspicions or diagnoses... "putting 2 and 2 together", so to speak.

For example, a woman with microcytic anemia who also has heavy menstrual flow may be using nonsteroidals for cramping. Unless someone thinks about it, the diagnosis of VonWillebrandt's disease may be missed and, certainly, she should not be using nonsteroidals in that setting.

         
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