José Martín Juárez Blog

19 July 2009

Healthcare intelligence as support to medical researches based on evidences about plagues and pandemics.

The irruption of new influenza virus is an absolute and sad actuality worldwide that discovers evident vulnerabilities of global healthcare system and the processes of detection, monitoring and investigation of possible solutions. It is well known that viruses act as a united and intercommunicated group, a unique global body with the ability to communicate and develop resistance and “arms” against our defences and the medicaments we use; the globalization permits to accelerate mass contagion, as a result - virus evolution and its mutation into different versions. All mentioned above obliges to change the paradigm of medical investigations and principles of treatment of these pandemics. At present the investigation process do not permit to establish the framework of solutions proportionally to diseases mutation velocity and in many cases discovered solutions, both vaccine or any other partial solution, are not effective against actual virus versions acting more aggressively. In this context it would be essential to assume “evidence based medicine” and make use of intelligence system permitting to develop global and local actions for limiting and controlling disease evolution in due time for decision and investigation.

The medical science tries to give solutions basing on traditional investigation methods aimed to know what has happened since an event in a certain moment T, instead of use of intelligence methods that would permit to know what is happening and estimate and deduce what will happen in a determined moment, according to the available evidences. All things considered, it is necessary an important change of approach: evolution of medical investigation into medical intelligence.