It was supposed to be an initiative to implement the Electronic Medical Record.
Instead, it is quickly morphing to Skynet.
Like a black hole, everything goes in to Skynet now. Nothing escapes its gravitational pull.
Schedules, supply chains, staffing grids, calendars, medicines, pharmacies, insurance plans, pay for performance initiatives, quality measures, door-to-balloon times, billing codes, procedure codes, everything.
Ever-expanding. Spreading. Consuming.
All left unchecked.
The office computer was used to be Skynet's reach, but it quickly expanded to the home computer and the cell phone, provided you're willing to have the cell phone's memory swiped clean if you leave Skynet's grasp. Personal schedules, too, have fallen victim to Skynet as everyone's whereabouts are tracked for all to see in the name of staffing and operating efficiency.
And this week, "personalized medicine" moved a step closer as the complete DNA material of more than 1,000 people from 14 population groups in Europe, Africa, East Asia and the Americas were sequenced so they may serve as a standard reference against which doctors could one day compare a patient's genome profile, even during a routine checkup.
Yes, more fodder for Skynet.
Kind of makes you wonder when we'll be terminated, doesn't it?