[p2p-research] draft of july cook report on medical care as a knowledge commons

[Michel Bauwens]

dear friends,

As you perhaps already know, the Cook Report is one of the best added value
newsletters on the current paradigm shift around, and his invitation only
mailing list connects the best subsversive/reformist/innovative minds in the
telecom and p2p infrastructures ... he's preparing a special issue on the
future of healthcare

Gordon writes that

Dr zaikim is making his software open so that the medical knowledge it
generates cannot be privatized

see below just the first intro paragraphs, more in Gordon's upcoming
newsletter,

Michel*

*


*

Editorʼs Introduction
*

At the beginning of December 2009, after about 15 minutes conversation with
David Zakim I knew

that I was talking to a man who was determined to transform the practice of
medicine on a global

basis. As did Larry Weed 40 years earlier, David realizes that the
prevailing paradigm of medical

practice is fundamentally broken because the knowledge base of medicine has
grown several orders

of magnitude too large for any human mind to parse unassisted. Having
written about Dr.

Weed’s work in 1978 and having revisited it last summer in the November 2009
*COOK Report*, I

wanted to understand how Dr. Zakim was carrying on what Larry began so long
ago.

This extended piece is the result of more than three hours of interviews
with David. At the end of

a few minutes, when the realization hits that this man really envisions the
creation of an expert

system that integrates all medical knowledge into a patient centered
interface, the mind - if receptive

– gasps how is it possible? The task is too enormous and too complex.
Science fiction. I hope

that this essay offers satisfactory answers to these questions.

David has been working for ten years on his project. Given the complexity
and magnitude, as one

would expect, he has not found the time to stop and try to explain it to a
broader audience. This is

the goal that I have set in what follows. I have pushed, probed, queried and
read to the point

where I believe this interview coupled with extensive excerpts from two of
David’s papers will enable

the interested non-medical policy person grasp the very large policy
significance of what David

is doing.

A paradigm shifting work of this scope depends on sound science and
technology but, without

equally sound political and economic judgment, it will fail. It has been
encouraging to me to see

how David understands the overwhelming economic forces that will either
force medicine down the

CLEOS path or into draconian rationing to allow nations to avoid being
shoved into bankruptcy by

the current broken system.

With the help of Eva Waskell, whom I must also thank for the introduction,
to David I fired off the

most difficult political policy and economic questions I could think of. As
readers will see he handled

them all with equanimity. Certainly a grand strategy is called for because,
in the current climate

that is dominated by finance, there will be many corporations that would
like to privatize

what David is doing. Such would be, I believe, a disaster of the first
order. It is therefore fully in

keeping with the 21st century world of the internet that he has established
the Institute of Digital

Medicine to act as legal owner and protector of the medical intellectual
property and preserve it in

an open knowledge commons.

Our interview was conducted on January 24 2010 with a follow up on April 2
2010. I am also including

extensive excerpts from David’s October 2009 technical paper and an earlier
2008 report,

in order that readers may wade into both as I have and can gain a better
understanding of how the

software behind CLEOS works.

On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 6:17 AM, Gordon Cook <cook at cookreport.com> wrote:

> I am 29 minutes and 2700 words into the bangkok interview
>
> Dr zaikim is making his software open so that the medical knowledge it
> generates cannot be privatized
>
>
>
>
>  the medical database will be maintained in a wikipedia like fashion
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