The only reason I had heard of it was because my car has it built into the navigation system. So, I can enter a W3W coordinate and my car will appropriately route me.
It's supposedly beneficial when trying to locate a particular person. They can just send you their W3W, the car can read it off the SMS, and automatically provide routing.
I have not used the capability, but explored it when I first got the car since I had never heard of W3W.
At Kaiser, you just have to walk into any member services office and request. It doesn't happen right then, but I believe in a few days you get a thumb drive with all of your records on them.
However, the law allows the doctors to redact certain portions in your copy that they feel could be harmful to you.
1-2 years after moving to Finland I had a brain-scan done, and the doctor involved told me I could get a copy of the data if I was interested.
In the past I worked at a medical company, so I was familiar with the joys of DICOM, etc. I paid €20 for a copy of my own brain-scan data on CD-ROM, posted to my house.
Pretty mind-blowing to have access to a scan of my own brain (well blood-vessels at least) on my home PC.
Scroll down to "Information Excluded from the Right of Access", particularly the bit about psychotherapy notes.
Also see "Reviewable grounds for denial (45 CFR 164.524(a)(3))", which includes things like "The access requested is reasonably likely to endanger the life or physical safety of the individual or another person" or "The access requested is reasonably likely to cause substantial harm to a person (other than a health care provider) referenced in the PHI".
> Another limited ground for denial exists if a licensed health care professional determines in the exercise of professional judgment that the access requested is reasonably likely to endanger the life or physical safety of the individual or another person. For example, a covered entity may deny a suicidal patient access to information that a provider determines in his professional judgment is reasonably likely to lead the patient to take her own life.
There was an interesting discussion earlier on here about the potential emotional harms of suggesting to a patient that they are likely to develop Alzheimer's within a few years (an AI based early detection system).
On the one hand, you might catch it and treat it earlier. On the other hand, it will color every interaction you have with others and cause stress every time you try to remember something. The potential harm may very well exceed the harm of not telling the patient (up to and including suicide).
If a doctor suspects something but lacks evidence, they may simply make a note to look for more signs at subsequent follow-ups. A patient seeing that may read more into it than is there, and subsequently suffer undue stress or paranoia.
Has the bug been fixed where it doesn't disable? I had to track down why my Nvidia GPU was being used all the time and killing my battery. Turns out it's iTerm2 and it isn't disabling the renderer correctly.
There's currently a bug with multi-GPU based MBPs and the new metal renderer. The new metal renderer causes it to always use high performance graphics whether plugged in or not. I had to debug why my battery was dying faster than usual and traced it back to iTerm2 and the metal renderer.
The developer was working on the fix, but I have not seen a fix announced in the release notes yet.
I was at that point when I had it done. The only problem with having that bad of an eyesight, they have to use the laser for longer. It helped I had extra thick corneas, but the surgeon I went to said some folks can't have the surgery with eyes that bad.
Of course, that was 15 years ago, so maybe different guidelines now.
I had Lasik done at a university teaching hospital by a surgeon who had done thousands of surgeries. This was in 2003. Every follow-up was by a resident and then the full surgeon. I had significant dry eyes and blepharitis (probably from the dry eyes) for about 12-18 months.
15 years later, I can still see 20/20 in one eye and 20/25-30 in the other. I still occasionally have dry eyes and blepharitis. I wear glasses at night while driving to feel comfortable and I do get halos at night. My left eye, when it is dry, I get slight double vision.
Ultimately, I'm OK with having had it done and don't really regret it. However, folks who ask me about it, I tell them if they can still wear contacts, not to have it done.
I could only wear rigid gas permeable contacts. Being a computer programmer who doesn't blink often looking at the computer (like everyone), I wore ulcers on my eye. So, could only wear glasses. I was legally blind without them, so I feel like I'm in a much better situation now, albeit with some downsides.
With how bad my eyesight was, I will definitely need reading glasses. I'm in my early 40s now, and am starting to show signs of it.
I had mine done when I was in my late 20s. I'm now in my late 40s. I need reading glasses for any small print but otherwise I'm fine. The doctor who did my lasik told me it would happen in my 40s and he was right.
I never had dry eye issues - just starbursts and halos at night. I have always been thrilled with the whole outcome. Though I think soon I may need to look at wearing glasses again - but the 20 years without them was worth it.
Ditto for me. I had it done in 2006 and have had 20/20 vision ever since. It took about a year before the halos became unnoticeable but I've never had any other issues. My wife, either. It was absolutely life changing for me and I'd do it again even if I had worse side effects.
>>However, folks who ask me about it, I tell them if they can still wear contacts, not to have it done.
Contacts carry their own risks. Even if you have excellent hygiene habits, they can cause eye infections. And if you accidentally fall asleep in them...
Just want to stress this point. An infection sounds benign but the eyes are naturally immunosuppressed. An infection can spread rapidly and lead to permanent damage to your eyesight within days.
I use daily-wear contact lenses (you throw them out in the evening), but usually wear glasses unless there is a specific reason to wear them (usually a sports-related activity).
I also purchased a 2nd pair of prescription sunglasses, so that has also helped.
FWIW I'm 58 and still have 20/15 vision with corrective lenses (yes I typically eat bushels of veggies and carrots too), but the fear of only having 20/20 vision or worse is why I never opted for LASIK.
I consider my night vision poor--but I thought that even when I was in my teens. My eyes have always been a bit light sensitive... IDK if the two are related.
Contact lenses? Nope. All the wetting solutions I tried blurred my vision, sure it was only for 15 or 20 minutes but that doesn't work with my lifestyle.
I always was corrected to 20/15 when I wore glasses and could actually be corrected in the office setting to 20/5 (fairly rare). I was very particular about my vision, similar to you. I haven't had issues with it being 20/20 now, but I do wear glasses for driving because I like the clarity.
It's supposedly beneficial when trying to locate a particular person. They can just send you their W3W, the car can read it off the SMS, and automatically provide routing.
I have not used the capability, but explored it when I first got the car since I had never heard of W3W.