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350

YEARS

OF

SCIENCE

31

A medical data warehouse with relevant data extraction modules

© Nicolas Garcelon, Institut Imagine, Paris

© Granger Historical Picture Archve - Alamy

Nicolas de Condorcet (1743-1794)

Clinical databases / EHR

Extract

Transform

Load

E

T

L

User interface

Sources

Data

Warehouse

Knowledge databases and

ontology

Database

Data mining algorithm

Security module

Search engine

Prognosis, treatment

The cost of innovative treatments – as illustrated in the recent period of time by the new anticancer

drugs – is a factor weighing heavy on the risk that inequality of access to care may worsen. Such issues

call for an in-depth ethical reflection, in

order to make any progress in medicine the

part of a human vision, draw the lines and

prevent abuses. In this context, Nicolas

de Condorcet’s text – in

Outlines of an

historical view of the progress of the human

mind

, 1794 – proves widely prophetic: "

It is

manifest that the improvement of the practice

of medicine (…) must in the end put a period

to transmissible or contagious disorders, as

well to those general maladies resulting from

climate, aliments, and the nature of certain

occupations. Nor would it be difficult to prove

that this hope might be extended to almost

every other malady, of which it is probable

we shall hereafter discover the most remote

causes."

EHR = electronic health record