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UCL in the News: GP who prescribes the future for his patients
3 September 2007
Dr Chris Martin [UCL Centre for Health Informatics & Medical Educations student], who combines being a GP in Laindon, Essex, with research, has created a computer program that predicts how long an individual can expect to live, based on simple data such as blood pressure, cholesterol levels, smoking habits, age and past medical history.
The output is in the form of a graph that shows how many more years could be achieved by changes. The most obvious is giving up smoking, which affects the risks of heart disease, lung cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.…
Doctors already use a risk calculator to assess how likely their patients are to suffer a heart attack, but Dr Martin's program, which he calls the Laindon Model, goes further. Once a patient's data is entered it produces a picture of the risks, and the effects that different courses of action would have on reducing them. …
"It is visually striking how lethal smoking is, but not only that, it effectively puts into perspective the importance of stopping smoking compared to treating blood pressure" said Dr Martin. …
He believes its main use will be for GPs and those giving health promotion advice. "If you show patients a graph it really brings it home to them," he said. …
Dr Martin sharpened his computer skills on a course in Health Informatics at UCL, where his model formed the subject of his dissertation. The course, which leads to an MSc, is designed to help doctors, nurses, health managers and others to harness IT skills to improve patient care.
Nigel Hawkes, 'The Times'
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