More data points do help the individual know their baseline range for when they feel healthy compared to range when they experience a health problem. Looking at

More data points do help the individual know their baseline range for when they feel healthy compared to range when they experience a health problem. Looking at second order effects like when a value suddenly changes for a particular individual can be very indicative of a problem. More data points would also allow us to look at correlations in the data to better refine the interpretation for combinations of tests. I can understand economic reasons why since we're all paying for insurance collectively we might want to limit testing. What I have a harder time understanding is medical profession demanding that physics change to accommodate their process rather than changing their process to accommodate physics and statistics. I really don't expect any tests to be perfect. I especially don't expect any test given when I'm sick to be able to tell me what a normal value for me should be when I'm well. What I would like to see is us embrace the reality of data and have enough of it that we can start to separate the signal from the noise. Just look at examples like the success of The Nurses Health Study[1] because they looked at lots of data over lots of years from lots of people. Not surprisingly a lot of health issues are difficult to understand looking at single data points. [1] http://www.nhs3.org/ http://www.nhs3.org/