How e-patients can help heal healthcare: New Book July 7, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in e-patient, Health 2.0, My Bookshelf, Video, Web 2.0.add a comment
ePatient Dave who shared his story (video below) with my students in the “Internet in Medicine” course this semester, is about to publish his own book, Laugh, Sing, and Eat Like a Pig: How an Empowered Patient Beat Stage IV Cancer.
Now three of his friends wrote essays about this important issue:
We who’ve worked on it hope it will provoke thought about how healthcare is changing because of what e-patients can contribute, empowered as individuals and enabled by the internet. To start that process, we’re publishing the introduction.
Three friends and mentors generously offered introductory essays. These essays they have little to do with my story, and everything to do with how e-patients can help heal healthcare:
- Part 1, by Dr. Danny Sands: Putting Information—and Knowledge—in Patients’ Hands
- Part 2, by Paul Levy: Yes, Patients Can Help Their Doctors
- Part 3, by Matthew Holt: Changing Relationships and Changing Technology
I Heart Guts July 7, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Fun, Medical education.add a comment
I guess everyone knows the plush organs from I Heart Guts. But have you seen their educational posters? Here is one about Grab Your Gonads Testicle Self-Exam Card, another is The Good Ol’ Menstrual Cycle that has some weird interesting elements. I know I always write about educational materials which I would have liked to use in medical school, but I’m really happy I had to learn about the menstrual cycle through textbooks and not this poster.
(Hat Tip: In and around the lab)
Pink Glove Dance July 6, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Cancer, e-patient, Health, Health 2.0, Healthcare, Medicine, Video, Web 2.0, Youtube channel.4 comments
Pink Glove Dance is a really nice initiative created by the Providence Health & Services in order to generate breast cancer awareness. This is the original video.
Now several other healthcare institutions joined this movement:
Health Librarianship Wiki Canada: New Design July 6, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Health, Health 2.0, Medical Search, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Web 2.0, Wiki.1 comment so far
The Health Librarianship Wiki Canada has a great new design. This is one of the best resources regarding health/social media related information. Many thanks to Dean Giustini for managing this fabulous resource.
How cognitive surplus will change the world July 6, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Ted Talks, Video, Web 2.0.add a comment
A new TED talk is available:
Clay Shirky looks at “cognitive surplus” — the shared, online work we do with our spare brain cycles. While we’re busy editing Wikipedia, posting to Ushahidi (and yes, making LOLcats), we’re building a better, more cooperative world.
(Hat Tip: Science of the Invisible)
JournalFire: Online Journal Clubs July 5, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Community Site, Health, Health 2.0, Medical journalism, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Web 2.0.10 comments
It’s not so complicated to organize journal clubs online for example on Friendfeed or Twitter, but JournalFire will certainly make it even easier. I asked John Delacruz, co-founder, how JournalFire differs from e.g. Friendfeed.
A major difference is how we give special treatment to journal articles. We give every journal article its own page which aggregates the discussion about the article, and our users’ interactions with the article. For instance, if you visit the following articles on JournalFire, you’ll see the people and groups that have found the article interesting, and their comments.
http://journalfire.com/pmid/19833965
http://journalfire.com/doi/10.1073/pnas.1001028107You can also follow articles, much like you would follow people on Friendfeed. For instance, if you followed all your publications, any comments about those articles would appear in your feed on your home page.
The only disadvantage is you can have only 4 members for free, but if you want to build a really big community, it will cost you $29 a month.
What if Doctors were Treated Like Web Developers? July 5, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Fun.1 comment so far
The DaiyLOL award goes to:
Doctors as rockstars? Pharmarep Stories July 5, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Medicine, Pharma, Video.3 comments
Pharma reps tend to give free lunches and gifts to doctors whenever they visit them. Well, here is a more than strange story about doctors acting like rockstars:
Even though it’s frowned upon these days for doctors to be getting free lunches from pharmaceutical company sales reps, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still happen. And at least one medical practice is acting like a real diva about it- specifying everything from what time the food should be delivered to which local eateries are do’s and don’ts. Journalist Ed Silverman’s Pharmalot blog has posted a memo from a Baltimore practice that reads “like a rider for a concert tour”, as one commenter put it.
And just one more quote from a commenter:
When I dated one surgeon, and was living with another, I was often invited to dinners with pharm reps. Hell, I was on their rolodex when they came through town and called me even when my friends weren’t in town.
The only problem was, I wasn’t a physician…if they called my Dr. XXXX, I’d simply say I Prefer To Be Called XXXX. Never even asked what my specialty was…these guys were like the ultimate spammers…but with food and perks. They’d ask me if it was against my offices policy to accept ‘gifts’, and I’d state Not If They Don’t Find Out…I once had someone ask for my license number so they could give free samples, and I stated I can’t accept those (which I couldn’t…didn’t have a license!) but I got cash instead, so it meant I didn’t have to sell off psychopharms to friends.
Do you remember the video on which doctors people fought for pharma gifts? Well, now this is not so surprising.
Update: Here is video from a medical conference:
Webicina is Featured July 2, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Web 2.0, Webicina.add a comment
We’ve been working hard on Webicina.com in order to create a free, comprehensive guide and collection of quality medical social media resources and it’s a great pleasure and honor whenever we are featured by clinical groups, associations or papers. Here are two recent mentions:
The American Society for Clinical Pathology featured our Pathology and Web 2.0 collection.
The Journal of Drugs in Dermatology featured the Dermatology in Social Media package.
Electronic Medical Records on Google Wave? July 2, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in eHealth, Google, Health, Health 2.0, Healthcare, Innovation, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Web 2.0.3 comments
There are plenty of initiatives with a mission to create a comprehensive, cheap, easy-to-use EMR system, but everyone has to face a lot of problems and issues so whenever we see a simple, free and nice example, it feels like there is light at the end of the tunnel. Jonathan A. Lipton, MD, Cardiology Resident and Research Fellow in Rotterdam started an experiment in Google Wave to see whether that platform is suitable for creating a database of the electronic records of a virtual patient. And to be honest, it looks fine at first glance. Though search might be a barrier.
This wave is meant to “try out” a patient record in the service. For comments it would be good to use a different fontsize (8) and highlight (lightgray). Also, please share the comment boxes to limit the cluttering! The patient (Mr J. Doe) seems the ideal candidate, especially with regard to patient confidentiality issues. Read more about him on his wikipedia page.
Questions have been raised regarding security; the main topic (Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and Medical Information Systems: Is Wave the future of electronic medical records? ) had some comments on this; apparently it’s possible to install the wave infrastructure on any intranet, so it could be done within a closed environment such as a hospital or a company. I don’t know how secure the sharing functions are, so I would be hesitant to use Googles version for secure information.
For a little bit of sarcasm, please see Rob Lamberts’ recent entry on Kevin, MD: What if blogs were run like a paper medical record system?
Thankfully, the Internet is what it is — not at all like medical records systems. We have instant information, instant access to data, and can share opinions and ideas rapidly. Would it be possible to construct a medical record system that did the same? Would it be possible to use the information system you are using right now to make patients records more accurate and accessible?
