Visualizing a medical Twitter hashtag: MD_Chat June 1, 2012
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in eHealth, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, twitter, Visualization, Web 2.0.add a comment
I’ve recently got in touch with an amazing group, the Thesys Group. They invited me to their HQ to show me what kind of projects they are working on and we started a bit of brainstorming about what we could come up with together.
In our first project, the Thesys Group analyzed the network of discussions focusing on one of the most popular medical Twitter hashtags, MD_chat. In the figure below, a dot represents a Twitter user, lines connecting the dots represent their relationship. The bigger the dot is, the more tweets the Twitter user had. The thicker the line is, the more tweets the two users had with each other. Based on this, here is the network graph (click on the image below to access the interactive graph):
Dots in the middle account for active users, while dots in the periphery did not participate that often in these discussions. Graph includes only tweets including user names, therefore representing discussions. Here is a zoomed version of this graph just to show you how the dots are connected to each other on a smaller scale with @doctor_v and @jodyms in the focus.
A few numbers and facts:
- Tweets are dated between October, 2010 and October, 2011 (4815 messages).
- Data tables were obtained from a public Scridb database containing all the MD_chat discussions and can be downloaded in doc or PDF formats.
- 282 users are represented in the graph with 1972 connecting them to each other.
- Graph was visualized with the Gephi open-source platform.
The top 10 most active Twitter user using the MD_chat hashtag in discussions (largest dots in the graph):
| Rank | MD chat user name | Number of addressed tweets |
| 1 | richmonddoc | 559 |
| 2 | ellenrichter | 204 |
| 3 | gailzahtz | 190 |
| 4 | peds_id_doc | 181 |
| 5 | mdstudent31 | 178 |
| 6 | apjonas | 159 |
| 7 | ability4life | 155 |
| 8 | westr | 145 |
| 9 | chukwumaonyeije | 140 |
| 10 | md_chat | 139 |
The aim of this short study was to point out the importance of medicine related hashtags and the growing popularity of these. The dynamic growth of MD_chat is a good example for the changes that we can see now in the everyday communication among peers. Therapeutic experience, news and opinions spread without geographical or linguistic limitations.
Please let us know what you think of this analysis and feel free to contact me or the Thesys Group for more details.
Like this:
Best 30 Diabetes Twitter Channels of 2012 April 7, 2012
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in eHealth, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Web 2.0, Webicina.2 comments
Webicina features the best Diabetes Twitter channels of 2012! Twitter users represent either diabetes organizations and groups; or people affected by this condition. The list is curated which means medical professionals and e-patients helped choose the most relevant channels.
EHR vs Traditional Paper Records: Infographic April 4, 2012
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in eHealth, Electronic Medical Records, Infographics, Medicine, Medicine 2.0.3 comments
I just came across an interesting infographic featuring the differences between electronic health records (EHR) and traditional paper-based medical records. What do you think?
12 Predictions in Healthcare, Technology and Innovation for 2012 December 31, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in e-patient, eHealth, Facebook, Health, Health 2.0, Healthcare, Hospital, Innovation, List, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Mobile, Pharma, Slideshow, Video, Web 2.0, Wikipedia.12 comments
Last year, I published a list of my predictions for 2011 in the areas of healthcare, innovation and technology. Now after a year, I checked these items and actually many of them proved to be right (year of tablets, Prezi.com skyrocketing, Siri leading the way for voice controlled apps, etc.), but now it’s time to come up with the predictions for 2012. Here are my 12 predictions, please feel free to add yours in the comment section.
1) Digital only class in social media for medical professionals and e-patients. Well, that’s quite an easy prediction, as I will launch the global form of my social media in medicine university course this February.
2) Social media policy everywhere. Now that we have an open access social media guide for and about pharma; it’s time for the FDA to come up with their own detailed instructions; also universities, healthcare institutions and medical practices, everyone must have its own as almost everyone is using social media intensively.
3) Augmented reality in radiology. Augmented reality has been a major issue for some time, but seeing the video below made it clear for me, this is where we are going to head in 2012. Doctors can see through patients.
4) Health-fitness gadgets will rock 2012. Myself, I’ve been using Striiv as a fitness motivation tool which also logs my data and visualizes my exercises making it easier for me to make plans and see how I’m doing. Other examples include Jawbone, but you can find even more if you follow the Quantified Self project.
5) Innovations in screen technologies. The form, material and functions of the screens we know now will change dramatically in 2012. Imagine paper screen, holographic screens or flexible screens on your wrist.
6) Internet TV and the operating room. The news sites are full of Apple TV and Google TV, so it’s obvious really innovative internet TVs will be launched in 2012 which brings up the idea of watching operations live on your TV at home. Just check OR-live.com.
7) Pharma will be using social media more intensively. I’m not saying all the pharma companies will have properly designed and managed social media presence, but many brands will use social media more intensively as we should be over now the so-called learing phase and they are getting braver by time.
8) More and more tablet-specific apps. I know the number of medicine/health-related mobile apps is growing rapidly, but now it’s time to turn to tablet-specific clinical apps that could be used in radiology, clinical trials or just for grand rounds.
9) Tablets in healthcare institutions. Whenever I talked to professors and colleagues about how I use my tablet in medicine and healthcare, in a few weeks, many of them had their own tablets and started using those apps. This is contagious. In 2012, a lot of hospitals, clinics and departments will hand out iPad or Galaxy Tabs to their employees in order to facilitate teamwork and make the work processes more efficient.
10) Wikipedia will have more medical featured articles, less medical errors. We recently published a paper describing how Wikipedia can be used for global public health promotion. After years of focus on creating new medical entries in Wikipedia, now we the editors focus on including proper references into medical articles. It is going to lead to a huge improvement in quality.
11) More health bloggers turn to microblogging due to lack of time. Although I believe my blog is still my major platform online even if Twitter is the fastest channel and Facebook is the most interactive. But I understand those health bloggers who leave their blogs and turn to Posterious, Tumblr or Twitter exclusively. It takes less time to post a message or entry therefore they will use these with a bigger chance.
12) Google+ health pages on the rise. I like Google+ and I think it could be used in medical communication successfully. As Google+ has only been letting companies or institutions have G+ pages, we are going to see a rise in their number soon. Even Ed Bennett who maintains a list of hospital social media accounts will include these as well.
Let’s finish my list with a great presentation about the trends in healthcare for 2012.
Win Grand Prizes by Sharing Your Own Social Media Story in Health or Medicine! November 2, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Medicine, Health, Web 2.0, Medicine 2.0, Health 2.0, eHealth, e-patient, Webicina.2 comments
There is a new social campaign being launched right now on Webicina.com that curates the medical resources of social media in 80 topics in 18 languages:
We receive hundreds of suggestions from empowered patients and medical professionals every week about which social media resources should be included in our selections, and we thought we must find a way to let them know how much we appreciate their help.
So now we kindly ask you to tell us your story about how social media helped you improve your health management or helped you get better in your specialty in order to win grand prizes.
As we curate resources in basically all the social media platforms, you can tell your story in any platforms from Twitter and Facebook to blogs and Youtube. Your submissions will be reviewed by an expert jury, members of the Webicina Advisory Board. The very best of these stories will get great publicity.
Here are the details:
Who can enter the competition:
Anyone who tells their story between the 2nd of November, 2011 and the 30th of November, 2011 about how social media helped them manage their health as a patient or run their professional life better as a medical professional. The more inspiring and engaging the story is, the bigger the chance is for winning the grand prizes! We curate all kinds of social media platforms so we welcome submissions from any of these platforms with such conditions:
- A Twitter message or stream of messages using the #Webicina hashtag.
- A Youtube video using the Webicina tag.
- A Vimeo video using the Webicina tag.
- A Facebook status update or stream of status updates using the @Webicina tag.
- A blog entry in which a link to Webicina.com is included.
- A Friendfeed.com message or stream of messages using the #Webicina hashtag.
- A Slideshare.net slideshow using the Webicina tag.
- If you wish to use a different platform, please ask us for advice!
Such stories (link to either the Twitter message, slideshow or blog entry, etc.) should be submitted to info@webicina.com!
Please note that stories, slideshows and videos published only after the 2nd of November, 2011 but before the 30th of November, 2011 can join the competition!
Prizes
1) The winner gets a brand new, Lenovo® Multi-Touch m90z ThinkCentre, an all-in-one powerful computer with a 23” full HD monitor that Lenovo designed for professional use with medical applications in mind.
2) The second place earns an amazingly thin and light iPad 2.
3) The third place leads to an Amazon Kindle Fire, the newest model of the world’s bestselling e-reader:
The best 20 submissions based on the jury’s ranking will receive a Webicina T-shirt (either an e-patient or a web-savvy physician format).
What is the timeline of the competition?
Nominations will be accepted until 23:59:59 Wednesday, November 30, 2011 (EST).
Winners along with the most inspiring stories will be announced on the 12th of December!
Who will review the submissions and create the final list?
Members of the jury,
- Lucien Engelen (Director of Radboud REshape & Innovation Center and TEDxMaastricht founder),
- e-Patient Dave deBronkart (the global e-patient leader),
- Denise Silber (French e-health leader and organizer of Doctors 2.0 and You),
- Kerri Morrone Sparling (award-winner diabetes blogger and community leader),
- Dr Mike Cadogan (number one medical blogger in Australia)
- Dr. Ves Dimov (founder of the most popular online case-based curriculum of clinical medicine)
will assign scores to each submission – based on the quality, length and originality of the story and also how inspiring or engaging it was – which will result in a final ranking of stories.
Get ready and start sharing your story now! We look forward to receiving more and more submissions!
Redesigning Waiting Room in Healthcare August 3, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Health 2.0, Healthcare, Innovation, eHealth.12 comments
I’ve recently come across fuelfor a company focusing on redesigning the common processes of healthcare. They just launched a project in which they aim at creating a new concept for waiting rooms:
Waiting is a common pain point in many health systems. As resources are increasingly overstretched, some degree of waiting is inevitable for most healthcare services. And yet hospital waiting rooms tend to be some of the most uncomfortable spaces to spend time, both physically and emotionally. Research shows that a well designed waiting experience has the potential to improve the overall perception of a health care service and to optimise care delivery processes. Gathering insights through site visits to several hospitals and clinics and discussions with care givers and patients, fuelfor has created a system of furniture, interior design, service and signage concepts that aim to make the experience of waiting in healthcare positive, effective and comfortable.
A few pictures below, and let me know if you want to know more about it.
Doctors Go Digital in the 21st Century: Infographic August 2, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in eHealth, Infographics, Medicine, Medicine 2.0.add a comment
There is a nice infographic about the digital device and mobile app usage of doctors.
Google Health: It’s Over June 27, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in eHealth, Electronic Medical Records, Google, Health, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Web 2.0.3 comments
I guess you’ve heard the news:
Google is giving up on its vision of helping people live healthier lives with online personal health records.
When Google Health was introduced in 2008, Marissa Mayer, a Google executive, said it would be a “large ongoing initiative” that the company hoped would attract millions of regular users.
But Google Health never really caught on.
Well, I know it’s easy to say now, but I wasn’t that surprised. After the first steps, and after years of hard work, Google Health failed to make a real impact on healthcare. When I read the news, an old blog entry of mine came to my mind:
Expecting Google Health to change healthcare is something like expecting Wikipedia to substitute all encyclopaedias in the world…
Some great pieces on this issue:
WHO Global survey on eHealth January 11, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in eHealth.1 comment so far
WHO published the report of a 2009 global e-health survey in which over 110 countries participated.
This publication presents data on the 114 WHO Member States that participated in the 2009 global survey on eHealth. Intended as a reference to the state of eHealth development in Member States, the publication highlights selected indicators in the form of country profiles.
The objectives of the country profiles are to:
- describe the current status of the use of ICT for health in Member States; and
- provide information concerning the progress of eHealth applications in these countries.
