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:
Google Translate Conversation Mode January 24, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Google.3 comments
If you have ever had language problems with patients or collegues, you will find the Conversation Mode Beta of Google Translate amazing.
Internet in Medicine University Course: Google Story and Medical Search Engines December 1, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Google, Medical Search, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Medicine 2.0 Course, Web 2.0.1 comment so far
The 9th week of the world’s first university accredited course focusing on medicine and social media was dedicated to the Google story and medical search engines.
First slideshow: The Google phenomenon
- The first Google search engine in 1998
- The founders, the basic concept, the workplace, the challange search engines face
- Definition of SEO and pagerank
- Presenting the best Google applications: News, Groups, Docs, GMail, Images, Google Ads, Scholar, Talk, Youtube, Google Earth, Maps, Calendar, Trends (Flu Trends), Reader, Alerts, Translate, Google Fight
- Also some of the dead ones: Google Lively and Knol
- Google Demo Slam:
- Talking about 23andme and how our genomic profiles will affect the future of healthcare
Take-home message: Google can make our lives easier. The question is how close we should let it come to us.
Second slideshow: Medical Search Engines
- How to search on the web (Google tricks)
- E-patients search at imedix.com, webmd.com, medgle.com
- Pubmed tricks
- Pubmed Faceoff
- Sciencerollsearch.com
- Biowizard, trend trackers
- Image search (Bing.com), video search
- Semantic concept, chacha.com?
Take-home message: Search like a professional and help your patients search properly online.
Lectures this semester:
- Internet in Medicine University Course: A New Beginning
- Internet in Medicine University Course: Medical blogging
- Internet in Medicine University Course: RSS and Twitter
- Internet in Medicine University Course: Wikipedia and Medical Wikis
- Internet in Medicine University Course: E-patients and Medical Communities
- Internet in Medicine University Course: Virtual Reality in Medicine
- Internet in Medicine University Course: Social Media in Healthcare
- Internet in Medicine University Course: New Media in Medicine and Education 2.0
Google Demo Slam November 10, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Fun, Google, Video, Web 2.0.add a comment
Google came up with something innovative again! They asked users to create videos in which they demonstrate the real power of Google apps and tools. And they do this through a competition.
My favourite video is the one in which two US girls use Google Translate to order Indian food.
I’m wondering how people would show the real power of Webicina.com.
Health 2.0 News: Astronauts, Google Health and mHealth September 23, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Google, Health 2.0, Video, Web 2.0, What's on the web?.add a comment
It turns out that this person is probably more popular than you, a tendency that scientists might be able to use to predict the spread of disease.
I did an experiment recently. I emailed a half dozen of my colleagues and asked them to peek at a recent controversial 33 charts post and then offer their comments below the post. Not one did. However four emailed their thoughts – passionate, insightful stuff. When I asked why they wouldn’t formally comment they demurred. They expressed a mishmash of concerns over their privacy and ‘being seen’.
- The Power of Mobile: A fantastic review from Susannah Fox
The access revolution is over. Mobile is changing us, changing our frame of reference so that we see information as portable, personalized, and participatory.
There is no denying that the Internet has become the marketplace of choice for a vast number of consumers, a number which continues to grow year after year. It is particularly true for the medical community as prospective patients often conduct extensive online research before they even consider picking up a phone to make an appointment. With so much information available online, it’s only natural that the Internet is the first stop for so many, and only logical that medical professionals would begin to reach out to searchers online with Web sites, social media, and other online initiatives. How is your practice doing online? The answers to these 10 questions can indicate if your online presence is healthy or in need of an intervention.
A Periodic Table of Google Elements September 10, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Google, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Medicine 2.0 Course, Video, Visualization.4 comments
The new semester of my Internet in Medicine university elective course for medical students is coming soon, so I’ve already started looking for new materials and updates about the topics I cover. There is a presentation about Google in the 9th week and I just found this periodic table of Google elements. So far, I’ve been using the periodic table of collaboration.
WikiProject Medicine + Google August 10, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Collaboration, Google, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Web 2.0, Wikipedia.2 comments
I just joined an initiative on Wikipedia which features Google and the medical editors on Wikipedia. WikiProject Medicine editors and Google reviewers work together on articles within Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine.
Initiated at Google.org and then announced at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine#Announcement to WikiProject Medicine community prior to trial editorial review, this collaboration is intended as an exploration of active cooperation between professional medical editors and wikipedians to further improve the quality of articles. Work began with the identification of a short list of articles for review, selected as a cross-section of medicine-related topics. Each article on the list now has an assessed “Class” and “Importance”, harvested from its talk-page banner, reflecting Wikipedians’ initial assessment of their state.
While I’m not really sure I understand why it’s beneficial for Google, this is a great project which I’m gladly participating in.
Let’s find out if Google is watching you! August 6, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Data, e-patient, Google, Health 2.0, Medicine 2.0, Video, Web 2.0.add a comment
When you’re browsing the web and personal information is being sent to Google servers, it means some kind of a risk for you. How can you find out when it’s happening? Google Alarm that works with Firefox and Chrome, will let you know now.
So how does the plugin work? “[It] inspects each page you visit for Google-related URLs: googleanalytics.com/ga.js for Google Analytics, doubleclick.net/googlesyndication.com URLs for AdSense, youtube.com/v/ for YouTube embeds, and many more,” Wilkinson says. “Each service triggers an individual visual and audible alert to help you become more aware of when you’re transmitting data to Google.” If you’re into the idea, the source code is currently open, and Wilkinsen welcomes suggestions. Check out the video below for more info:
You can install it here, but be prepared for a very annoying vuvuzela alert sound.
Health 2.0 News: Palatometer, Telescopic Eye and Google Voice July 14, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Google, Health, Health 2.0, Innovation, Medical Search, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Technology, Video, Virtuality, Web 2.0, What's on the web?.1 comment so far
- MedLibs Round 2.6: Jacqueline at Laikas MedLibLog just published a new blog carnival entry featuring several Scienceroll posts as well.
- Telescopic eye implant approved by the FDA: It might help elderly people dealing with macular degeneration.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act identified secure patient-physician e-mail messaging as an objective of the meaningful use of electronic health records. In our study of 35,423 people with diabetes, hypertension, or both, the use of secure patient-physician e-mail within a two-month period was associated with a statistically significant improvement in effectiveness of care as measured by the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS). In addition, the use of e-mail was associated with an improvement of 2.0–6.5 percentage points in performance on other HEDIS measures such as glycemic (HbA1c), cholesterol, and blood pressure screening and control.
- Dale Larson’s LeanScale App: an iPhone app that helps monitor and discover trends in body fat.
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?
