78% of Doctors Recommend Websites to Patients: InfoVideo
Show this new infovideo to people who are skeptic about digital health.
Posts from the ‘Health 2.0’ Category
Jun 11
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Jun 10
Doctors 2.0 and You: Key Messages in the “From Doctor to Futurist” Keynote
Doctors 2.0 and You was an amazing event again! It collects all the experts, doctors, e-patients, pharma companies and start-ups in this area.
I presented Webicina.com on the first day and gave the closing keynote on the second day entitled “From Doctor to Futurist”. Some of my key points:
- The future of healthcare will be based on patients who will be able to measure anything about themselves from blood count to ECG and even genomic data.
- We must prepare students and medical professionals for this digital world. This is why I launched a university course, an e-learning platform and wrote a book.
- My role as a medical futurist is to close the gap between e-patients and their not that web-savvy doctors; as well as between digital technologies and everyday medicine.
- Every medical student in the world must read e-Patient Dave’s book!
I had a chance to wear the Google Glass. It’s great but you expect more based on the promotional videos.
Dr. Laurent Alexandre wrote a section about my work in digital health in his book.
Tiantian Li, the managing director of the world’s largest medical community site of 2 million doctors in China, gave me a gift.
I gave a try to HapiFork that buzzes if you eat too fast.
See you next year in Paris!
Jun 9
Transforming Young Cancer Patients into Superheroes to Fight Cancer
A hospital in Brazil came up with the idea of transforming the drugs and therapies of young cancer patients into something different therefore they would feel like superheroes. They can be motivated during the therapy like that, moreover, compliance is better. Amazing idea!
Going to Paris Again: Doctors 2.0 And You!
It’s a great pleasure to attend the best medical social media conference of the year again. Doctors 2.0 And You will be full of rockstars of this field. Just like the last two years, I will be a keynote speaker and this time the title of my talk will be “From Doctor to Futurist” telling my own story and showing some great examples of how digital technologies can be implemented into everyday healthcare.
On the first day, I’ll also give a presentation about Webicina.com. See you in Paris!
Jun 4
The Quantified Self Movement Is Leading to an Era of Ultimate Self-Tracking
I’ve been a huge fan of the Quantified Self movement for many years, I’ve been logging my sleep, my activities, scores of physical and mental well-being for 15 years every single day. When I recently saw an article about a neuroscientist who is getting a brain scan twice every week for a year to see how neural networks behave over time, I knew we are getting into a new phase in this area.
Every day, he tracks his mood and mental state, what he ate, and how much time he spent outdoors. Twice a week, he gets his brain scanned in an MRI machine. And once a week, he has his blood drawn so that it can be analyzed for hormones and gene activity levels. Poldrack plans to gather a year’s worth of brain and body data to answer an unexplored question in the neuroscience community: how do brain networks behave and change over a year?
Moreover, according to mobile health and wellness sensor reports, in 2017, 515 million sensors for wearable, implantable or mobile health and fitness devices will be shipped globally, up from 107 million in 2012!
We can expect that in a few years’ time, patients will be able to measure everything about themselves from blood count and blood glucose content to ECG and even genomics data. Are medical professionals, payers and pharmaceutical companies ready for such a world?
Of course, not, but I’m trying to prepare them offline and online.
Patients who helped with medical choices had higher bills: Let’s Analyze This!
As a huge fan and supporter of e-patients who want to use digital technologies and the information they find online in their health management, I don’t like news articles speaking against them without explanations and data.
The healthcare social media community has been discussing a study that concluded patients who wanted to participate in medical decision making had higher bills. It might predict that e-patients will have higher bills as well. Let’s take a look at it:
Analyzing the data, the researchers found that nearly all — 96.3% — wanted to receive information about their illnesses and treatment options, but that only 28.9% said they had a strong preference for making their own decisions about their care.
Those patients had longer hospital stays, by about a quarter of a day on average, than patients who preferred let their doctors take the lead. They also had greater hospital costs ($865 more, on average.) By and large, people who were more likely to participate in medical decisions were better educated, and more likely to have private insurance coverage, than the rest of the patients who were surveyed.
You see? It says patients who had a strong preference for making their own decisions about their care. E-patients are partners with their doctors, not making medical decisions themselves alone. That’s the difference.
Social Media in Clinical Practice: The First Social Media Handbook for Doctors is Coming Soon!
In the last 10 months, I’ve been working day and night to finish a book that could fill a huge gap regarding the practical use of social media in medicine and healthcare. Social Media in Clinical Practice was meant to introduce medical professionals to the digital world through real-life examples, suggestions and step-by-step instructions.
I’ve been teaching medical students and physicians about these topics for many years and they always came up with a final question: is there a practical book that could help us learn the meaningful use of social media? Now yes, there is!
I hope medical professionals will find it useful and e-patients will share it with their doctors.
Social media has been clearly changing the way medicine is practiced and healthcare is delivered. Medical professionals must be able to meet the special needs of technology-aware patients and use digital technologies in their work and communications properly. Each physician should find the tools that will assist them in their workflow, and patients need to be educated how to use the internet. It is the responsibility of medical professionals to contribute to this process. The constantly evolving digital world must be used in the practice of medicine to improve the care of patients. However, the only way to do so effectively is via evidence-based, meaningful and strategic use. Social Media in Clinical Practice provides practical guidance in this mission and is thus essential reading for all medical personal looking into approaching this for the first time.
Here is the table of contents:
- Social media is transforming medicine and healthcare
- Using medical search engines with a special focus on Google
- Being up-to-date in medicine
- Community sites Facebook, Google+ and medical social networks
- The world of e-patients
- Establishing a medical blog
- The role of Twitter and microblogging in medicine
- Collaboration online
- Wikipedia and Medical Wikis
- Organizing medical events in virtual environments
- Medical smartphone and tablet applications
- Use of social media by hospitals and medical practices
- Medical video and podcast
- Creating presentations and slideshows
- E-mails and privacy concerns
- Social bookmarking
- Conclusions
The FDA Launches The Patient Network to Educate Patients
It was time for the FDA to step up and represent the very loud voice of e-patients as well. The FDA Patient Network was just launched to educate patients and advocates about FDA; recruit patients and advocates to serve in meetings and to speak at FDA events; and ensure that patients and advocates can express their concerns about FDA decisions. It’s a good first step.
We are the Patient Network, a part of the FDA. We work to bring the unique perspective of patients, family members, caregivers, and patient advocates to the decision-making processes of the FDA. Through the Patient Network, you can learn more about FDA and how it works, provide input in decisions about new or current medical products, and talk with FDA experts about issues and concerns that are important to you.
Healthcare Infographics Help Start a Conversation
The Facebook page of TEDMED Live Bologna published some amazing infographics and sketches about different aspects of telemedicine, health 2.0 and digital technologies. Such visuals can help start a conversation or brainstorming session about potential developments at any workshops or conferences.
Apr 22
When a Patient is in Control of His Health: Posting ECG Results on Twitter
Hugo Campos is well known in the health 2.0/e-patient communities and now he made another step forward in changing healthcare. Even though I teach medical students not to give medical advice online, this little story should give us a glimpse about the near future of healthcare. He posted his ECG results (with AliveCor) on Twitter asking the opinion of cardiologists.
Earlier tonight, at around 7:25 pm, I noticed a fluttering sensation in my chest. My first thought was atrial fibrillation (AF). I’ve had quite a few runs of AF, so I’m familiar with its symptoms. I immediately grabbed my iPhone ECG recorder, licked the electrodes (I know, gross, but I wanted a sharp recording), lifted my shirt and placed the device against my chest hoping for a clean recording. Until now, I hadn’t been fast enough to catch an arrhythmia in action. But this time, I caught the tail end of the episode. I tweeted the experience.
