The E-Patient becomes a patient February 13, 2012
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in e-patient, Health, Health 2.0, Healthcare, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Video, Web 2.0.2 comments
E-patient Dave deBronkart has been the most important and amazing voice of the e-patient movement for years now after surviving a kidney cancer years ago. When I asked him to comment on how medical students should become doctors who are aware of the e-patient movement, he sent me and my students this message.
He announced a few days ago that he has skin cancer again.
An odd consequence of speaking at medical conferences is that sometimes my face is displayed, real big, on monitors at the front of a room. That happened in November at the Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q) annual meeting in Washington.
At the end, Lisa Letourneau MD, MPH of Maine Quality Countsraced up, pointed to my jaw, and said “You should have that checked. I think it’s a basal cell.” (That’s the least serious type of skin cancer – see Wikipedia: “Basal-cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common type of skin cancer. It rarely metastasizes or kills.”) A few days later I took the picture at left, and started watching.
And now here is the newest piece of the story, Dave approaches the issue from a different angle:
I’ve decided to explore my options by doing what companies do when they’re shopping for a solution: they write a Request for Proposals, and let vendors reply. But in this case what I published isn’t cast in stone – I invite discussion and suggestions. And, significantly, I start with the context: partnership; participatory medicine -
I cannot wait to see how the industry and the healthcare system respond to such innovative approach.
Sherpaa: A New Initiative in Healthcare February 7, 2012
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Medicine, Health, Web 2.0, Medicine 2.0, Health 2.0, Healthcare, Innovation.add a comment
You all know the story of Jay Parkinson, MD who launched the first online GP service years ago in New York. After it became a “franchise”, he left and started a new company, The Future Well. A few months ago, I met him at Stanford, asked about his new projects and he mentioned the Sherpaa idea. Well, here is the official launch and the concept of Sherpaa.
To me it seems that Sherpaa tries to help patients when there are easier solutions for a health-related problem compared to using the traditional healthcare system. They give a specific example, what happens when you cut your finger:
- You call your Guide
- We ask you to snap a photo of the cut and email it to us
- We look at it and it looks like something that can be handled outside the ER
- We give instructions on what to do in the meantime as we schedule a stitch up
- We call Dr. Sung (our plastic surgeon)
- You are free to meet Dr. Sung in his office in an hour
- You are on the road to recovery
—without sherpaa
Cost in ER: $4000
Time in ER: 8 hrs—with sherpaa
Cost in Dr. Sung’s office: $1000
Time with Dr. Sung: 30 min
I believe the idea is timely and the structure is well-designed knowing Jay’s enthusiasm and proficiency. The only concern is how the healthcare system will look at their machinery. What do you think?
Evidence Based Medicine in Social Media February 3, 2012
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Health, Health 2.0, Healthcare, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Web 2.0.4 comments
Do you remember when Google Flu Trends was launched and we were all amazed by the great idea behind that? And do you remember when a study from the University of Washington came up concluding that Google Flu Trends is not as accurate as CDC’s national surveillance programs? So it is social media, it’s trendy and innovative but useless in medicine and healthcare.
Here is the over-shined iPad2 which everyone loves and would like to use at hospitals and clinical practices and we see an amazing number of apps designed for that. A new study now concluded that diagnostic imaging on iPads is twice as slow.
A study from the University of Maryland found that radiologists using iPad 2s to evaluate patients for tuberculosis (TB) took twice as long to make a diagnosis as they did when using a 27-inch LCD monitor. Still, the study of 200 negative and 40 positive TB cases that included five radiologists, found the two displays to yield no significant differences when it came to diagnostic decisions.
Whatever tool, device or service we use in medicine, we must stick to the evidence based approach.
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.9 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.
Top Medical Social Media Stories of 2011: Month by Month December 30, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Cancer, e-patient, Health, Health 2.0, Healthcare, List, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Pharma, Slideshow, twitter, Video, Web 2.0, Webicina, Wikipedia.5 comments
2011 was a very intense and exciting year regarding the developments and new insights of the relationship between medicine/healthcare and social media. Here are my favourite stories from 2011 selected and featured month by month.
January
I had the honour to be included in the Advisory Board of the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media; I wrote about how a Samsung Galaxy Tab changed totally my online activities, how Google Translate can be used in medicine and featured HealCam, a medical alternative of ChatRoulette.
February
Facebook diagnosis by surgeon saved a friend; there was a lively discussion whether pharma companies can edit Wikipedia entries about their own products, it turned out Wikipedia can be a key tool for global public health promotion; and Scienceroll won the Best Medical Technology/Informatics Blog category for the third time in a row in the Medgadget’s Weblog Awards.
March
The new semester of the Internet in Medicine social media university course was launched, pregnant women could text their due date for free weekly advice during pregnancy on Push, Baby Push; Webicina was featured by the Kairos Society on Wall Street, UCSF Medical Center installed a robotic pharmacy in order to remove medication errors from the system; and here is my video message for Stanford about the importance of digital literacy in medical education.
April
Jay Parkinson summarized his story of being the first online doc, the Webicina iPhone app won the 2011 Medical App Awards; Al Jazeera called me Dr. Twitter after I described how Twitter can be used for medical crowdsourcing, and in the fight against AIDS a time lapse video of a woman with HIV/AIDS was published.
May
Blogger announced own death after battle with cancer which shocked people, then a woman managed to find a kidney donor through Twitter, The Social Life of Health Information Pew Internet report was released, and top doctors described how a medical professional should start using social media.
June
I co-authored a medical textbook about medical communication in social media; Google Health was announced to be closed, a cancer patient who blogged about his hospital treatment was threatened with legal action by an NHS trust; Doctors 2.0 and You was the event of the year; and here are some disasters in social media and what we should learn from them.
July
ePatient Dave rocked TED; Mayo Clinic launched an online community in a perfect way, Pfizer’s Facebook page got hacked and they reacted badly, I listed the reasons why I like Google+ even in medicine; mobile apps got regulated by the FDA; and it turned out iPhones can be used for obtaining ECG.
August
I published a story about how Twitter can be used to predict epidemics; even waiting rooms can be redesigned to improve healthcare; I described why I’m happy that patients use the web; started managing the social media presence of a huge medical portal; I stated what you write only is forever; and pharma had hard days because of comments on Facebook.
September
Using hashtags is crucial in medical communication on Twitter; I talked about the future of health 2.0 in Europe; organized a virtual medical consultation in the virtual world on World Heart Day; this is how creativity can be used in healthcare; and I presented the best apps of a physician at the Doctors 2.0 and You conference.
October
Nobel winner died days before award announced; I shared a social media love story about a bone marrow donor; an app let us run figures on maps; Google+ was used for case presentations; and Mayo Clinic launched the Know Your Numbers campaign.
November
I published the 7 Features of the New Generation of Physicians; my open access success story; a summary about the Games for Health conference; hardcore campaigns about men’s health; and revealed why the most viewed medical video on Youtube got millions of hits.
December
Winners of the Webicina social media story contest were announced; WHO featured Webicina; the launch of a global medial social media course was announced; I described my time management tools and tips in medicine; the open access set of social media guidelines for and about pharma was published; and finally found the cutest story of 2011, parents got insulin-pump tattoos to support diabetic child.
I’m going to post my predictions for 2012 tomorrow and I hope you will stay with Scienceroll.com next year as well!
Webicina.com Social Media Story Contest: Meet The Winners! December 12, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in e-patient, Health, Health 2.0, Healthcare, Innovation, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Video, Web 2.0, Webicina.2 comments
Webicina.com launched a challenge in which stories from patients and medical professionals about how social media helped them were invited with grand prizes (Lenovo Thinkcentre, iPad2 and Amazon Kindle Fire, among others) to win. A special prize goes to someone who can tell his/her story at the Doctors 2.0 and You conference in Paris with registration fee and accommodation covered.
Now all the fantastic stories presented through Prezi, slideshow, video, Twitter, Facebook and blogs are in and the members of the jury, Lucien Engelen, e-Patient Dave deBronkart, Denise Silber, Kerri Morrone Sparling, Dr Mike Cadogan, and Dr. Ves Dimov made their decision. Here is the final list of winners!
Congratulations to everyone who submitted their stories which will be featured on Webicina one by one as each story must get its attention, each one represents real and clear values of using social media in medicine and healthcare.
The Winners!
1) The winner is Katherine Leon from the US with her story The “Tap Code” of Social Media in which she shared how she managed to cope with postpartum spontaneous coronary artery dissection by joining Inspire.com’s related community. She won a brand new, Lenovo® Multi-Touch m90z ThinkCentre, an all-in-one powerful computer with a 23” full HD monitor. An excerpt from her fantastic and inspiring story:
While forging relationships on the community, I wasn’t aware of the term “social media.” I would talk with my husband about “my SCAD friends” or “my online friends with SCAD.” They were just as real and important as any “in-person” friend in my life. Even today, our taps on the cell wall usually don’t translate to our families or social circles. But in the world of social media, we truly communicate and gain understanding of our fears, confusion and struggles.
2) The silver medal goes to Susan McKinnon from Australia who told her story about Transient Global Amnesia and Social Media on Youtube. A really moving story illustrated with many pictures. She won an amazingly thin and light iPad 2.
3) The third place belongs to Sarah Ezekiel from the UK who discussed her diagnosis of motor neurone disease and her journey through social media. She won an Amazon Kindle Fire, the newest model of the world’s bestselling e-reader. An excerpt from the story:
There are great MND communities on both twitter and facebook. We share research news which gives hope and keeps us upbeat and positive. Without social media, everyone would sit in isolation and feel hopeless. I actually find tweeting very cathartic and can voice frustrations as well as share good moments. I’ve made connections with wonderful people all over the world. Some have helped me to fundraise or raise the profile of MND. Life with a terminal illness is a veritable rollercoaster but social media has made everything much easier and more enjoyable for me.
Special Prize goes to Dr. Tamás Horváth from hungary who can present his story at the upcoming Doctors 2.0 and You conference! He described how he built the online presence for his medical practice through a Prezi slideshow. Click on the image below to see his Prezi.
Everyone who submitted their entries receive a Webicina T-shirt (either an e-patient or a web-savvy physician format).
We hope you enjoyed this contest and based on the success of it, I’m pretty sure Webicina will launch similar competitions soon.
Until then, please keep on using social media for good reasons and let’s prove that social media can facilitate the developments of medicine and healthcare. And the best way to demonstrate this is sharing your own story!
From DIY Diagnostic Tests to Mobile Health Competitions December 11, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Health, Health 2.0, Healthcare, Hospital, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, twitter, Video, Web 2.0, What's on the web?.3 comments
In a letter published in the Journal of Emergencies, Trauma, and Shock, physicians in Scotland described the use of a webcam, Skype, and an iPhone 4 to connect a provider in Calgary to an expert over 200 miles away in Aberdeen for assistance in performing a pulmonary ultrasound.
The idea behind most diagnostic tests is simple: Identify a telltale chemical and look for it in a blood sample. The PSA test for prostate cancer is the best-known cancer diagnostic, but diagnostics exist for other cancers too — ovarian and colorectal to name a few. And while the tests are not infallible, they can help find hard-to-detect, early stage cancers and monitor treatment.
Dave deBronkart, “e-Patient Dave,” was diagnosed with stage IV kidney cancer in 2007. The median survival time for his condition was 24 weeks. Thanks to the help of an online network for patients with his disease, he quickly learned about treatment options and found support for his recovery. The treatment was successful, and now e-Patient Dave is cancer-free and has found a higher calling: empowering patients to have access to the best health care possible — by connecting with resources online.
eyeforpharma believes that the pharma industry must pay more attention to patient needs across the board, and that teen cancer patients are a great place to start. To this end, the organization is hosting its first annual Mobile Health Competition. The competition aims to highlight new and exciting mobile apps that help teen cancer patients better manage their conditions and improve their lives.
You cannot afford to take a “wait-and-see” approach or you may soon find yourself trying to catch up with competitors. Even if you do not currently have an active social media presence, your employees and customers are already using social media. Start now, start small and measure progress. Take precautions: develop a policy to govern your employees’ use of social media. Also use social media to monitor, enhance and protect your brand/reputation.
Participatory healthcare: A parody? November 20, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Fun, Healthcare, Video, Web 2.0.1 comment so far
Lucien Engelen just published a video that presents participatory healthcare from a different apsect.
News from Visualizing Pharma to the Kinect Effect November 8, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in e-patient, Genome, Health, Health 2.0, Healthcare, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Mobile, Video, Web 2.0, What's on the web?.add a comment
- Doctor heads to social media to find patients (video report)
People use their computer or phone to research places to eat, places to visit and things to buy. Sandy Hensley is part of a growing group of people finding medical needs there as well. ”I get all my other life recommendations on Twitter so I think it makes sense to me to make connections with people who you really want to trust like your health care providers on there.” Hensley said.
- This CPR training system gives feedback how you do chest compression:
The School of Medicine’s Office of Information Resources & Technology is launching this week a private, internal social-networking service, called CAP Network, that could dramatically alter communication among faculty, students, postdoctoral scholars and staff like the changes wrought on a much larger scale by Facebook and LinkedIn.
- Photo source: Bigstockphoto
Take a picture of your concern with your mobile camera. Send it as a MMS (Swedish SIM cards only) including relevant information as text in the MMS, or send your query via our iPhone app. We will respond as quickly as possible (within one day) with medical information.
An IV system with creativity September 22, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Health, Healthcare, Innovation, Medicine.1 comment so far
I’ve recently come across this fantastic idea about an IV system designed for non-ICU patients by Andrew Kim. Check his blog for other ideas as well!
