Skip to content

Posts from the ‘Wikipedia’ Category

Dec 30

7 Comments

Top Medical Social Media Stories of 2011: Month by Month

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!

Dec 22

1 Comment

Pharma companies editing Wikipedia? Weigh in!

A certain pharmaceutical company contacted me and asked how they can edit Wikipedia entries focusing on their own products. They wish to make corrections as those entries contained misinformation.

This is a tricky issue and while the open access pharma social media guide features a page about Wikipedia, I wanted to ask the community of editors what they think about it.

Please take a look at the discussion and weigh in!

Jun 30

From Google+ to E-mails for Doctors and Wikipedia

What should doctors know about about Google+?  Obviously, this is Google’s last, best attempt to combat Facebook’s dominance.  It features the Google+ Stream, which is similar to a Facebook news feed, which in itself is similar to a Twitter feed.

In this article I would like to propose what could be a simple transparent stepping stone for pharma in gaining more influence over one of the most powerful sources of information on the internet.

Doctors risk a heavy fine and GMC censure if they fail to protect patients’ personal information when sending emails.

  • Blitter is a clinical search engine with content highlighted by clinicians who blog or tweet.

Blue Chip Patient Recruitment, a division of global, full-service marketing agency Blue Chip Marketing Worldwide, has authored a white paper advising patient recruitment specialists on how to effectively implement social media into their recruitment strategies.

Our perceptions and regulations regarding professional behaviour must evolve to encompass these new forms of media. Recent studies, legal cases and media reports highlight how the inappropriate use of these media can harm patients and the medical practitioners involved.

 

Jun 17

1 Comment

WikiProject Medicine in the British Medical Journal

With plenty of medical editors in Wikipedia, we have recently published a paper on how Wikipedia could be a key tool for global public health promotion. A new paper published in BMJ describes how WikiProject Medicine works. That community is the HQ for medicine-related information and editing activities in Wikipedia. Here is the abstract:

In January 2011, members of WikiProject Medicine published an article about the intricacies, strengths, and weaknesses of Wikipedia as a source of health information and compared it with other medical wikis. 1 The article poses some interesting challenges and opportunities for the global community as Wikipedia’s seven year old WikiProject Medicine reaches an estimated 150 million viewers every month.

The claimed usage of Wikiproject Medicine is just under half of the 362 million monthly viewers of its parent Wikipedia, which is now the sixth most popular site on the internet. 2 This seems set to rise if search engines such as Google continue to show this site at the top of search results and with an upcoming iPhone application that will make it even more convenient and accessible.

Mar 20

4 Comments

Survey: Expert barriers to Wikipedia

As a big fan of Wikipedia, I always try to encourage experts to contribute to this fantastic project. A new survey initiated by the Wikimedia Research Committee and run by Dario Taraborelli, Daniel Mietchen and Panagiota Alevizou aims at investigating this important question. Please complete the survey if you have a few minutes.

Wikipedia is now widely regarded as a mature project and is consulted by a large fraction of internet users, including academics and other experts. However, many of them are still reluctant to contribute to it. The aim of this survey is to understand why scientists, academics and other experts do (or do not) contribute to an open collaborative project such as Wikipedia, and whether individual motivation aligns with shared perceptions of Wikipedia within expert communities. We hope this may help us identify ways around barriers to expert participation.

The survey is anonymous and should take about 10 min to complete. It consists of a short introduction, followed by two main sections in which we contrast shared perceptions and personal motivation, and a final section where you can tell us more about yourself. At the end of the survey, you will find a link to follow the results and the ensuing conversation.

Feb 23

12 Comments

Can pharma companies edit Wikipedia?

Recently, I’ve received plenty of e-mails asking whether pharma companies can or should edit Wikipedia entries about their own products. Here is a quick summary of what the medical Wikipedia community thinks about that:

The Wikipedia:Conflict of interest guideline addresses this, while Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:Username policy are also relevant.

Disclosure of COI is not required by any Wikipedia policy.

  • Some editors have voluntarily chosen to disclose a conflict of interest by including their employers’ names in their account names, e.g., all these folks from GlaxoSmithKline. More self-identify on their user pages.
  • Self-identification is a two-edged sword: You get points from most users for being honest, but a few will use it to harrass editors. See, e.g., User:James Cantor, a world-class expert on pedophilia, who has been chastised by a handful of (minority-view-holding) editors for not re-re-re-re-disclosing his “conflict of interest” every single time he edits certain pages.
  • Corporate IP addresses are highly traceable. An employee editing from the office should assume that s/he’s hung a big sign on the edit saying “I’m part of a pharmaceutical conspiracy”.
  • Some employers require disclosure, and a few believe it illegal for their employees to edit these pages. (I believe the idea runs like this: We are legally required to say only X about this product; if we change the Wikipedia page, we are legally required to say only X on the Wikipedia page; if the page says anything beyond X, then we’re in violation of the law.) So employees and contractors should check with their employers.

Wikipedia does not prohibit people in the pharmaceutical industry from editing articles. (WP:PAID failed) However, there are strategies that reduce conflict:

  • Vandalism = bad. As far as we’re concerned, anyone is welcome to fix it, even people who work for a pharmaceutical company.
  • Correct serious errors, but leave the fine points to others.
  • Propose sources and improvements on the talk pages.
  • Read WP:MEDRS, especially the bits about not paying too much attention to single studies.
  • Read WP:MEDMOS, especially the bits about not providing medical advice, instructions to patients, or dosage information.
  • Remember that Wikipedia is not a patient guide or drug formulary. Employees might be in a unique position to provide background and historical information, which we very much want. We’d love for every page about a drug to contain some information about its regulatory status around the world, its development, its manufacturing process, and its commercial history (e.g., which companies have worked on it and what its annual sales are).
  • Come to WT:PHARM to get help.

A new essay is being developed right now. See more details at Wikipedia:Conflicts of interest (medicine).

Feb 14

8 Comments

Wikipedia: A Key Tool for Global Public Health Promotion

As there are more than 20,000 medical-related articles in Wikipedia, and a further 6,000 drug-related entries, there are always a lot of things to do. Last year, we decided to summarize what we have been doing in the health sections of Wikipedia with a group of medical editors and make our summary public in an open-access journal. Now it was published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

The Internet has become an important health information resource for patients and the general public. Wikipedia, a collaboratively written Web-based encyclopedia, has become the dominant online reference work. It is usually among the top results of search engine queries, including when medical information is sought. Since April 2004, editors have formed a group called WikiProject Medicine to coordinate and discuss the English-language Wikipedia’s medical content. This paper, written by members of the WikiProject Medicine, discusses the intricacies, strengths, and weaknesses of Wikipedia as a source of health information and compares it with other medical wikis. Medical professionals, their societies, patient groups, and institutions can help improve Wikipedia’s health-related entries. Several examples of partnerships already show that there is enthusiasm to strengthen Wikipedia’s biomedical content. Given its unique global reach, we believe its possibilities for use as a tool for worldwide health promotion are underestimated. We invite the medical community to join in editing Wikipedia, with the goal of providing people with free access to reliable, understandable, and up-to-date health information.

The official blog of the Wikimedia Foundation acknowledged our publication:

The paper urges physicians and medical professionals to find ways to incorporate contributions to Wikipedia into their work, suggesting ideas for scholarly incentives or possibly issuing continuing medical education credits. To get involved, visit WikiProject Medicine.  You may also want to check out some introductory how-to-edit guides posted by the Wikimedia outreach team.

We’re deeply appreciative of the pioneering work that these editors are carrying out on Wikipedia, alongside their ongoing professional careers.  Wikipedians from all walks of life, and from around the world, are collaborating to further expand the quality and breadth of Wikipedia’s freely available and reusable medical information – furthering the Wikimedia mission of spreading free knowledge around the world.  Thank you!

Jan 19

Health 2.0 News: Cloud discovery and overhyped smartphone apps

CNN Money made a valid point in their recent article when they said that the smartphone is quickly becoming one of your most dangerous possessions. Because of services that make our lives easier, like online mobile banking and online shopping via your phone’s web browser, your smartphone has surpassed your wallet as the main target for pickpocketers and thieves.

  • Cloud Discovery & Licenced Library Integration via WebMynd

So from a preliminary standpoint, these blood pressure cuffs are very interesting and a very niche product — but certainly not the game changers they are being touted as by many news sites.

Nov 18

2 Comments

Health 2.0 News: From Android Interfaces to Wikipedia Hard-Cover Editions

Welcome to the Imagine Medicine contest! We are looking for fascinating medical photography that… imagines medicine. Nothing is off the table: portraits, group shots, happy shots, tragic shots, clinical shots, photoshop illustrations, macro, micro, and anything in between. Can you imagine medicine, showcase it as art, and make us wonder?

Nov 12

Health 2.0 News: From Blekko to Cellphones saving lives

  • Blekko is a new search engine that aims to remove spam content from search results by slashtagging websites.

Free knowledge is the foundation of all Wikimedia projects: anyone is free to use, modify and redistribute the content for any purpose. But copyright and free licenses are very confusing for new users, especially when they want to contribute pictures and other media files. A new illustrated licensing tutorial will now guide new users through the basics of copyright and free licenses to make their first steps easier.

  • Blausen Human Atlas iPad v3.0 New Features

Early iPad adapter, and Oncology Net Guide advisory board member, Don Dizon, MD, FACP, will review the benefits of using the iPad and explore apps that health care professionals might find useful. Dizon will also explain how he has implemented the iPad into his medical practice; initially planning to use the iPad for personal use, the physician now uses it 80% of the time for professional purposes.

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 229 other followers

%d bloggers like this: