Archive for June, 2007
NetWellness – a Ohio-based Health Information Destination
June 29, 2007
Netwellness is provides high-quality medical information vetted by university medical faculty including Ohio State University, University of Cincinnati and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. In addition to having a reference library with links to Adam and ClinicalTrials.gov, there is an Ask the Expert feature which allows for asking questions but also posting previous questions. Not all areas are accepting new questions at once. Included are several links to resources I hadn’t seen before, such as, About Cancer Genes.
Worth some exploration.
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Physician-Driven Google Health
June 28, 2007
Roni Zeiger, MD, of Google, Inc., wrote a significant post a few days ago from a physician’s perspective within Google on where things may be headed. Without using the word empowerment, Roni says, “But better-informed patients recover faster, manage chronic illnesses better and may even avoid some illnesses altogether. And patients should feel in control of their situation.”
Here are some of his thoughts on PHRs: “you should be able to enter as much or as little information as you want — and it’s important that you be allowed to access this kind of information without entering your name, insurance number or other personal information. We also think that if you want to save this information, you should have that choice so you can access it later or share it with your doctor.”
So both access to information and control of your own information is key to empowerment.
Many are questioning Google as a repository for personal health information. Let’s wait and see what they come up with – sounds like in this case they may be avoiding the advertising base that is more pervasive in their other applications.
Then today, an announcement from Missy Krasner on the Google Advisory Board on health. An interesting mix of national leaders in health care and health IT including Toby Cosgrove, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, Paul Tang, CMIO of Palo Alto Medical Center (Google’s neighbor), Dean Ornish, Bernadine Healy and the list goes on.
Share this:Organized Wisdom – a New Tagging Tool for Healthcare
June 26, 2007
Since Organized Wisdom’s blog cited my post on Web 2.0 in Health Care under the title, “Why Web 2.0 Matters to Healthcare Companies“, I thought I should return the favor with a description of their site. Organized Wisdom “is a health-focused social networking site that enables consumers, physicians, healthcare professionals and health organizations to collaborate on more than 6500 health topics.” Impressive reach with refined results for search of their tagged content in several categories similar to Google Coop Health. I see some similarities to Revolution Health as well because of the user-created content. The unique feature is Wisdom Cards which tell about personal medical incidents under subtitles: what happened, what went right, what went wrong, lessons learned.
Definitely worth further exploration.
Share this:Medicare Pilot Program To Test Personal Health Records
June 26, 2007
The participants in this pilot program are:
- HIP USA – New York’s largest HMO;
- Humana;
- Kaiser Permanente; and
- University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Each group will have unique PHR tools but all will own their health record and only share it with who they choose. The pilot program will last 18 months in order to determine what PHR features are helpful to Medicare beneficiaries. The story did not state whether the participants will be allowed to keep their PHRs after that time, however.
Share this:New Hospital CEO Blog
June 26, 2007
The CEO of Community General Hospital of Greater Syracuse has an internet blog called, “More Than Medicine.”
Looks like a good communication tool for his employees but based on the name, he is shooting for something more. In the subtitle he makes it clear that these are weekly posts which is probably reasonable for a CEO. Some of the posts are rather long but thoughtful and keep true to the More than medicine theme with posts like “The Good Doctor.” Will be interesting to see how many more hospital CEOs hop on this bandwagon.
Share this:Review of Google Health – Fact and Predictions
June 21, 2007
The e-Care Management Blog has a major article on Google Health. Reviewing all the Adam Bosworth has said over the past months, Vince Kuraitis addresses:
- The Current Market Structure for Personal Health Information (PHI)
- Google Health’s Anticipated Technology Model
- Three Leverage Points
- Google Health Will Be Disruptive
He concludes “The basic problem is that your PHI is 1) scattered everywhere, and 2) not in suitable, standardized formats. The GH technology model and business model offer solutions to both of these problems.”
Worth reading and then wait and see what Google really does.
Share this:Interview with Dr. C. Martin Harris on PHRs
June 21, 2007
In an interview on HIMSS Weekly Insider, Dr. Harris of the Cleveland Clinic is interviewed about MyChart, the Clinic’s Personal Health record which is integrated with Epic System’s EMR. He discusses the value for patients including home monitoring for diabetes and notifying patients on specific medications when new research is available, such as, the FDA warning for the diabetes medication Avandia – over 700 patients were notified immediately using MyChart.
Three take-a-ways:
- “PHR tools are no longer ancillary; they are an integral part of the practice and delivery of high-quality medical services”
- “these tools empower patients to become active participants in their healthcare decisions”
- “these tools will fundamentally transform the way we currently think about the delivery of healthcare services”
New European eHealth Directory
June 20, 2007
The term eHealth is more commonly used in Europe than in the United States. Now there is a new ehealth directory for the EU which includes links to open source, news sources (including blogs), associations, government and research. Looks like it will grow as a resource. I hope that they will take advantage of US ehealth resources as well. Worth checking out from time-to-time.
Share this:The Future of RSS
June 19, 2007
In an article on ReadWrite, RSS is defined but also extended. Here are some quotes:
“So today RSS is a great distribution medium. Why? Because it has become ubiquitous. If you are an online business with customers and you do not utilize RSS, then you are simply missing out. Smart companies are leveraging blogs, photos, video, podcasts to stay in touch with customers daily. Other services, like del.icio.us (owned by Yahoo), allow users to publish and subscribe to feeds, enabling powerful social networks outside the website.”
“In order for RSS extensions to work, the second piece of the old technology dilemma needs to be solved. There needs to be a common format for communicating data between applications.”
So the future of RSS may be as a lightweight tool to transfer data between applications. More on this soon.
Share this:Medical Bloggers – Questioned and Cautious
June 19, 2007
In an article from the Detroit Free Press, blogging by physicians is examined, particularly ones that “tell all”. The article questions whether such blogs, where a physician discusses specific patients, should be policed. I agree that some physician bloggers and other medical professionals, should not mistake the anonymity of blogging as permission to vent their opinions about patients’ personal characteristics. What can be helpful about medical blogging is lost in such postings. Medical blogs are most effective if they focus on either medical education or give insight into how doctors think.
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