Archive for 2008
Information Therapy Conference
February 15, 2008
Coming up in June, the annual conference of the Center for Information Therapy will be held in Washington, DC. Titled “Wired: Next Generation Patient Care”, the conference will include tracks on health disparities and patient-centered medical home.
The Center has a website section on Information Therapy for Consumers which is worth checking out.
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Can PHRs Make You Healthier?
February 14, 2008
This intriguing question from SFGate.com explores the possibility of empowered patients who take control of their health. But it will require “eventually giving people more control and understanding of complicated data.”
Four studies are being sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Quality Research ” to compare whether patients randomly assigned to use strong PHRs fare better than their counterparts who don’t go digital.” Outcomes will include, ” improvement of chronic diseases, use of cancer screenings and immunizations, and proper medication use.”
What is needed is user-friendly PHRs in the hands of motivated patients with chronic conditions where they can monitor their symptoms and improvement and communicate with their healthcare team. Hopefully, these studies will show the effectiveness of such an approach.
Share this:Some Virtual Visits Covered
February 13, 2008
In a story from the LA Times, coverage by Cigna and Aetna is described for some online visits. Particularly focused on minor problems and follow ups with existing patients, more routine office visits are moving online. Kaiser with more incentive to move to virtual visits, is even using web cams for a more personal touch. Most visits are more structure than regular email.
This is encouraging news – let’s hope other payers will follow suit.
Share this:New Clinical Trials Website
February 12, 2008
Once ehealth tool that can be neglected is consumer-friendly clinical trials search. One only needs to know someone with cancer or other life-threatening illness to understand their importance. ClinicalTrials.gov sets the standard nationally and includes tools for customizing it’s search for a specific Institution. Stanford Medical Center has just launched a new clinical trials search which includes a keyword search but also helpful tabs Adults by condition, Pediatric or by Department. The result clearly show who is running the trial and whether it is open. One improvement would be to show only open trials or allow the search to be focused by trials for which enrollment is open. Each trial includes the locations and contacts. A helpful disclaimer is at the bottom of each page, “Study Coordinators and Research Nurses cannot give medical advice over the phone.” and then referring patients to a referral line for other problems.
Overall, this is a good model for others to emulate – it looks like they did their home work with focus groups.
Share this:Texting4Health – a conference
February 8, 2008
Received this via a blog comment; Sounds like another first of its kind like the Health 2.0 Conference.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of eHealth Marketing is cosponsoring the Texting4Health Conference: Using SMS to Motivate Behavior Change with Stanford University’s Persuasive Technology Lab. BJ Fogg, PhD, with Stanford’s Persuasive Technology Lab, is leading the conference agenda development.
Texting4Health Conference: Using SMS to Motivate Behavior Change
www.texting4health.org
February 28-March 1, 2008
Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA
Friday, February 29, 2008 9:00 am – 5:30 pm
“Texting 4 Health” (the main event)
Over 20 experts in health, behavior change, and mobile technology will share their insights in 10-minute presentations and follow-up panels.
www.texting4health.org/ or contact BJ Fogg at bjfogg@stanford.edu
More Details…
The Texting4Health conference will showcase applications, ideas, insights on the use of mobile text messaging (SMS) in areas of public health such as: early warning systems for communicable disease, smoking cessation, diabetes management, reproductive health, locators for HIV testing, weight management, physical activity, teen health, privacy in
the domain of sexual health information, enhanced patient-doctor relationship via reminders, efficient delivery of laboratory diagnostics, etc.
Patient Privacy Toolkit
February 8, 2008
Patient Privacy Rights Foundation has launched a toolkit for healthcare consumers. It includes forms such as How to talk to your doctor, action items such as Petition Advocacy 101, complaint form to HHS and more. Looks like a good start and hopefully will be added to over time.
Share this:A Caution about Wikis from a Powerhouse blog
February 6, 2008
I just discovered the blog e-patient which includes an impressive list of contributors – Gilles Frydman of ACOR.org, the cancer support site, Susannah Fox from pewinternet.org, and others. Gilles writes in a recent post, “A Cautionary Tale about Wikis.” He cites the article in Scientific American on “Science 2.0: Great New Tool, or Great Risk? — more on that later, and beta version of Elsevier offering Wiserwiki. While applauding their efforts, he also raises some concerns: that they should address in order to be successful:
- a better understanding of the motivations of healthcare professionals to give their time (the commodity they lack most)
- the creation of editorial policies specific to this new publishing paradigm
- many other management issues that will appear over time.
One other note is the issue of Wikispam which this open format can make itself vulnerable to.
In addition, check out the white paper on “e-Patients: How They Can Help Us Heal Healthcare” available as a free pdf or as a wiki.
Share this:Shopping for Care Packages
February 5, 2008
Another start up is moving into the consumer-directed healthcare space with an offering of shopping for carepackages. Carol.com offers a wide range of services but currently only in Minnesota. What is a care package? It is the packaging of healthcare services into bundles, such as, evaluation for asthma, laser vision correction, health and wellness classes and any service a consumer is willing to pay cash for. Will it catch on? I think it certainly will, maybe gradually at first but it will go national. Consumers will likely adopt this friendly term and be on the lookout for a health care shopping mall like this.
Share this:One Step Closer to Google Health Announcement
February 1, 2008
In a posting on the HIMSS website promoting Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s Keynote presentation at the annual conference at the end of February, it notes that he will speak on “how these technological innovations can be applied to Google’s new venture in the healthcare IT market.” A Google spokesperson stated, “there is no better place to apply this mission than to health.” This will be a first-time presence for Google in a meaningful way at the national conference of 20,000+ Health IT folk other than a small presence for their search appliance in the past.
Also on the bill is Steve Case on Revolution Health. It looks like Web 2.0′s time has come to this platform after minor roles for “Meet the Bloggers” in previous years.
Share this:MyPHR Relaunch
January 30, 2008
AHIMA is promoting their consumer outreach on PHRs through a redesign of their website, MyPHR.com. The site walks the consumer through the usefulness of PHRs through videos, what is, where to begin, etc. They are even offering requests for free presentations. It will be interesting to see how they will promote PHRs beyond the online offering and what the consumer acceptance will be.
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