Archive for 2008
New Search Engine – the future of Search
August 27, 2008
No, I not talking about Cuil – I find it disappointing and although the format is interesting, the search results don’t satisfy my needs. ReadWriteWeb identifies 3 new search engines, Viewzi, Rollyo, and SearchMe. I want to focus on the first, Viewzi, which has a great variety of interfaces to choose from:
- news view
- web shot view – my personal favorite to see screen shots of the results in a slide show format
- timeline
- 3D cloud view
- video x3
- weather
- Amazon books
- recipe?
Lots of fun to explore. Is it useful enough to make it in one of the most competitive spaces in technology? Not sure. Does it have particular advantages for health care? I tried a search for heart disease. The web shot view gave me screenshots I could select from, not 2 million results.
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The Case for Telemedicinee
August 26, 2008
In an article from National Center for Policy Analysis, one of the key arguments is the shortage of primary care physicians and how telemedicine can extend their reach. Could it also reduce emergency room use – perhaps for the chronically ill especially with remote monitoring over the internet for blood pressure, glucose readings, etc.
Telemedicine, if done right, can improve adherence to protocols and improve care. Two barriers noted is the reluctance of payers to approve this care and not allowing foreign doctors to provide care remotely, although I am not sure that I would agree with the latter.
Telemedicine certainly holds some potential, and if properly funded and regulated (not over-regulated), could extend safe, effective care to the home.
Share this:Medicine 2.0/Health 2.0/eHealth – A terminology evolution
August 22, 2008
In a new article in the Journal of Medical Internet Research titled “Health 2.0 and Medicine 2.0: Tensions and Controversies in the Field“, the European authors compare how these terms are used in the literature. While Health 2.0 and Medicine 2.0 have many similarities, they differ from the older term eHealth in their additional emphasis on social networking among patients and providers. Personalized Medicine is just beginning to enter this mix of definitions.
In my own thinking, Medicine 2.0 should focus more on the use of Web 2.0 in the practice of medicine while Health 2.0 should describe more patient-centric applications. I agree with the authors that more clarity in the use of these terms will be helpful in the promotion of these essential tools.
As a side note, many of my favorite blogs are cited in the article and a presentation I made on Web 2.0 in Health Care is reference #27 thanks to the Clinical Case and Images blog.
Share this:Medicine 2.0 Congress
August 20, 2008
The Medicine 2.0 Congress is only two weeks away. I decided to attend Medicine 2.0 instead of Health 2.0 because my job has changed from a consumer focus to medical informatics. The agenda for the Toronto meeting is extensive and very international. It will include papers on consumer topics but also medical education and research. I hope to connect with fellow bloggers from around the world. Let me know if you plan to attend. I have set up a profile on the conference social networking site, so feel free to join in.
Maybe next year I’ll be in a position to submit an abstract.
Share this:Individualized Cancer Treatment
August 19, 2008
This Cancer Group from California is offering individualized treatment based on an assay of cancer cells and testing them against specific agents. It is also a revolutionary approach in that you can check on individual patient progress. This breaks out of the standard randomized controlled clinical trial and provides a new avenue for treatment. Is it the new direction for all cancer treatments as cancer represents over 100 diseases and manifests itself differently in each individual?
Share this:Browser of the Future
August 15, 2008
On the website of Adaptive Path, the user-interface experts, there is discussion of a project with Mozilla called Aurora on the browser of the future. The key concepts are:
- Augmented Reality: The gap is closing between the Web and the world. Services that know where you are and adapt accordingly will become commonplace. The web becomes fully integrated into every physical environment.
- Data Abundance: There’s more data available to us all the time — both the data we produce intentionally and the data we throw off as a by-product of other activities. The web will play a key role in how people access, manage, and make sense of all that data.
- Virtual Identity: People are increasingly expected to have a digital presence as well as a physical one. We inhabit spaces online, but we also create them through our personal expression and participation in the digital realm.
Watch the video of this new concept. some of the 3-d features which remind me of the Mac desktop. But with its self learning features, it has similarities to PersonalBrain. Overall very intuitive.
Bottom line – when can I have it.
Share this:Enterprise 2.0 – How It Can Help
August 14, 2008
In an article from the Financial Times titled, “Driving Business the Web 2.0 Way“, David Lavenda from WorkLight, discusses the advantages of Web 2.0 in business. Acknowledging several problems in businesses such as a dispersed workforce, he suggests that Web 2.0 tools like iGoogle and social networking can distribute critical news and events, open-ended, customizable, easy-to-use web tools, such as web-based gadgets to manage information from enterprise applications, and secure social networks for communication.
Share this:Two Family History sites
August 13, 2008
The US government is providing a site to track your family history – soon to be essential in the coming age of genomics and genetics, https://familyhistory.hhs.gov/. There is also a commercial site, MyFamilyHistory, which provides some of the same services. This one is “a privately-held personal genomics and health analytics company” with an unclear business model. Both have privacy statements but one must wonder about the public’s trust and acceptance of such sites, perhaps especially adding your whole family’s health information to a government website.
However, both provide a helpful services. In the future, integration with PHRs or Google Health or Microsoft HealthVault would provide a more comprehensive offering.
Share this:Medical Wikis – A Review
August 12, 2008
On a seemingly unusual place, Linux Insider, there is a good review of medical wikis. The intro gives a status of medical wikis:
“With the rapid pace of development in medical technology, some doctors have turned to the Web to supplement textbooks and journals and created medical wikis. Naturally, wikis aren’t to be regarded as the final word on any medical topic; rather, they’re facilitators of discussion and starting-off points for more research.”
They review everything from Fluwiki to AskDrWiki with some choice quotes from Kenny Civello, MD, one of the founders of AskDrWiki.com. Also cited is WikiSurgery by “a London-based physician who is also the editor of the International Journal of Surgery.” A detailed discussion of the article approve process for this wiki is examined. There is also a previous article on “The Human Genome Goes Wiki.”
Wikis will continue to penetrate medicine and provide a valuable and easily editable tool for collaborative medical knowledge sharing.
Share this:Indianapolis Health System Integrates Health Card and eHealth Offerings
August 9, 2008
From the Indianapolis Star newspaper, there is a report on the Community Health Network’s initiative to develop a combination MyCommunity card to be used to register at hospital kiosks and online tools. The online tools include the ability to track conditions and medications. The article quotes a researcher from Manhattan Research which tracks trends through their CyberCitizen Health product.
This ehealth initiative in Indianapolis is an major move forward and an example for other health systems to integrate their consumer-facing offerings.
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