Archive for May, 2010
Technology and the Future of Chronic Care
May 24, 2010
Accenture has published a report on “Connected How Technology Will Transform the Future of Chronic Care.” From the Accenture Innovation Center for Health, a good source for research white papers. The paper reports that “a broad range of consumer health electronics at home, a two-way, direct-to-consumer infrastructure” and smart devices which set the stage for health care connectivity. Analytics and predictive modeling provide a second layer and visualization, decision support and collaboration provide the third. Connect health examples include the HealthVault and Cleveland Clinic home monitoring pilot and a remote monitoring trial by the VA system.
There is no doubt that the convergence of technologies have the potential for revolutionizing chronic care, however, we must go past the pilot stage and initial startups to broader change. Partnerships between consumer electronics, startups, providers and insurers need to come together with government support. Perhaps after the first wave of meaningful use EHRs, this new level of innovation can flourish.
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A History of Innovation in Medicine
May 17, 2010
Health 2.0 has pushed innovation in health care from its inception. From social networks for patients and providers to vertical search and mobile health tools, innovation continues. The Quantified Self represents the latest level of innovation for healthcare. The letters to the NY Times Sunday Magazine in response to the feature on The Data Driven Live, has this choice quote by Patricia Flatley Brennet of Project HealthDesign “Doctors are experts in clinical care; patients are experts in their daily experiences and how they make them feel. Both need to share more with each other.”
But some healthcare organizations have been innovative from the beginning. See the video on the Cleveland Clinic Model of Medicine and then read their latest Annual Report with President Obama on the cover. What a great place to work.
Share this:The Quantified Self in Healthcare – Part 2
May 10, 2010
More evidence of this movement continues to emerge. For instance, I came across the Philips DirectLife device today which can record a number of activity parameters to quantify one’s life. In an article in the Linux Journal, of all places, there is an article title, Now Data Gets. Personal. The author cites Alexandra Carmichael of CureTogether and the Quantified Self Community as a prime example. The article points back to an earlier one in the same journal called The Patient as the Platform. The author proposes that through the use of PHRs controlled by patients, such as, Google Health, the patient could be center of health information rather than the provider or payer. This article from 2008 essentially proposes a solution for health information exchange without costly state or national initiatives.
The combination of the quantified self and the patient as the platform can potentially create a future where rich information is controlled by the patient and shared with providers to enhance personal wellness and treat conditions. Adding social networking with like patients creates a powerful trio of technology for the e-patient.
Share this:Trends in Social Media in Health Care
May 7, 2010
Yesterday I had two content successes. My article Social Media in Health Care: Barriers and Future Trends was published in the Perspectives section of this online newsletter. In it I propose 3 trends to watch for:
- Managing a conversation;
- Engaging e-patients;
- Convergence with personal health records; and
- Social media for providers
I will be interested in your comments on this blog or via Twitter (@JohnSharp).
Yesterday I also spoke at the J. Boye Conference in Philadelphia on Social Media in Health Care: Humble Beginnings to Patient Engagement. This conference is more intimate and interactive than most with specific tracks for each day. I spent the first day in the Higher Education track and found many similarities with the struggles we in health care experience. The second day had an eHealth track that included Jane Sarasohn-Kahn who had just returned from a Senate Hearing on Mobile Health.
Check out my slides below.
The Quantified Self in Healthcare
May 3, 2010
In the New York Times Sunday Magazine, an article by a Wired editor, talks about the growing trend of the Quantified Self, or the data driven life. Why is this becoming a real trend? “Four things changed.
- electronic sensors got smaller and better.
- people started carrying powerful computing devices, typically disguised as mobile phones.
- social media made it seem normal to share everything.
- we began to get an inkling of the rise of a global superintelligence known as the cloud.”
While more people are creating catalogs of various aspects of their lives, some specific healthcare examples are cited including Medhelp.org “where more than 30,000 new personal tracking projects are started by users every month” and CureTogether.
Also, in FastCompany, an article title Our Bodies, Our Quantified Selves, they note that “there may actually be some meaningful upsides to this radical transparency.” Particularly the opportunity for medical research on this exponentially growing volume of data.
To me, this is the obvious next big thing in health care. The only question is how to channel the energy of this new trend into meaningful information for the individual and society.
Share this:Social Media for Canadian Health Care
May 2, 2010
On Friday, April 30, I had the opportunity to speak at the Toronto Academic Health Sciences Network Education Day for Healthcare Communicators or TAHSN. This well organized meeting provided some great interaction with health care communicators from Toronto hospitals and got me thinking about the use of social media in a country with socialized medicine. While the focus of much of US hospitals in social media is to attract new patients, in Canada, the purposes would be different. However, one common interest is fund raising. Canadian hospitals have Foundations as a fund raising arm of the hospital and social media provides a useful outreach to potential donors. Following the success of fund raising via text messaging and social media for Haiti, there may be an opportunity for Canadian hospitals to focus their energies here. As with US hospitals, there are opportunities for using social media, such as blogs and private social networks with personal profiles to enhance service and productivity. Engaging with patients, such as, the example of the Bloom Blog from Bloorview Children’s Rehab Hospital in Toronto is a great example engaging parents of children with disabilities.
More soon the the exiting New York Times magazine article on the Quantified Self which is the next trend in health and social media.
Below are my slides from the presentation. I follow Lee Aase from Mayo Clinic who joined the conference via webex.
