Guide to Patients with Limited Literacy
November 15, 2007
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has published a guide on the Health IT needs for those with limited literacy. Reported by the American Academy of Family Physicians, this is a significant step in drawing attention to those who are beyond the digital divide in that they lack the language skills to interact with a computer. Some basic recommendations include: text should be written plainly in no higher than a 6th grade level, utilizing white space and short lines, appeal to ethnically diverse populations, and consider tools like kiosks. CHESS (Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System) breast cancer module from the University of Wisconsin is given as a model, among others.
This report should be read by vendors, web developers, PHR creators and others who create patient facing IT systems.
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eHealthcare Leadership Awards
November 14, 2007
These awards were just announced. I had the privilege of assisting in the judging. The Cleveland Clinic made out well with a silver award for best health content, gold for best quality communication, platinum for center of excellence health content for the Heart and Vascular Institute and platinum for the best overall internet site all in the over 400 bed category. Revolution Health won several awards. Two pediatric hospitals won multiple awards: CHOP (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia) and Akron Children’s Hospital.
Share this:American Medical Informatics Association Meeting In Chicago
November 13, 2007
Only there in spirit, I found some interesting abstracts and hope to hear more about the presentations. One is a panel on “ Unintended Consequences of Health Informatics Innovations” which includes: PHRs place unrealistic expectations on patients, sharing of EHR information from different providers may threaten patient safety if the information conflicts, social networking may be “discouraging and increase self-medication”. and home monitoring may “may also change the home from a private to public space.”
Also, there is a section of the poster session devoted to Consumer Informatics and PHRs. And a late breaking session on Microsoft HealthVault.
Share this:Consumer-Centric Health Care Congress
November 9, 2007
Video interviews are available from this congress being held in Washington, DC. One of the most interesting is Bridget Duffy, MD, who acknowledges the need to appeal to consumers who have the ability and initiative to shop for healthcare and how healthcare providers need to be transparent about outcomes.
Share this:Web 2.0 for Doctors
November 9, 2007
In a story from the San Jose Business Journal, start ups for physician social networking are featured. The president of Sermo sees that the over 45 crowd of MDs are the “power users”. No time to meet in the doctor’s lounge, less time for social events but time online to be collegial is what is suggested. Healthgrades and Medgadget are also mentioned. In trying to emphasize the need for health care to become more consumer friendly, we see this quote: “Fotsch of Medem predicts that as phone and video communication merge,
Web-based technology will gradually replace in-person office visits.” Now that may be out of context but there is potential for remote monitoring and exams which has already begun in rural areas. Maybe there is potential for the inner-city single mom as well who may need to take 3 buses with her baby to see a pediatrician. Innovative models need to serve all.
Share this:Presentation Description for HIMSS ’08 on SOA is Posted
November 5, 2007
A description of my presentation with Joe Turk for the HIMSS 2008 conference has been posted on the conference website. The title is “Service Oriented Architecture — Data Reuse and Integration in Healthcare” and will be on Tuesday, February 26th in Orlando. More on this topic in the near future.
Share this:Progressive healthcare organizations have already caught the Internet wave
November 3, 2007
This is a quote from Bill Crounse, MD, of Microsoft reflecting on his recent experiences at internet conferences and tracking HIT trends. He notes the high expectations of consumers which have transformed other businesses beyond bricks and mortar. He cites leading institutions that are both payor and provider, like Group Health Cooperative which have also exploited the Internet.
On a related note, speaking of leadership, don’t miss the presentation by C. Martin Harris, MD, MBA, from the Cleveland Clinic at the HIMSS Virtual Conference next week on “eEnabled Medical Practice”. One of the leading forward-looking thinkers in Health IT, Dr. Harris will cover “office based work flow, clinical decision support, health maintenance management and protocol management.”
Share this:CureHunter
November 1, 2007
More health 2.0 search tools come on the market each month. Curehunter has an interesting spin for those interested in digging deep into evidence-based medicine on specific diseases. It presents search results which show the evidence for various treatments in a systematic hierarchy. Then a specific number of studies are citied. The research interface provides these in a folder format. It also provides the Network Graph which displays the topic graphically in a star diagram which relates your search topic with other topics.
Worth checking out for those who want a more detailed and scientific research of diseases, conditions and treatments.
Share this:Visible Body to Launch Mid-November
October 31, 2007
A very creative application called Visible Body is about to launch. It explores anatomy in a way similar to Google Earth explores the world. You can explore by body system or specific body part down to a bone or organ. Zoom and can be moved in 3-D. It requires a download and Flash Player 8. Customized deployments are available but the basic product (maybe basic is not the right term) will be available for free.
Check out the demo and sign up for the official announcement.
Share this:Medicine 2.0 Blog Carnival
October 30, 2007
The carnival is hosted by The Health Wisdom Blog this week and includes a note about the Health 2.0 conference Spring Fling now being set for March 3-4, 2008 in San Diego. In announces the new blog by John Halamka, Chief Information Officer at Harvard Medical School called Life as a Healthcare CIO. And there is a mention for Fathom SEO, a local Cleveland SEO firm which has a new booklet on a list of the six best Web 2.0 health tools.
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