Posts Tagged ‘eHealth’
Virtual Presentation in Bilbao, Spain at Salud 2.0
July 9, 2012
Salud 2.0 is simply Health 2.0 in Spanish. This conference brings together speakers to discuss Web 2.0 technologies in health care. My presentation was Social Media in Health Care: A Reasoned Approach.
I received several questions and will repeat them here to give more complete answers:
- What to you mean about the risk of conflict of interest?
Because social media is largely brief communication, a physician or other healthcare professional could promote a product or service without a disclaimer that they have a financial interest in this product. To be transparent about potential conflicts of interest in social media, one must add a link to a webpage with full disclosure. Drug and device companies must be clear about any claims they make on social media and should link to more complete information. - There are so many social media outlets, how do you choose where to start?
Find the best tool for what you need. It is not necessary to use multiple social media tools. For instance, if you are a physician or healthcare professional and want to communicate with colleagues, use Twitter if you are comfortable with more open communications, use a private social network for your group only if you would rather keep private. If you are a hospital and want to interact with patients, consider Facebook because it is an open, widely used platform which allows comments from patients. - In Spain there is a publicly supported healthcare system, unlike the US. How should the approach to social media be different?
I would think hospitals would still want to hear from patients but would not use social media as a means to attract new patients unless there was a specialty service that more patients should be made aware of. A good example of this is http://www.guiametabolica.org/ which is also being presented at the conference. Social media could also have more of a public health approach – how to keep the population healthier and identify diseases earlier for intervention.
Here are the slides from the presentation. And the video is below:
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Year in Review – 2011 Accomplishments
December 27, 2011
In addition to having a great year traveling and presenting, I had additional accomplishments:
- Appointed as the Co-director for Biomedical Research Informatics for the Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative, an NIH funded program through the Case Medical School
- Joined the Editorial Board of Tech Now Briefs of the American Association of Medical Colleges
- Invited to contribute to a theme issue on social media for Frontiers from the American College of Healthcare Executives
- Became a featured blogger for HealthWorks Collective
- Appointed as a reviewer for HIMSS 2012 abstracts – a new role for me
- Authored chapter on eResearch to a book on medical informatics to be ePublished in 2012
- Celebrated 30 years as an employee at Cleveland Clinic
- Leading a project to develop a clinical data warehouse for research
- Approaching 1000 connections on LinkedIn (969)
- 2881 followers on Twitter
- Klout score hovering around 42
- Invited to be on the advisory board of a health related startup
Health Barometer – Youth Lead the Way
October 7, 2011
In an excellent presentation on the Health Barometer, international survey results, exploreing “how social interaction and technology can spread good health. One of the findings is that the Activitist in online health who use the internet for health information at least weekly, are predominantly 18-30 year olds. This is consistent with other observations, such as, the Forrester Research Case study: Radboud Hospital Supports Young Cancer Patients With An Online Community. Also, the experience of Crohnology.com, founded by a young Crohn’s survivor who wanted to share his experience with others.
Here is the slide deck:
Share this:Quality and EHRs – What Works
September 6, 2011
A groundbreaking article in the New England Journal of Medicine, Electronic Health Records and Quality of Diabetes Care, by my colleagues in Cleveland, demonstrates several points:
- Healthcare quality can be effectively measured using EHR data
- Quality of diabetes care can be improved through the use of EHRs
- This can be done on a regional basis, beyond the scope of one hospital or health system
- EHRs are superior to paper records in improving quality care, demonstrating the Meaningful Use Concept
- This is true over different insurance types.
More background on the initiative, Better Health Greater Cleveland is available Brian Ahier’s blog and on the BHGC website. It is supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Conclusion: Why shouldn’t this be done more broadly, even nationally. Perhaps through Meaningful Use it will permeate more broadly.
Share this:Health Apps Blog post on HealthWorks Collective
July 28, 2011
Check out my blog post “A Garden of HealthCare Phone Apps – Watch it Grow“. It is a featured blog post on HealthWorks Collective, also, currently on the home page.
I also post on WikEhealth, a European site.
Check out my photo on the REshape Conference website – spoke in Nijmegen in 2009.
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Google Health Ending – Not Having Broad Impact Expected
June 24, 2011
Google announced today on its official blog that it is retiring or phasing out Google Health. Stating that it’s original goal was to “our goal was to create a service that would give people access to their personal health and wellness information” using their focus on the consumer, they found a lack of the broad adoption they expected. I was there at HIMSS in 2008 when Google Health was announced by Eric Schmit and Roni Zeiger doing a demo.
They admit that “There has been adoption among certain groups of users like tech-savvy patients and their caregivers, and more recently fitness and wellness enthusiasts.” But not enough adoption to make it worthwhile to keep the shop open. They are provide means for users to export their data by January 1, 2012.
Already bloggers are busy speculating on why Google Health failed to gain traction.
- Not understanding the healthcare market, especially the challenges of working with payers
- Lack of partnerships with physicians
- Not partnering with device companies as early as Microsoft did
- Lack of incentives to use it
- Lack of a means to securely communicate with providers
- Not being tethered to EMRs with a few exceptions like Cleveland Clinic.
The reasons can go on and on. But overall, how widely have PHRs been adopted. Seen initially as a disruptive technology, but lack of trust and understand of its value by consumers has led to sluggish adoption overall. How successful is Microsoft HealthVault, Dossia and others? How about PHRs sponsored by payers? It appears that healthcare consumers are stronger adopters of social media and wellness tools and not PHRs.
So where do we go from here? Even the ePatient movement and Quantified Self are not generally strong adopters. If Google Health is worth saving, how about asking Google to hand it over to an open source community to maintain and enhance. In some cases, open source projects can gain more traction that productions by large Silicon Valley companies.
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Adoption of PHRs – Where are we going?
April 22, 2011
Two recent articles on PHR adoption caught my attention this week:
- From ComputerWorld -Consumers remain wary of personal health records – reporting on the IDC survey which shows that 23.4% reported that they were somewhat comfortable or very comfortable with Google or Microsoft collecting their health information. 28% of the respondents indicated that they would use a PHR system if their physician recommended doing so. 10% indicated that they did not use one because of infrequent need for medical care and 10% indicated they did not trust the security of Internet sites.
- Can genomics encourage use of personal health records? An extended report from a presentation by John Halamka about PHRs and genomics. He notes two things that will drive PHR adoption:
1) health plans that require more patient interaction and shared decision-making with the provider
2) features such as the ability to securely email physicians, pay bills, refill prescriptions, get specialist referrals and make appointments, that is PHRs tethered to EHRs will be the consumer’s preference. He also sees a future opportunity to integrate personal genomics into PHRs. He talks about his own experience with personal genomics.
Based on these two articles, there is reason for optimism about growth in adoption of PHRs but may be conservative growth. Drivers of that growth will be: recommendation by providers (participatory medicine), tethered to an EHR so much of the data is already there, and being future rich.
Two additional features I think will be useful for patients are: connection with social media (such as, sharing one’s data selectively with private disease and condition communities, such as, organizedwisdom.com or patientslikeme.com) and connection with wellness apps and mobile devices both of which are offered by Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault).
Share this:TEDxMaastricht – Hope in technology and participatory medicine
April 7, 2011
April 4 in Maastricht, Netherlands, was an event full of optimism but not simply about how technology can transform healthcare. Lucien Engelen envisioned this conference as about health, not healthcare and full participation by the patient as an equal partner. To what extent was this accomplished?
The answer is in much of what was said:
- health as homeostasis rather than disease and cure
- you can’t outsource your health
- inforgs -by Luciano Floridi
- society has seen the separation passion and profitability
- in education ere are too many questions for faculty to answer, students must be full participants
- use of a flight simulator as a safety team building tool
- add travel history to your personal health record
- singularity – artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, implantables, genomics, robotics, regenerative medicine
- the shock of the possible – unexpected connections
- doing the impossible – climbing a mountain six times, curing cancer in 10 years
- everyone with a chronic disease is part of a community, they just need to be invited and join
- integrate Google Body with personal health records
- Recognizing healthcare failures and learning from them
- reducing fear of disease, hospital, blindness, etc. As a major goal of a medical practice
Although these quotes may not be exact or make up a coherent whole, the point is that creative optimism gouged by new, openly available technology like social media, can be transformational now.
This was no less true than the patient stories heard throughout the day of facing disease but triumphing over it through community (often online) and hope.
As I process this event, watch for more posts on these themes.
TEDx Maastricht – The Future of Health
April 1, 2011
In anticipation of the International event on April 4, I wanted to share some links. Although many conferences which claim to be futurist meccas for healthcare, this one is bringing together a group of people including a very strong patient perspective which all are thinking innovation. Also, it is completely full and is being simulcasted to several countries.
- Website, speakers
- Some of the attendees via a tool which exploits LinkedIn
- mashup on VPRO
- Simulcast schedule – I am being interviewed at 11:15 local time
Follow tweets at #tedxmaastricht
Share this:First Day at HIMSS 11
February 21, 2011
The two highlights of my day were the HIT X.O track and the Social Media Center.
HIT X.O: Beyond the Edge is a new track to predict and discuss the future of Health IT. Beginning with a presentation of the dozens of statistics and predictions on the future of wireless and ended with the Geeks Got Talent brief demos and judges going at it. The multimedia experience was unique as was the live tweets at the bottom of the dual screens. The next stage of the competition continues tomorrow.
The social media center is expanded this year, with an afternoon of presentations. I was glad to be on a panel with Rich Elmore, David Kibbe and John Marzano this afternoon. John’s Orlando Health Facebook page and complimentary YouTube channel are a great example of what hospitals can do with social media. We fielded questions from the audience via twitter – a good range of queries about everything from participatory medicine to risks and opportunities in health care social media. I enjoyed the Social Media Center as a welcoming environment with an opportunity to meet many I follow on Twitter. Thanks to Ceasar Torres and other HIMSS staff in making it a welcoming place.
Tomorrow I speak about my experience with using Twitter to connect with Health 2.0 and health IT colleagues.
The twitter stream at HIMSS was very active today demonstrating a greater adoption by both attendees and vendors.
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