eHealth » Google

Book Review: The Googlization of Everything

John Sharp — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 14:19:43 +0000

This book by Siva Vaidhyanathan has the provocative subtitle “And why we should worry”, which defines the subtext of the book questioning whether the “Do no evil” search engine company has become something else as a result of its efforts to monetize everything. The book covers the broad domains that Google impacts modern life and discusses the predominant thinking driving the company – “faith in aptitude and technology” and infrastructure imperialism.”

The two pivotal chapters are “The Googlization of Knowledge” and “The Googlization of Memory”. The former deals primarily with the Google Book project and makes a point about the importance of preserving knowledge in the digital age, particularly preserving out-of-print books. But, the author cautions, should a for profit company hold such a public trust that has traditionally been held by public libraries. Similarly, in the latter, the author questions whether “Google is making use stupid” or not. Does consuming snippets of knowledge limit our ability to read for extended periods and reflect?And what impact does it have on education, particularly higher education? Both are valid questions and it may be that the way we think and consume information is changing. However, not all of this is due to Google as much as it is to social media and Wikipedia. Consumption of knowledge is becoming the ability to think critically about the volume of available information and not be controlled by the filters and overload of information. Understanding knowledge algorithms rather than being subservient to them is the key.

In conclusion, the author proposes a bold new project, The Human Knowledge Project, which appeals to the need to have more public control over knowledge through libraries and democratic processes rather than commercial interests. One might agree with him since the recent demise of Google Health. If Google Books are not profitable in 5-10 years, will this project also be abandoned leaving the legacy of digitalized books behind? Yet much of the books skepticism about Google and fears are overdrawn. Perhaps Google’s service to higher education through Gmail and other services will help it keep a commitment to educational and knowledge resources in the future.

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More on Innovation – The Need for Actionable Ideas

John Sharp — Thu, 26 May 2011 00:52:52 +0000

An excellent post on Venture Valkyrie discusses why Innovation is not enough in healthcare. The author views that “there is no doubt that innovation is necessary to respond to the challenges of our current healthcare system” while “over-breeding of ideas that are innovative but not actionable.” It is important to consider innovation not just a good in itself, especially in healthcare where we are trying to impact personal health, as only good if it leads to real change. Some innovation will always fail, so the encouragement toward innovation should not have barriers that are too high, but realistic evaluation of these ideas, testing their viability, needs to occur.

Another note on innovation comes from the site udemy, a site which enables the creation of courses. Check out Ideas Come From Everywhere, a course by Marissa Mayer of Google, Inc. which she gave to Stanford Technology Ventures Program in 2006. It is certainly not dated and presents some of basic concepts of success through innovation that have made Google a success. Worth watching this short clips.

See this article from Forbes on Gladwell on Innovation: Truths & Confusions which tells a brief history of innovation but also distinguishes between innovators and creators but ends on a positive note that creators (who may come up with ideas but not successfully implement them) can become innovators.

Also posted at WikEhealth.

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Book Review: Data Source Handbook

John Sharp — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 00:53:02 +0000

This new book from O’Reilly Media, written by a former Apple engineer, Pete Warden, is a catalog of code for connecting to publicly available APIs for all kinds of sites. It shows data sources by websites (whois, delicious), people by email (Amazon, FriendFeed), people by name (white pages, LinkedIn), search terms (Bing, Google), location (Google geocoding, US census), companies, IP addresses, books, films, music, products.

The brief reviews and code for each source includes those which use REST/JSON, YQL and other languages.

Overall the book is a very practical guide for programmers wanting to integrate public data into their websites or creating mashups. However, the book lacks any data sources related to health although many existing on the web from PubMed to ClinicalTrials.gov.

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Year in Review – Books of 2010

John Sharp — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 04:05:31 +0000

Following Kent Bottle’s lead in influential books in 2010, I decided to compose my own list:

Chasing Medical Miracles The Promise and Perils of Clinical Trials. Tells it like it is – to be a participant in a clinical trial.
Googled-The End of the World as We Know It – somewhat disappointing in that it discussed the advertising side of the business and less about the history of its technical evolution.
DIYU: Epunks, Edupeneurs and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education. This book was recommended by a speaker at the J. Boye conference in Philadelphia. Questions the future viability of universities as they are undermined by Web 2.0 technology.
Leading Geeks – Required reading for anyone who manages geeks, especially programmers. Helpful for anyone to understand the culture of geekdom, understanding the mindset of managing ambiguity and tearing down some stereotypes.
The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil – mind blowing futurism and undying optimism in technology even though this is from 2005 and 650 pages. The law of accelerating returns puts us on a fast track to the future. I am now following Kurweil’s Accelerating Intelligence blog.
A Little Booklet About Health 2.0 – by Lucien Engelen. Brief but advancing health 2.0 concepts with a peak to the future from a European perspective.
Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More – this lead to my blog post on Partnerships with Online Communities – The Long Tail, discussing some of the implications of the long tail in healthcare.
The Collapse of Complex Societies – a venture into history and anthropology which I enjoy and blogged about: Declining Marginal Returns of Complexity
Laugh, Sing and Eat Like a Pig by e-Patient Dave – a personal, signed gift from Dave himself when he visited Cleveland and had dinner with us.
Connected for Health: The KP HealthConnect Story – Probably the best story of successful implementation of an EMR on a large scale basis with honest, realistic discussion of struggles and successes.
Program or Be Programmed – Ten Commandments of the Digital Age – read appropriately as an ebook, makes some good points without being paranoid about technology’s growing role in our lives.
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can be Done About It. Recommended by @Ciscoiii when visiting the World Bank in Washington, DC. Excellent analysis of failed states with recommendations at the UN level for solutions.
Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom – found this in Philadelphia at the Liberty Bell bookstore.

One on my shelf is Reading in the Brain: the New Science of How We Read.

More book reviews to come next year and many more will be on my Sony Reader.

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Book Review: Googled-The End of the World as We Know It

John Sharp — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 02:44:11 +0000

I recently completed this book by Ken Auletta who promotes his unique access to the search engine giant. The books follow the history of Google from the earliest days of the founders at Stanford, to rocketing to fame, going public and then being labeled as the evil empire. More recently, he chronicles conflicts with the government, traditional media, traditional advertising, publishers and China. He leaves with Google at a crossroads of maturing founders which he suggests may be losing focus, competitors in social media, and ongoing challenges from Microsoft and others.

The book describes each new major app and the process and culture of building new tools and keeping them free. Only two pages are devoted to Google Health, however. Generally, the books focuses much more on the advertising business which has made lead to Google’s financial success sometimes overshadows description of apps and the engineering culture. Too many pages are devoted to the failing of traditional media and, of course, Google and the competition continue to evolve since the publication of the book.

The closing question in the book is: has Google become so big and entangled in conflict that it has lost its innovative edge? Recently the excitement over Google Wave and Buzz have met there match with Apple’s iPad. Yet the dominance of cloud computing and Google’s dominance in the cloud may continue to have more of a long term impact than the devices that connect to the cloud.

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Google Scholar – A Personal Journey

John Sharp — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 06:40:00 +0000

The Krafty Librarian has taken on Google Scholar and discusses the good and bad of its search results from a medical librarian’s perspective. This led me on a vanity search of my own publications. Good news – by searching for “Sharp JW” & “Cleveland Clinic” most of my previous publications came up. What was interesting was to see citations. I had no idea how may articles and books used some of my publications. For instance, a search of “Sharp JW” & “Prostate Cancer” shows many citations in books especially from some of my quality of life and internet and cancer articles. Also came across an abstract on LVADs and quality of life I had forgotten about.

While there may be some limitations of Google Scholar, some of the features are a real plus.

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Two More Articles on the Health 2.0 Conference

John Sharp — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:07:00 +0000

Neil Versel has written two articles from the conference which emphasize the optimistic outlook for Health 2.0 products.

The first quotes Robert Kolodner saying that Health 2.0 is in the early hype cycle. He also cited Enoch Choi of MedHelp who said that half of the panel last year on physician social networks are out of business but that the future is still bright, perhaps because the conference attracted 1000 attendees including many from mainline healthcare organizations and employers.

The second article is about Google Health and quotes Roni Zeiger who said that user feedback, much of which was from the pilot with the Cleveland Clinic, reflects enthusiasm for the product and the desire for more features. In discussing medication history, he said “Right now, Google Health’s role is “helping to build the pipes” for interoperable data exchange.” See also the recent announcement about Google Health’s deal with PatientAssistance.com to enable prescription assistance services from its PHR.

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Google Health Updates

John Sharp — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 06:31:00 +0000

Google Health has added some usability to make it accessible to the blind by enabling text readers. This will not only benefit those using Google Health but also those who pull their data from PHRs which don’t have these features.

Also, there is a new posting on ReadWriteWeb on Google Health and Microsoft Health Vault as Coke and Pepsi flavors of PHR platforms. Microsoft states, “introducing a new type of consumer health solution is a long-term endeavor.”
“This whole space is still so small, and has such huge potential, that we can both grow huge and succeed without bumping heads. Later on, head-to-head competition will probably be more important.” These platforms are very new but quickly growing their partner networks. It is difficult to see advantages yet so recommendations to consumers at this point are tough.

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Google Health – Interview with Missy Krasner

John Sharp — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 07:01:00 +0000

In a podcast interview for Modern Healthcare, Missy Krasner discusses Google Health including the early partnership with Cleveland Clinic and others. She emphasizes the value proposition of portability of healthcare information through Google Health. Slow adoption of PHRs she attributes to lack of interoperability and patients/consumers not being at the center of health care provision. Part of Google’s goal by opening up their API is to encourage innovation among small companies to add value. Also, by adding it to Google’s suite of products like email and calendaring, the hope is that Google Health will become part of one’s daily workflow.

My question is: how will we see this happen? Is anyone measuring this, researching adoption, promoting integration. I hope we will begin to see more reports of this in the press and professional Health IT journals. Or how about an offical Google blog just for Google Health?

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Google Launches Knol – Authoritative Knowledge

John Sharp — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:47:00 +0000

On the official Google Blog, some of the reasons for the development of Knol are explained. It looks like an opportunity to have vetted content which has a name of an authority on the topic assigned to it. This is different than a lot of the anonymous content on the web, and a different approach than Wikipedia which uses many authors who compete for defining topics. However, the tool does allow for “moderated collaboration”, meaning that someone can suggest a change to a Knol which the author(s) may accept or reject.

Many of the articles are on health care. At first, it appeared that many authors were from the San Francisco area but on further investigation, there were some from other parts of the country.

How will this fit into Google Search? Or Google Health? I think it has some real possibilities here.

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