It's time to go!

Hi all -

In an attempt to make our little community more interactive, and more of a forum for discussion - I'm moving house this week over to Tumblr.

I'm hoping you'll come too!

This page will stay active with all of my previous posts saved for posterity!

Hope to see you on the other side!

Michael

Dr Watson - the return!

Check out this fantastic satirical video on Dr Watson's potential as a real-life clinician.

It's also worth checking out the iMedical Grand Rounds blog - that focuses this week on Dr Watson and all the potential and pitfalls many people have been blogging about.

Enjoy!

awesome analogy

the Kalahari, the Wildebeest and the EHR - great blog post by Paul Roemer

http://healthcareitstrategy.com/2011/04/12/ehr-strategy-the-wildebeest-postulate/

Tabletop Touchscreen Becomes Giant Microscope

This is really fascinating - although a relatively new technology in this arena - I'm sure we will see major new patterns emerging on usage, new metaphors with usability impacting adoption from single 'egghead' use to colleagues multi-touch interaction.

Mega-touchscreens like Microsoft surface may have limited utility for real-world consumers (unless you live in a sci-fi movie), but they're perfect for institutions like museums, schools, and laboratories. Now a team of Finnish scientists and technologists has done the obvious thing and created a huge multitouch microscope, so eggheads can blow up slices of mouse brain (or whatever they're studying) for closer scrutiny without squinting into a tiny eyepiece. Take that, iPad 2!  According to PhysOrg, the 46" screen displays biological samples after they've been digitized using a microscopy scanner. The touchscreen can display images up to 200GB in size -- detailed enough to blow up big enough to show "subcellular" levels of detail in the samples. In other words, you can shave off a slice of tissue, scan it into the image server, and then use your hands to zoom into it so far that microscopic details become as big as dinner plates.

 

The giant interactive microscope could be especially useful in teaching contexts between experienced scientists and their students: "like a combination of Google Map and the user interface from the movie Minority Report," in the words of Johan Lundin, one of its creators. Multitouch support allows several people to manipulate the image at once -- great for arguing over whether that dark blotch onscreen is cancerous or not! [Read more at PhysOrg]

12 Reasons Why EMRs Improve Patient Care

Check out this great blog below by Katherine Rourke

I particularly agree with her final point - we, in HC IT, tend to assume that everyone can see the obvious benefits of EMR - but in reality this is still an idea in progress for many clinicians.

"While HIT insiders and pundits take it as a given that installing an EMR benefits everyone, it’s not so obvious to some gun-shy practices.   Even researchers like myself switch gears every time I try to explain what EMR technology can do.

That’s why I was pleased to come across the following blog item. This piece offers a very solid list of twelve reasons why EMRs can improve patient care, including the following (in no particular order of importance):

*  EMRs are less subject to physical damage and data loss than paper records, as the data can be backed up and stored elsewhere.

* EMRs reduce wait times for patients, as there’s no need to wait for a receptionist to pull a chart and get it to the treating clinician.

* Data stored in an EMR can be sent more easily to other clinicians than when using a paper record. (This may not be true if the EMR is balky — in reality, only an HIE can really fulfill this promise — but it should be true.)

* EMRs that integrate e-prescribing reduce the risk that a  patient will get the wrong drug/dose, as poorly-written prescriptions stop being an issue.

The piece also notes that with an EMR in place, practices should have neater workspaces to use (no paper accumulation) and have better access to care documentation during emergencies.

Now, to inject a note of skepticism here, it’s unlikely that most practices will realize all of these benefits quickly.

In particular, I highly doubt that practices will be able to cut back on paper quickly, since if nothing else, they’ll have to do something with the reams of letters and faxes that other providers send to them, and possibly images as well. (It’s no coincidence that the author works for an HIT consulting firm.)

Still, it’s good to see a well-rounded wrap-up of how EMRs might support day-to-day patient care.  It’s easy to assume that everyone understands EMRs’ potential — but I’d argue that many clinicians are just beginning to draw these conclusions."

The Five Stages of Innovation

1.  People deny that the innovation is required.

2.  People deny that the innovation is effective.

3.  People deny that the innovation is important.

4.  People deny that the innovation will justify the effort required to adopt it.

5.  People accept and adopt the innovation, enjoy its benefits, attribute it to people other than the innovator, and deny the existence of stages 1 to 4.

Fitting a Smartphone in Your Mouth…

Let’s end the week with a video that serves as an excellent reminder why most of us got involved in HC IT in the first place – helping people to become and stay healthy.

I love the new technology aspect in this video – utilising Smartphone technology within mouth guards for American football players. After an on-pitch collision instant information about the force of impact, and likely effect on the brain is transmitted to a pitch side computer allowing instant analysis of likely concussions and brain damage.

Fascinating stuff…

Have a search on YouTube – a lot of these Cleveland Clinic videos are well worth a watch.

It’s also interesting to have a browse through their website – very accessible in relation to patients and their EHRs.

Not New, Not Innovative – Still Amazing…

Thinking about Comic Relief today I’d like to talk briefly about technologies and procedures we consider to be extremely common place but in developing countries are rare and life-changing.

In Africa, one child in every five children dies before their 5^th birthday - and many of these deaths are from preventable diseases such as malaria. Over 781,000 people die every year from malaria.  That’s one child death every 45 seconds from something that is incredibly preventable – nets, testing kits and emergency drugs are the things that make the difference. 

In Africa alone, 300,000 children under the age of 15 are blind, and when these children lose their sight there’s a 50% chance that they will be dead within 2 years.  Yet 80% of the blindness that occurs in developing countries is from totally treatable infections.  £5 can provide a treatment for trachoma – an eye infection that turns the eyelashes inwards, causing rubbing on the cornea and ultimately blindness – but can, unbelievably be treated with antibiotics or a simple 15 minute operation to the eyelid.  We all know someone who's had their cataracts operated on - but although this is one the primary causes of blindness in developing countries and is relatively simple to correct, many people do not know how to get help, or even that help exists

It’s hard for us to fully comprehend these sorts of issues when we can pop to see the doctor, go to A&E or search for our symptoms and find advice and support online.

The great thing about Comic Relief is that it doesn’t only hand out malaria nets, antibiotics and kits – they aim to support the greatest change through improving primary health care - with improvements in both preventive and curative work - using funding to encourage the public and those in power to get behind campaigns to reduce the numbers of preventable deaths - particularly among women and young children.

Comic Relief funds organisations who work both with health providers and those who use healthcare services - as well as the voluntary and local organisations which often bridge the gaps between the two.

I talk a lot about patient-centric healthcare – and this really is an area where the idea of putting the patient at the centre of the process takes a backseat to simply making the patient part of the process at all.  But by long term and considered investment, in reducing infant mortality so these children have a chance, training proper midwifes and local people to treat minor infections – we must be taking the first tiny tiny steps to levelling the playing field.

Glee! Home of the latest Healthcare Innovations!

Any fans of Glee will have had an undeniable teary moment when watching Monday’s show “A Very Glee Christmas” when wheelchair-bound Artie had a walk round the rehearsal room in the Israeli designed ReWalk.

The ReWalk is the ARGO Medical Technologies’ flagship of innovative development for walking restoration devices for people with lower limb disabilities. The product offers an alternative to wheelchair users, enabling paralysed people to stand, walk, and even climb stairs. 

The ReWalk is a wearable, motorised quasi robotic suit that provides user-initiated mobility. Through leveraging advanced motion sensors, some sophisticated robotic control algorithms, on-board computers, real-time software, actuation motors, some composite materials, and good old fashion rechargeable batteries, the ReWalk creates movement through subtle changes in the user’s centre of gravity and upper-body movements.

There have been suggestions that this could truly represent the one-stop product for patients with lower limb disabilities in the future - no more need for stair lifts, bed winches and standing devices.

 As the Re Walk costs over $100k – it stretches the bounds of believability somewhat that a US high school football coach could pop down to the shops and pick one up, as per Glee, but that is surely a great aspiration for the future.  And we should give some credit to the show’s producers for bringing new healthcare technology to such a wide audience.

 

Social Media – Get On Board or Get Run Over

One of the fastest developing areas in healthcare communication is social networking and social media. So - how can an EMR/HIS vendor use this as an advantage together with organisational IT healthcare delivery guys?

I was at a conference Thursday and Friday last week, of leading German Hospital managers, and a particular discussion with the CIO of one of the leading hospital groups could summarise his thoughts as thus:

• A year back I thought this twitter stuff was unimportant
• A few months back I was of the belief I would have to fight it and shouldn’t allow it
• Now I’m starting to contemplate how to use it, and I feel unsupported in my efforts as the EMR vendors won’t or perhaps can’t provide me with any way to hook this into their systems, with the aim of making it a whole ecosystem including and accommodating social media

And my view:

• Since today’s discussion about social media I know instinctively if we, IT professionals in healthcare, won't do anything about it, it will be done via the consumerism of IT anyway – by our users and without us…and it will kill classic healthcare IT.

Have a look at healthissocial.com – one of the new websites totally dedicated to social media and communication in healthcare.

In particular there is a point I’d like to reproduce here – that as essential as it clearly is for us, as healthcare IT providers to get on board with social media or get run over by it – the basics of communication and appropriate communication must still be fundamental to our approach.

Phil Bauman – as part of his blog “Things that matter in Healthcare social media” makes the following point:

“Silence Communication isn’t always a good thing. During conflict, for instance, communication at the wrong time can intensify violence. An angry patient might go ballistic via social media because her father died of sepsis at a mediocre hospital. “Engaging” with her at that moment might not be helpful. We don’t always have to talk. There is strategy in silence.”

So I suppose – to close – we in IT healthcare clearly have “miles to go before we sleep” if we are going to get ahead of the curve with the integration of social media – but the implementation and expectation should be both measured and balanced.

On the Spot Access to EMR

I talk a lot on this blog about the potential growth and needed development of EMR technology within hospitals, surgeries and clinics.

This interview with Cliff Reid made me give some more serious thought to the possibility and potential benefits for the rescue services via mobile technology.  EMR access at the point of emergency interventions would be incredibly useful – highlighting allergies, additional medications and contraindications, you name it...

At the moment only a few EHR/EMR technologies are in use for on the spot trauma purposes…

CSI technology - it's here!

For anyone who's a fan of CSI or the film Minority Report - you'll love this video of touchscreen functionality - taken to a totally new level.

Watch it now!

The most obvious healthcare usage would be in hospitals - as a virtual whiteboard in OT and ward management.  How many years away are we?  That's anyone's guess!

Abdominal Obesity as a Risk for Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes - how can an iPAD app help?

 New data presented at the 2nd International Congress on Abdominal Obesity (ICAO) highlights the importance of abdominal obesity as a risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. 

The INternational Study of Prediction of Intra-abdominal adiposity and its RElationships with cardioMEtabolic risk/Intra-Abdominal Adiposity (INSPIRE ME IAA) recruited 4,504 patients from 29 countries across a variety of ethnicities. INSPIRE ME IAA is a unique international study with standardized cardiometabolic and CT-imaging measurements which reported harmful cardiometabolic risk profiles among non-diabetic study participants with impaired plasma glucose homeostasis. Such impaired glucose homeostasis and increased cardiometabolic risk was found to be more closely related to excess visceral adiposity and liver fat than to excess body weight. In addition, the INSPIRE ME IAA investigators also found that there were major ethnic differences in the relationship between body weight and visceral adiposity, the Asian patients of the study having relatively more visceral adipose tissue despite much lower BMI values. Finally, irrespective of cholesterol lowering statin use, excess visceral adiposity was associated with further deterioration of cardiometabolic risk in both non-diabetic individuals and among individuals with type 2 diabetes. This landmark international cardiometabolic imaging study provides robust evidence that high-risk overweight/obesity must be redefined, as cardiometabolic risk is driven by body fat distribution, not by excess weight.

The global epidemic of abdominal obesity shows no sign of abating and in many areas of the world is worsening, despite the numerous interventions from regional and national governments and healthcare providers. The ICAO has rapidly become a key platform to discuss novel approaches and share scientific and clinical data to benefit regional healthcare professionals, clinicians and scientists in the fight against the epidemic of abdominal obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

As an organisation which strongly advocates a multidisciplinary approach to treating cardiometabolic risk factors, the International Chair on Cardiometabolic Risk (ICCR) believes it is in a strong position to drive a renewed effort to overcome the multi-factorial barriers preventing healthcare professionals from turning the tide in the battle against high-risk overweight/obesity associated with an excess of visceral adipose tissue/liver fat. The ICCR announced at the congress that it will be working through 2011 on a series of new initiatives to address these barriers which include:

- Launching a new web portal myhealthywaist.org to provide information, tools and resources to support healthcare professionals;

- Embarking upon a social media campaign to engage those at risk from the cardiometabolic consequences of overweight/obesity associated with an excess of visceral adipose tissue; and

- Developing a new iPad application to facilitate identification of at-risk patients by primary care and other practitioners. 

ICCR believes these new tools and resources will educate healthcare professionals and the general public, in order to equip both to overcome the challenge that abdominal obesity presents to health.

Source:
ICCR 

Newborn heart muscle can grow back by itself, UT Southwestern researchers have found

Researchers led by (from left) Drs. Eric Olson, Hesham Sadek and Enzo Porrello found in an animal study that newborn heart tissue was able to repair itself within weeks of being damaged.In a promising science-fiction-meets-real-world juxtaposition, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered that the mammalian newborn heart can heal itself completely.

Researchers, working with mice, found that a portion of the heart removed during the first week after birth grew back wholly and correctly – as if nothing had happened.

“This is an important step in our search for a cure for heart disease, the No. 1 killer in the developed world,” said Dr. Hesham Sadek,assistant professor of internal medicine and senior author of the study available online in the Feb. 25 issue of Science. “We found that the heart of newborn mammals can fix itself; it just forgets how as it gets older. The challenge now is to find a way to remind the adult heart how to fix itself again.”

Previous research has demonstrated that the lower organisms, like some fish and amphibians, that can regrow fins and tails, can also regrow portions of their hearts after injury.

“In contrast, the hearts of adult mammals lack the ability to regrow lost or damaged tissue, and as a result, when the heart is injured, for example after a heart attack, it gets weaker, which eventually leads to heart failure,” Dr. Sadek said.

The researchers found that within three weeks of removing 15 percent of the newborn mouse heart, the heart was able to completely grow back the lost tissue, and as a result looked and functioned just like a normal heart. The researchers believe that uninjured beating heart cells, called cardiomyocytes, are a major source of the new cells. They stop beating long enough to divide and provide the heart with fresh cardiomyocytes.

Dr. Eric Olson, chairman of molecular biology and co-senior author of the study, said that this work is fascinating.

 “The inability of the adult heart to regenerate following injury represents a major barrier in cardiovascular medicine,” said Dr. Olson, who directs the Nancy B. and Jake L. Hamon Center for Basic Research in Cancer and the Nearburg Family Center for Basic and Clinical Research in Pediatric Oncology. “This work demonstrates that cardiac regeneration is possible in the mammalian heart during a window of time after birth, but this regenerative ability is then lost. Armed with this knowledge, we can next work to discover methods to reawaken cardiac regeneration in adulthood.”

The next step, the researchers said, is to study this brief window when the heart is still capable of regeneration, and to find out how, and why, the heart “turns off” this remarkable ability to regenerate as it grows older.

Other UT Southwestern researchers involved in the study were Dr. Enzo Porrello, postdoctoral research fellow in molecular biology and the paper’s lead author; Ahmed Mahmoud, graduate research assistant in internal medicine; Emma Simpson, research assistant in pathology; Dr. Joseph Hill, chief of cardiology; and Dr. James Richardson, professor of pathology and molecular biology.

The study was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council, the National Heart Foundation of Australia and the American Heart Association.

Source: UT Southwestern Medical Center

Vote: "50 Most Influential Physician Executives" (US)

Today (Feb 25) is the last day to vote in the 2011 Modern Physician/Modern Healthcare '50 Most Influential Physician Executives' competition.  The list includes a number of different physician executives who have made great contributions in 2010.

In the spirit of focusing on health IT (since I just attended HIMSS), I'd encourage you to vote for Dr. Harry Greenspun. 

Harry Greenspun, M.D., is the chief medical officer of the Dell Perot Systems healthcare group, providing strategic leadership with a clinical perspective. He has held a diverse range of clinical and executive roles across the healthcare industry, giving him a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities faced in health IT.

 for the 50 Most Influential Physician Executives

iSOFT selects IBM Cloud for Viaduct software

One thing I’ve really noticed at HIMSS is the focus on cloud computing, with Dr. Watson the IBM super computer being the forefront of how cloud computing could look in the future. This is a key tool for interoperability allowing institutions to collaborate.

You can see below iSOFT’s great addition to this arena, easy to access, easy to implement and free to download!

Would love to hear your feedback!

iSOFT selects IBM Cloud for Viaduct software

Boston, MA – 22 February 2011 – iSOFT Group Limited (ASX:IF) is to release a cloud edition of its Viaduct integration tool to meet the growing demand for simple, low-cost integration by non-specialists, as a first step to offering other market-leading healthcare solutions under its new cloud strategy.

The world’s largest healthcare IT provider outside of the US, iSOFT has signed an agreement to run its Viaduct integration tool on the IBM Smart Business Development & Test on the IBM Cloud.

The move gives non-specialists access to a powerful, yet easy-to-use integration tool on a “try-before-you-buy” basis. The application can be downloaded at no cost for developers to design, build and test interfaces and assess its value fully.

The process-oriented solution reduces the time, effort and skill required to integrate otherwise complex data structures and processes, with a simple drag-and-drop graphical interface. Designed initially to achieve interoperability of disparate healthcare IT systems, Viaduct is a service-oriented, team-enabled, integration design studio that is also platform independent.

“This is not a replacement for the full Viaduct suite but an alternative channel to introduce a generation of developers to one of the strongest integration tools currently available,” said Mike Jackman, iSOFT’s EVP of Worldwide Solutions and Operations. “The application simplifies the integration process allowing people with no coding or expert knowledge to achieve interoperability with relative ease and at a fraction of the normal cost.”

iSOFT’s plans include a full range of online and offline help and support features to ensure users become productive quickly.

The application supports a vast range of protocols, including TCP, File, HTTP(S), WebServices, FTP(S), Email (SMTP, POP3 and IMAP), HL7, Database, JMS, and many others.

For further information contact:

Brian Hemming

Corporate PR Manager

iSOFT Group Limited

t:  +44 1295  274240

m:  +44 7748 920528

e:  brian.hemming@isofthealth.com

Watson at HIMSS!

As I previously predicted the potential health uses of the IBM super computer Watson are now being discussed far and wide!  Perhaps I should get into fortune telling! See what Dr Nick Van Terheyden has to say.

I was also very pleased to see Watson for myself over here at HIMSS!

Time Reversal Ultra-Sound

Being surrounded by all this fantastic innovation at HIMSS I thought it might be a good moment to post this amazing piece about a biomedical imaging technique with the potential to improve accuracy in diagnosis, leading to fewer invasive diagnostic methods.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have combined ultrasound and visible light in a novel way that shows great promise in the quest to “see” deeper into the human body.

Read about Dr Wang's amazing technique 

HIMSS 2011 in Orlando - Off we go!

Hi everyone - Opening key note speech at HIMSS by Robert Reich.  Standing room only!

Healthcare out Loud

Healthcare out Loud
Wrapping up for now our social media in healthcare discussion, before the chaos of HIMSS next week, I thought you might be interested in this talk by Susannah Fox of Pew Internet.

She talks about Healthcare Out Loud, the concept of people using the internet to gather and share information in a very public way.

Susannah presents trends over time as related to internet access in general, for example:

• Not that long ago in 1995, 10% of American adults had access to the internet, as compared to 75% today.
• In the year 2000, 5% of American homes had broadband. Today that number is about 66%. 

She also discusses how mobile and broadband are multipliers to what people do online, and asks the question: "What's the ROI on love?"

Personally it’s the information regarding mobile access I find fascinating, namely:

·          People are far more likely to upload to the internet using a mobile device – becoming a participant instead of just an observer

·          Accessing the internet via a mobile device makes accessing healthcare information immediate and personal

·          It encourages 3 key stages – Gather – Share – Create

Finally – for many low income groups who can’t afford broadband at home, a mobile device has finally given them that freedom – the last barrier in the access revolution is being breached.

Man Vs. Machine!

A light-hearted look at the potential future of EMR storage today.  How would it be if the information could not only be stored, but analysed, trended, and projected… The new IBM super-computer Watson could, theoretically, do just that.

Watson is currently playing Jeopardy in the US against two former Jeopardy champions, and at the moment it is neck and neck.

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/geekend/ibm-watson-supercomputer-beats-jeopardy-champs-in-practice-round/6546

Watson has 15TB of memory, and the amount of information it holds would take a person over 200 years to read. Not only that but it can analyse and has, to a certain extent, “logical” thought.

My money is probably on Watson, IBM have a good track record in this area.  Who else recalls Deep Blue beating Kasparov back in 1997 – something at the time we all believed was impossible! 

Social media & hospitals

This time last year a nurse was suspended at a UK hospital for posting photos on Facebook of patients on the operating table.  The patients were not obviously identifiable, which, amid claims of patients human rights abuse and general outrage – amazingly fell into a grey legal area.

So, 12 months on, is the relationship between social media and hospitals clearer cut, or more confusing than ever?
Before we vilify social media within the healthcare environment as an insidious voyeuristic tool with the potential to humiliate and expose – can we identify more constructive and positive uses for social media within this arena?
First of all we should consider that nothing has the potential to disseminate information quicker than a social site.  Following the Fort Hood shooting in the US, Steven Widman of Scott & White Healthcare – one of the hospitals that treated Fort Hood victims, used Twitter to provide up-to-the-minute news. Through Twitter, Widman provided updates on emergency room access and hospital operation status, re-tweeted news from the Red Cross and communicated with reporters
In terms of marketing, and raising awareness of an institution and its procedures there is a sharp increase in the number of hospitals with facebook sites and their own social networks – giving, one could argue, more choice to patients and enabling quicker recruitment of staff.
As a training tool social media is also being strongly utilised.  Real time lectures on Twitter enable an almost ‘live’ scenario – where tutors are instantly able to answer student’s questions, receive feedback and gauge how quickly the students have grasped, or failed to grasp, a particular concept..
Following on from my post last week regarding the steady increase of people going on-line for health advice and the parallel increase in sites and forums offering both accurate and inaccurate information, surely social sites like Inspire , which provide a forum for patients to share their health problems and questions about treatments with other patients, as well as qualified medical personnel are a significant positive in this argument.
So, in conclusion, it is clear to all of us that hospitals and healthcare providers have a responsibility to implement stringent social media policies, to protect not only patients, but also staff and the organisation as a whole – but in terms of social media’s tempestuous relationship with healthcare – I don’t believe it benefits anyone for that to be the whole story.

Scanning on the go

The leaps forward in mobile healthcare continue apace with recent news that technology is on the horizon to scan kidneys, liver, bladder, eyes, prostrate and uterus via Smartphone.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2011/02/ultrasound-on-smartphone-technology.html

This technology for local handheld scanning devices has been in place since 2009 – although at $30k per device came with quite a price tag.  The new Smartphone technology is priced at a much more achievable $8k.  The biggest advantage of course is that images taken via a Smartphone could be instantly sent to a computer for analysis and diagnosis, whilst the ethos as a whole continues to place the patient at the centre of healthcare process, giving immediate and immense benefits to some of the most vulnerable patients in some of the most remote areas around the world.


This, as regular readers of my blog will realise, is something I am very passionate about and falls in line with iSOFT’s ongoing patient centric strategy.  The convergence of mobile devices with imaging and EMR access is already happening at the enterprise level – and it is fantastic that every step we take further in this direction continues to remove the remaining hurdles for truly patient centric healthcare delivery.

Modern Surgery. Modern Art. Modern Robot Dance.

Here is a cute video tale for the weekend - Da Vinci Robot goes Hollywood. (Florida's Health First hospitals)

More? Ok, what about the famous Da Vinci Robot dance? (Methodist Hospital)

And in case you are looking for a new hobby - what about "RoboGami"? (Japanese Surgeon using DaVinci)

Have fun!

Sequencing The Genome of Prostate Cancer Tumors-Research To One Day Help Address Aggressive Versus Non Threatening

just a quick one - this is exciting news for translational medicine

Sequencing The Genome of Prostate Cancer Tumors-Research To One Day Help Address Aggressive Versus Non Threatening

The advent of a perfect public health tool

This is a fascinating insight into the weird and wonderful world of health-related terms that people type into search engines.  Who would have guessed the phrase "Where is my liver?" would be one of the top 10 searches starting with the words "where is"!

These terms provide great insights into what health topics people are curious about, what they're worried about and how they're educating themselves.

Heather Dougherty of Hitwise, an online data analytics firm, shares information and insights into the online landscape, drug recalls, and consumer behaviour. 

 

She talks about top search terms, spikes in search activity and what they mean, as well as where people are looking for information - e.g., 40% are looking at large information websites such as WebMD.  There are the expected trends regarding self-diagnosis and also an accurate reflection on current health & food related concerns, like H1N1 and salmonella outbreaks.

Heather concludes with 3 key takeaways:

• Internet is prevalent in everyone's everyday life - consumers are searching to self-diagnose and get second opinions
• The e-trail we leave behind is rich with potential insights
• Beware the narrative fallacy
   

I would raise the following questions:

• ·       Is this only for computer addicted folks?

Apparently not. It would appear that more and more internet users are utilising health websites as both a diagnostic tool and also an avenue for a second opinion.  This in turn is widening people’s understanding of available treatments and facilities.

• ·       How can Granddad benefit?

The stereotype of technophobic grandparents is surely on its way out – especially considering that 25% of people searching  for health related issues are over 55.

• ·        What if this was combined with bio-surveillance capability using EHR/EMR data?

This would be advent of a perfect public health tool.

Facebook the new stethoscope

Seeking Support on Facebook: A Content Analysis of Breast Cancer Groups

Hi there, just worked through this excellent paper published at the Journal of Medical Internet Research yesterday.

We all know sites like Patients like me or famous "e-Patient Dave" , and we are active at Medicine 2.0 blogs, and the crowd will pilgrimage to conferences such as Medicine 2.0 at Stanford this year.

But Facebook? The same Facebook my daughter uses to publish about "topics" I better shouldn't be aware of?

But have a read, and join me in getting a different view how Facebook might become as important as my Stethoscope. Well done, Jacqueline L Bender et al.

Background: Social network sites have been growing in popularity across broad segments of Internet users, and are a convenient means to exchange information and support. Research on their use for health-related purposes is limited.
Objective: This study aimed to characterize the purpose, use, and creators of Facebook groups related to breast cancer.
Methods: We searched Facebook (www.Facebook.com) using the term breast cancer. We restricted our analysis to groups that were related to breast cancer, operated in English, and were publicly available. Two of us independently extracted information on the administrator and purpose of the group, as well as the number of user-generated contributions. We developed a coding scheme to guide content analysis.
Results: We found 620 breast cancer groups on Facebook containing a total of 1,090,397 members. The groups were created for fundraising (277/620, 44.7%), awareness (236, 38.1%), product or service promotion related to fundraising or awareness (61, 9%), or patient/caregiver support (46, 7%). The awareness groups as a whole contained by far the most members (n = 957,289). The majority of groups (532, 85.8%) had 25 wall posts or fewer. The support oriented groups, 47% (27/57) of which were established by high school or college students, were associated with the greatest number of user-generated contributions.
Conclusions: Facebook groups have become a popular tool for awareness-raising, fundraising, and support-seeking related to breast cancer attracting over one million users. Given their popularity and reach, further research is warranted to explore the implications of social network sites as a health resource across various health conditions, cultures, ages, and socioeconomic groups.


Sample breast cancer awareness group on Facebook in 2010

(J Med Internet Res 2011;13(1):e16)
doi:10.2196/jmir.1560

Beyond the iPhone: iSOFT's mhealth plans for BlackBerry and Windows 7 Mobile

To say there's a lot of discussion around mobile healthcare is putting it mildly. In the past month or so we've been told day-in, day-out that 2011 will be the year of mhealth. The consensus is fuelled by reports, like the one from HIMSS, that found that  25 percent of hospitals plan to deploy iPDAS immediately while 70 percent say that they have plans to do so over the coming year. That's news to bring joy to Apple, but it also indicates the extent to which the device has won acceptance in a traditionally hard to please sector.
But 2011 will also be the year that other hardware and operating systems will catch up. The past week, alone, has seen a cluster of new reports predicting the rise of Android, and Windows 7 mobile, and the resurgence of BlackBerry as the desire for smartphones and tablets spreads beyond early adopters to mainstream consumers who remain attached to their existing platform or are simply seeking a less expensive alternative.
According to UK-based Strategy Analytics, On the back of Samsung Galaxy Tab sales Android tablets took 22 per cent of the global tablet market last quarter up 120 per cent from the previous quarter. Apple iPad's still held 75 per cent of the market, but down from almost total dominance at 95 per cent.

There's an equally dramatic shake out in the smartphone market. Yesterday analysts Canalys published figures showing that shipments of Android powered smartphones had overtaken devices running Symbian. And then of course there's sleeping giant, Microsoft. It shipped two million Windows 7 Mobile devices last quarter. If that sounds like a slow start, don't underestimate the marketing power behind the platform. And whatever the sales figures say, it's a great device. As the message gets out, expect Microsoft to creep up on both Symbian and RIM.
The implications for mobile healthcare solutions providers are important here. First mover advantage in the App Store has given solution providers from imaging to EMR a lot of coverage. And here at iSOFT we've already taken the decision to run some solutions on the iPhone platform. But we think that the market, globally, is far more diverse and that there's a large audience, a silent majority even, who have different views. That's why we recently announced that we have joined the BlackBerry Alliance Program as a BlackBerry Alliance Elite Member. This will further support our philosophy of introducing  applications for care beyond traditional settings and hospital walls.
We're already working on a range of applications to help clinical staff deliver care more efficiently and patients to manage their conditions more effectively. These include apps for doctors to download daily workloads and appointments, for community nurses to record patient details and for patients to check vital signs, arrange appointments and referrals, and order repeat prescriptions.
From a marketing perspective, we also know that the U.K. NHS in particular is a prolific user of BlackBerry smartphones so already has the critical mass and requisite infrastructure, including security. This is vital for us at a time when data privacy and security are more prominent than ever in the age of Facebook and Wikileaks. The security credentials of the BlackBerry platform are well documented, and a huge advantage given the obvious concerns of patient confidentially and privacy issues.
In addition, we've also taken our first steps into supporting Windows Phone 7 with The Lorenzo Smart Solutions Observations application. This allows clinicians to securely access patient lists and record observations for their patients on Windows Phone 7. No patient data is stored on the device. In addition, providers can decide whether to make the data available across just an organisation's WiFi network or any WiFi/3G connection. We're very confident that Windows Phone 7 will take off in 2011, not least because of the sheer scale of Microsoft's partner network and the numbers of developers available to build enterprise apps including healthcare.

Finally, don't forget that a year is a long, long time in the world of mobile devices. To put things in perspective, the iPAD was announced almost exactly a year ago, but it wasn't launched until April. The past ten months have radically transformed our expectations of mhealth in healthcare, but the next year will actually deliver. And Apple won't have all the good lines.