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.