Health Care Trends With a Social Media Twist

June 2009 Blog Posts (24)

Featured Health Care 3.0 Community Member: Dan Dunlop

Hi All: Dan Dunlop runs this health care and marketing Ning community. When you have a moment check out his site.

Dan has a great post today titled "Random Acts of Generosity Lead to Gratitude." Definitely worth a read.

Palmer

Added by Palmer Reuther on June 30, 2009 at 12:40pm — 1 Comment

What's your favorite health care iPhone App?

haven't found any good freebies yet...

Added by Palmer Reuther on June 30, 2009 at 9:41am — No Comments

Facebook for Seniors?

New research indicates that seniors who stay social are likely to have better motor skills than those who are not. Given the multitude of social/networking platforms available, is there one that could potentially cater specifically to the 60+ crowd? What about the learning curve associated?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/health/research/30agin.html?_r=1&ref=health

Added by Rachel Adam on June 30, 2009 at 9:07am — 2 Comments

Twitter & Heart beat

Interesting to see social media being using in conjunction with a physical item for communication to a larger audience. But, like the article flags, could this create too many "cry wolf" scenarios? How can we tell the real events from the fail whales?

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/06/28/heart-beat-posting-device-lets-your-twitter-followers-know-your-alive/

Added by Rachel Adam on June 29, 2009 at 11:35am — 2 Comments

The Mayo Clinic Setting the Pace for Social Networking and Medicine

Many of you probably viewed the GMA piece on Twitter in OR, which featured the Mayo Clinic. The Clinic has set up Twitter and Facebook pages, a YouTube Channel and a blog all in the name of better communications with physicians and patients and not to mention a significant reduction in marketing spend by the organization.

Check out the following two articles for more on how The Mayo Clinic is leveraging social media.… Continue

Added by Dan Carter on June 25, 2009 at 5:56pm — No Comments

Improve Your Ultrasound Skills With New SonoSite iPhone App

SonoSite has released an iPhone application, called SonoAccess™, to help clinicians improve their analytical and performance skills when using ultrasound. With the help of instructional videos and an accompanying image gallery, you can improve on your echo knowledge while on your train ride to work.

See the full story here: www.medgadget.com/archives/2009/06/improve_your_ultrasound_skills_with_new_sonosite_iphone_app.html

Added by Ben Haber on June 25, 2009 at 7:45am — 1 Comment

Mobile Phones the ‘Medical Professionals’ of the Developing World?

It’s amazing what can be achieved with a mobile phone, but have you ever wondered what such a device can do beyond making calls, sending text messages, taking pictures and accessing the internet?

A relatively recent development is the emergence of mHealth or mobile health: defined by Wikipedia as the term for medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices, such as mobile phones, patient monitoring devices, PDAs and other wireless devices.

mHealth technology is… Continue

Added by Anna Gueldenhaupt on June 24, 2009 at 7:25am — 1 Comment

Better Health and Social Media

TIME Magazine recently did a story based on research from the American Journal of Preventive Medicine that showed simple email reminders helped people to remember healthy habits, like working out, drinking more water or eating more fruits/veggies. It would be interesting to track this further, to see how Twitter feeds or communities could impact people's healthy habits. What are your thoughts?

Read the TIME article at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1902832,00.html

Added by Cheri Keith on June 23, 2009 at 4:22pm — No Comments

Featured Community Member: Jim from medXcentral

check out his profile under "Latest Activity"

-Palmer

Added by Palmer Reuther on June 23, 2009 at 11:17am — No Comments

Personalized Medicine

Reading stories like this one in the Times, makes it interesting to hypothesize about the effects electric medical records (EMR) could have in recreating this type of “family doctor” atmosphere. While it’s generally acknowledged that better, more accessible tracking of family health history is a benefit, could comprehensive interconnected databases also work to facilitate disease prevention?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/health/23brod.html?ref=health

Added by Rachel Adam on June 23, 2009 at 10:42am — No Comments

Health Care 3.0 Welcomes "Health Care Marketing"

When you a have a minute, check out out Dan Dunlop's Ning community at http://healthcaremarketing.ning.com/.

-Palmer

Added by Palmer Reuther on June 23, 2009 at 10:30am — No Comments

A Pound of Cure

The federal government is about to spend big on health-care IT. Too bad the medical industry has a vested interest in inefficiency.

From MIT's Technology Review: http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/22852/

Added by Ben Haber on June 23, 2009 at 10:30am — No Comments

Big Pharma agrees to Medicare drug discounts

An encouraging step forward in the fight against skyrocketing drug prices - Big Pharma has agreed to spend $80 billion over the next 10 years to help American seniors afford prescription medicines. The agreement would commit drug makers to cover as much as 50 percent of the cost of brand-name medications within Medicare's Part D prescription drug program. Bloomberg reports - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/health/policy/21drug.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Added by Jackie Hanley on June 22, 2009 at 12:12pm — 1 Comment

Further investigation on FDA review process

FDA scrutiny continued this week, with a hearing to determine whether or not the agency has the structure and resources in place to deliver an effective medical device review process and, ultimately, ensure patient safety. Reuters reported late Thursday - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31431248/ns/health-health_care/

Added by Jackie Hanley on June 19, 2009 at 9:18am — 1 Comment

Bloggers Weigh In on Self Diagnosis on the Web

With the rise of WebMD and various sites providing in-depth medical information, a new breed of patient has emerged. CNN's bloggers debate the topic: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/health/2009/06/17/dcl.blog.health.cnn

Added by Cheri Keith on June 18, 2009 at 1:44pm — No Comments

Pharma Tiptoeing its Way into Social Media

Great article in the June 16th edition of the Washington Post discussing how drug companies are slowly, but surely launching social media campaigns using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (shocker).

It's been a slow go for many reasons, but most notably is the FDA. The pharma companies are waiting to see how regulations shake out in terms of how they can leverage social media to reach physicians and patients.

We'll be tracking the progress of Pharma and Social Media closely on… Continue

Added by Dan Carter on June 17, 2009 at 2:21pm — No Comments

Blogger Comes Forward about Hoax

The Chicago-area blogger who posted for two nearly months about carrying a sick fetus to term because of religious reasons has admitted it was all a hoax. Certainly social media platforms enable people to share stories and receive moral support for medical conditions, but this took it to another level. The readers of the blog caught on after photos posted were that of a doll. Read more at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31389547/ns/technology_and_science-internet/

Added by Cheri Keith on June 17, 2009 at 1:40pm — No Comments

Americans Are Going Online for Healthcare Needs

PEW Internet just issued a great report entitled, "The Social Life of Health Information." It's full of great statistics about the types of healthcare information Americans are searching for online. One nugget from the report states that in 2000 25% of adults looked online for health-related information. Fast forward to today and that number has jumped to 61%.

If there is any question about the intersection of Social Networking and Healthcare, this report from PEW Internet certainly… Continue

Added by Dan Carter on June 17, 2009 at 1:38pm — No Comments