June 2011 Blog Posts (10)

Ford Motor Co. is researching ways in which it can improve the wellness of its drivers. The American automaker has been working with organizations since 2005 to develop methods of monitoring occupants’ health with Ford Sync, a connectivity system that allows drivers to perform functions using voice commands.

The system would be used to help monitor diseases and conditions such as diabetes, asthma, and allergies, which have the potential to impair a driver’s ability to safely…

http://www.texttochange.org/home

Really impressed with what I just caught wind of through the #hcsm tag ... a new platform takes advantage of mobile - the most widely used communication technology in the world - and designs incentive based quizzes sent via SMSto educate, engage, and empower people on health related issues. 

While mHealth has been slow to reach third-world countries, this all makes sense when you…

It was announced on Friday that Google Health is closing due to lack of interest.

Health was launched as a tool that would change the way we use our health records – giving patients ownership of their wellbeing. It was meant to be part of the next generation of healthcare. Sadly, it just didn’t catch on, perhaps because users weren’t comfortable entrusting such personal information to an…

France which is frequently touted as the country with the best healthcare system considering cost, quality and access, spends per capita about half what America does. In 2011 this divide is nearly 1.4 trillion dollars. This variance…

Wow - Are we really having this conversation already? 

The Independent recently covered a new startup called sickweather, which tracks trends in illness through social media. Users can view a map of their local area which demonstrates clusters of sick people, based on information pulled from publicly available social media platforms. Google has a similar tool to predict the…

An article posted on Boston.com in the White Coat Notes by Carolyn Johnson this afternoon really shocked me. I want to know what you think.

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PharmaGuy addresses one of the more concerning issues around social media and pharma.  If it's unsolicited requests or unsolicited statements involving off-label information, there needs to be a safe way for communicators to appropriately handle. 

First FDA Social Media Guidance to Address Responding to "Unsolicited Requests" for Off-label…

Those living in the UK at the moment will know that it is prime hay fever season – the weather is up and down and there has also been a lot of windy weather.

Of course this is the prime time for health companies to target hay fever sufferers, and a recent example of this is Kleenex’s social media efforts to dispel hay fever myths amongst consumers.

Kleenex has been using…

Pew commissioned a study that looked at how use of the internet to find health information is increasing.  Some really interesting information-- I would recommend diving in.

http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Social-Life-of-Health-Info.aspx