July 2011 Blog Posts (11)

The Nursing and Midwifery Council in the UK recently published guidance on social media usage. The guidance was published following a number of cases involving nurses being struck off the register due to social networking activity. It includes the advice that nurses or students will put their registration at risk if they share confidential information online or post inappropriate…

Another big brand has gotten caught - literally - in the social web, complements of the hacker group notorious for commandeering Fox News' Twitter feed earlier this month. This time, the target was big pharma, and Pfizer was strung up as being “A Corrupt Corporate American Company guilty of cutting corners and…

We’ve written a lot about the pros and cons of patient self diagnosis, particularly in relation to online content, on Health Care 3.0.

However, there is a website aimed at ‘helping patients take care of themselves’. The Self Care Forum helps GPs implement healthcare initiatives, by offering tools such as white papers, top tips and case studies.

The aim is to raise awareness of the importance of self care (and the potential savings it…

Yesterday the US Food and Drug Administration released a draft of guidelines for how it might regulate certain mobile medical apps. The FDA is seeking comments on these guidelines between now and October 19th. This FDA guidance doesn't cover wireless safety considerations, classification and submission requirements related to clinical decision support software or the application of quality systems to software. These may be addressed through other guidances in the…

Matt Herper touches on what I think is such an interesting topic - crowdsourcing and medicine.  People are private with their medical records and health for fear of prejudice and judgement.  Let's face it, we live in a very judgemental society but will the quest for a diagnosis or just good care push those fears out of the way? We are all organic beings and it is inevitable that things will break down! No one is immune to that. 

What do you all…

There's a report this morning that an HD version of the iPad will be released with 2048 x 1536 pixels resolution display, almost double the current pixel display. Apparently, this is not the new iPad 3, rather, a premium version of the iPad aimed at physicians who could utilize a higher pixel density display for viewing radiology images.…

The topic of self-diagnosis continues to generate great debate amongst patients and doctors alike. This was no doubt fuelled over the last few weeks with the admission from GPs across Europe that 60% use Wikipedia for reference.

The debates around this survey led to an important point. Wikipedia publishes very technical medical information which can be hard to understand if the reader doesn’t already know the definitions of…

A recent survey from BVMed found 70% of medical device companies are not active in their use of social media. The survey also found that over two-thirds of the companies have no defined social media strategy and 37% don’t even use a single social media channel...no Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn...nothing...It's worth noting that the survey data was compiled from 89 of its members.  Certainly a microcosm, but the findings are fairly universal.

Most companies cited a…

I have been following the news over the future of Avastin, a drug that was approved under the FDA's accelerated approval pathway after an early study showed women taking Avastin with paclitaxel had an additional 5.5 months of progression-free survival compared to taking just paclitaxel.  For those of you who don't know, an FDA panel voted on Wednesday that Avastin is not safe and effective when used against metastatic HER2-negative breast cancer and should no longer be approved to treat it.…

As we head into the long July 4th weekend where many flock to the beaches, a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) has shown that many beaches across the U.S. have concerning water contamination levels. 

While it may seem like the cultural norm and tradition of the summer, contaminated waters can make you very…