March 2nd, 2010 by Happy Hospitalist in Better Health Network, Opinion
1 Comment »
I took care of a young lady the other day whom I admitted for diabetic ketoacidosis. She asked me what her bicarbonate level was. I was a bit surprised since most of the time my DKA patients’ don’t care what their bicarb levels are. I told her it was eight. For the non medical types out there, that’s low. That’s critically low.
I asked her why she wanted to know. And before she could even get the words out, she had posted a Tweet onto her Twitter acount to update all her friends and family of her impending hospital admission. I found that fascinating. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Happy Hospitalist*
February 3rd, 2010 by DrRob in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
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I was talking to a fellow physician about a mutual patient. I had information that would help him in their care and he was taking the unusual step of asking me for my information. I was impressed.
“Could you fax me those documents?” he asked. ”Here’s my fax number.”
I scrambled to get a pen to write down his number. Then I had a thought: “I could email you those documents much easier. Do you have an email address?”
Silence.
After a long pause, he hesitantly responded, “I would rather you just fax it.” He said no more. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Distractible Mind*
January 20th, 2010 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy
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This picture from 3G Doctor is remarkable. It captures the flier of a Merck supported Mexican Medmobile initiative that apparently connects patients with their doctors via SMS (translation available on 3G Doctor Blog.)
But don’t expect fliers of this type in American offices anytime soon. Risk of privacy violation and difficulty in documentation stifle this level of
doctor-patient connectivity. The very laws created to protect patients may ultimately thwart the timely adoption of new communication channels.
And the slow march towards a single payer system will only make real connectivity a rare bird.
Look to the groundswell in mobile technology and social platforms will force change in our current privacy laws. Until then look for innovation to come from the second and third world.
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
January 14th, 2010 by Berci in Better Health Network, Health Tips
1 Comment »
Whenever I talk about medical professionals using social media, people are surprised by what I say. Most people think they can hide online and never have to reveal their real identity. I think they are wrong. In the online world, it’s much easier to find out private information about someone who wasn’t cautious enough than in real life. A recent example includes Doctors warned of Facebook flirts (e-Health article):
The Medical Defence Union said it was aware of a number of cases where patients have attempted to proposition doctors by sending them an unsolicited message on Facebook or similar sites. The medical defence body said it would be “wholly inappropriate” to respond to a patient making an advance in such a way. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
January 2nd, 2010 by David Kroll, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Opinion
1 Comment »
Steve Silberman and Rebecca Skloot just pointed out to me an editorial from science writer Chris Mooney that has appeared online and will be in the Sunday, January 3rd edition of The Washington Post.
In the essay, “On issues like global warming and evolution, scientists need to speak up,” Mooney continues his longstanding call to scientists to take ownership in combating scientific misinformation, invoking the very weak response of the scientific community to the aftermath of e-mails and documents hacked from the Climatic Research Institute at the University of East Anglia.
The central lesson of Climategate is not that climate science is corrupt. The leaked e-mails do nothing to disprove the scientific consensus on global warming. Instead, the controversy highlights that in a world of blogs, cable news and talk radio, scientists are poorly equipped to communicate their knowledge and, especially, to respond when science comes under attack. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Terra Sigillata*
