Webicina.com is a free service that provides curated medical social media resources in over 80 medical topics in 17 languages. Their mission is to let empowered patients and medical professionals access the most relevant social media content in their own languages on a customizable platform. So how does it work? Well you simply select your condition and the form of social media you’re interested in – news, blogs, podcasts, videos, twitter feeds, etc. – and Webicina gives you a nice little list of everything available on those platforms. Currently the site covers a range of medical conditions from acne to arthritis and cancer to epilepsy. Amazing. They obviously have this whole social media and healthcare thing wrapped up.

This brings us back to course they’re running: The Social MEDia course, the idea being that “digital literacy must be in the medical curriculum globally”. The course was launched two weeks ago; it’s online and Prezi-based, with tests and gamification. The best part? It’s free!

On the site there is also a list of interesting presentations on topics such as health search engines, e-patients, medical blogging and virtual worlds. You could spend the whole day on there and still come back for more.

Have a look for yourself at www.webicina.com and www.thecourse.webicina.com/

We were lucky enough to be one of the beta babes and we have been curating Patient Centricity News for a couple of months now.  Its dead straightforward, and is backed by a plum algorithm that once seduced helps you find relevant articles and videos. It cracked the automated pitfalls of death by junk content by leaving the curator to choose what’s right for them, and its this for me that has made the Scoop.it experience so fresh.

As “curation” becomes the next buzz word it been a joy to be part of the big beta crowd.  With more than 2 million visits per month, and traffic is growing by 35 percent month, we look forward to reviewing load more healthcare comms publications.

I saw a great candidate last night for a first round interview. Watching this made me think that alongside the CV, interview notes and discussions with people in the know, we are increasingly assessing candidates by who they are online. In the old days we might do a quick university phone around, or chat to someone whose experience had crossed with the candidate’s CV. Later this moved to  a quick Facebook check to see whether the candidate was fun, and you know, well, sociable.

These days we pretty much audit a future one of us online. In days gone by this was prorata by seniority; the bigger the kid the more we would expect but now it’s an even assessment regardless of level. A slot in the diary figuring out who we have in common, what they have worked on, whether we cross over on an occasional dragon and their day to day social media interaction and level of connectedness

This film asks the question whether that is fair, whether its important to know whether a colleagues has a penchant for spending most of their free time drunk in fountains (you know who you are). O

Most of the team have been at Digipharm, coming back with lessons, learnings and frustrations. I have been engrossed in reflective discussion and ploughing through slide shares.

Digipharm presented rather an interesting paradox. Almost all the speakers were advocates and users of social media – be that Twitter, blogs, Facebook or Slideshare. By it’s very nature, getting stuck into social media in the spheres and groups of interest to each of us gives us great transparency to the views of others with the same interests. As such, those people close to the social media outputs of the speakers over the last year will have already been familiar with much of what they had to say. It does beg the question – if you believe in the strength of social media, is it really appropriate to hold an offline conference to persuade of it’s power?

Fascinating too, that most of the presentations are compiled and repurposed blogs in a presentation format. Is it too much to hope for these digital specialists to understand that all channels require us to optimise our delivery and message to suit them? Isn’t there an irony in taking lessons from another powerpoint slide purveyor on the importance of utilising digital effectively? That just delivering content is not enough – you need to screw everything you can out of the environmental possibilities of the channel. Use the conference opportunity, enable the debate, force group work or even, heavens above, facilitate live innovation. Where’s the problem solving? Where’s the experience?  Where’s the ‘practice what you preach’?

Beyond the appropriateness of the style, is is reasonable to assume that whilst we just talk to ourselves we should expect to achieve anything more than incremental improvement? For two days, digital pharma spoke to digital pharma, partly about how behind digital pharma (still) is. As an industry, how can we expect to learn from and catch up with other industries if we only talk amongst ourselves? Conferences like this should be pulling in seriously capable talent from outside our arena, allowing us to see bleeding edge digital work from the whole space, not just an inward look at our keen but clearly toddling sector.

But regardless of who they are, whilst people are up on stage. A small wish for next year would be to rise above the speaker-bashing-by-tweet mid presentation. It’s Prickville. Why not go the whole hog and draw a cock and balls on the blackboard? These are too important times to allow the Twitter tits to lowest-common-denominator-heckle. If you disagree, or are bored, then grow some nuts and get involved. Or sit still and behave – the usual rules of polite convention apply. Don’t hide behind the little blue bird – its anonymity is not an excuse for a lack of respect.

I have seen digital communities develop in the hospitality sector for years now, as part of a team running what the guardian considered to be one the UKs top 5 pop up restaurants. It’s really interesting to watch this grass roots digitally enabled community grow and develop, and contrast it to our world. In the pop up restaurant world the early days saw a few leaders act and encourage, keen to co-create, eager to share, but most of all drag everyone in, regardless. Those that did, shared. Self imposed authority was questioned, ego was mocked, and the community self-policed, valuing development of the movement over sales, fame and self promotion. It felt almost liberal. In the healthcare world that community is a punch line, a sound bite. Is the community thats discussed in digital health really a collection of the self interested? I think we should take a good hard look and fear becoming at most a collusion for profit, at least egomania united in sycophancy.

Alongside our visit to the conference, we have been involved in the judging, entries and ceremony of the PM Digital Awards, picking up 5 across the group last night.

The awards have provided us with view of what is seen as worthwhile, what’s valued. ROI is front of mind and look and feel is pretty central. Would it be healthy to seek an evolution to the night – seems fitting for digital surely? Both the ‘established’ format and traditional black tie event are crying out for change. It left me reaching for some interactivity, some alternative approach that differentiated the space we are in.

Most importantly, surely we should demand that these digital events challenge our expectation. I hope we strive to avoid corporate safety, for the benefit of the digital community and look to other areas to really engender change and progression.

The PM Society Digital Media Awards hosted by Hugh Dennis and held at the civilised Brewery by London Wall kicked off at 6pm this evening.

Having headed off home due to early work stuff (1x procurement 8.30 and 1 x malaysian trip),we rounded the evening off at mine and sensible soft drink. As usual with late London do’s I have the pleasure of Busby as a non-paying B&B guest.

The results were great recognition for a stack of  hard work alongside a fantastic set of progressive clients. Thankfully the categories are short and succinct, the foods well up on any other event (meringue shard excluded!) and it’s a really nice compact affair.

Clearly a proportion of the digital/social media crowd failed to appreciate the community showing a distinct lack of enthusiasm for clapping and supporting entries and winners which did  dampen the joy a little we all had a riotous time. I hope this can change when people realise that these are early days and there is no point in turning up, wearing square glasses and pretending you are too bleeding edge to champion a rigorous judging process and a desire for progress.

In terms of results, both Hive and Ebee had a great night – 2 tables surrounded by new and old friends.  Awards were won in their plenty. Across the two companies we take back to Soho;

• WIN – Best Self directed digital selling tool
• WIN – Craft award for film and animation
• HIGHLY COMMENDATION – HCP educational programme award
• COMMENDATION –  Digital solution for congress/symposium

To top it all Ebee’s amazing Gemma T stomped home with the DIGITAL PROJECT MANAGER award making us hugely proud.for me the best of all awards – one celebrating good, clever, dedicated talent.

A great night (that no doubt is still going on). As always thanks to Neil, Vivien and Rachel and the entire team for a great night.

The change kicks in from August 15, and has been brewing for a little while. No doubt causing some ‘chicken lickin’ activity from those who have established a FB presence and have felt that AERs and negative comments would be controllable in the long term.

“We think these policy changes support consistency for the Facebook Pages product and encourage an authentic dialogue between people and businesses on Facebook,” continued the email. “However, we also understand that these changes may lead you to re-evaluate your strategy and presence on Facebook. We are committed to helping you during this transition.”

The practice known as whitelisting has been a special exception that goes against the liberal approach by FB. It does feel as if our industry with a requirement to monitor all AERs (whose local definition is often lacking clarity) needs to find a practical approach to this. To date the FDA and EFPIA have remained silent on AERs in the digital space – failing to help us lot a framework to connect realistically in the community. Interestingly when Yahoo commissioned a study on free text enabled health comments it found only 1 in 500 an FDA applicable AER.

It’s also important to note that this doesn’t apply to the rarely commissioned brand specific FB page. But if you are one of many managers of FB health presences as the deadline looms there are a few things that can be done. Firstly, this isn’t an issue that’s going to go away, maybe its time to build a comment approval SOP and bolt in resource to deliver against this? Secondly be secure in the comfort that you still have the ability to delete and monitor comments. Thirdly, bolt in FB service likea Buddy media to moderate on your behalf, or use FBs existing functionality to build a word blocklist to id and spam comments automatically. As a last ditch attempt use a custom wall created as an application – its sticks a bit in my throat this one, as it removes the ability to ‘like’ comments and feels retrograde but its an option. Alternatively stick your head in the sand and get out of FB completely.

Last year the concept of ChatRoulette was combined with the need many people feel to connect with others who have similar health conditions or illnesses to them. The result? HealCam.

HealCam is all about “talking to patients like you”. Users are invited to select a disease or medical condition (such as Crohn’s or HIV) that they’d like to discuss, and are then connected with another user with the same condition.  The site founders wanted to create a place where people can exchange information, moral support and advice on a face to face level.  Since its launch last year the feedback from patients has been overwhelmingly positive. Users feel that HealCam offers them a personal platform from which to have a genuine, one-to-one chat with someone else like them.

As with ChatRoulette, the potential for misadventure is high. However, the biggest problem facing this relative newborn is a lack of traffic. According to Dr. Ostrovsky, one of the founders of HealCam, the site is currently only receiving 2,000 visitors a day.  It’s unclear whether this is due to an unwillingness on the part of patients to chat face to face, or a lack of awareness that the site exists.  Despite this, HealCam has demonstrated the need online patient communities have for connection and offered a unique solution, making it one little start-up to keep an eye on.

Using video games within healthcare isn’t a new idea. Since the early 1980s, video games have been used in patient care to encourage adherence, and work alongside treatments to improve treatment outcomes.

How do video games change behaviour?
The repetitive nature of video game play is thought to be a key mechanism that promotes learning. Using games as a form of pain or stress relief relies more on the immersion and distraction they can offer.

One of the earliest examples of this is in paediatric oncology and the associated side effects of chemotherapy – nausea, vomiting, anxiety and pain. During the study, oncology patients were given a video game to play while they received their chemotherapy. The patients who played the game showed a significant reduction in nausea compared with control patients. The therapeutic effects of the game were attributed to the distraction that it provided, by focusing attention away from side effects.

Snow World
Building on this distractive method of pain management, a team of researchers and game designers developed a virtual reality game for burn patients called Snow World. Players are immersed in a virtual reality world where they fly through icy landscapes shooting snowballs at snowmen and penguins. The game was designed to minimize body motion and distract from pain during wound care.  The cool imagery and immersive game play were shown to be a viable alternative to strong drugs. Patients who played the game reported a significant reduction in pain, and fMRI scans showed a reduction in neurological pain signals.  Doctors even noted a wider range of movement from patients in physiotherapy sessions.

Packy and Marlon
Video games have not only been used in pain management; gaming has also been shown to be a powerful motivator and behavioural change tool. One well-known example is Packy and Marlon, which was originally made for the Super Nintendo game console system, and modified for children with diabetes. The two main characters, Packy and Marlon, are diabetic elephants who thwart camp invaders while protecting and finding missing supplies (insulin and healthy food). To stay in good shape during four simulated days, players must keep their character’s diabetes under control by measuring and monitoring blood glucose, taking insulin, selecting a balanced diet in three meals and three snacks a day, and handling diabetic emergencies.

A study over 6 months showed that ‘gaming’ patients demonstrated greater self-management, increased communication with parents about diabetes and better adherence to insulin therapy. Most impressively, the ‘gaming’ group had a 77% decrease in diabetes-related emergencies and urgent care clinical visits compared with controls.

Bronciasaurus
A similar example is Bronciasaurus, a video game for young children with asthma. The game is set in a world which is covered in dust because the fan that usually keeps the dust at bay has broken. Players help the in-game characters keep their asthma at bay by avoiding triggers such as dust and smoke while they go on their quest to repair the fan. There are some question-and-answer inserts in the game that need to be answered correctly in order to proceed. A series of studies on the game found that patients’ asthma-related self-concepts, social support, knowledge, self-care behaviors, and self-efficacy improved significantly after playing the game compared with the control group.

The potential for video games in health care is continuing to expand beyond behavioural change and pain management. Most recently virtual reality has demonstrated its use as a unique form of physiotherapy in stroke victims, laying the foundation for gaming to not only be an important adjunct to therapy but to even be part of treatment itself.

Google have always come up with great promotional ideas,from the Google Search Stories to the Google Chrome ads, and last year’s interactive Arcade Fire video.

But recently they may have outdone themselves. They’ve found a way of achieving every marketer’s dream  getting their consumers to make their advertising campaign for them, for free, and in a way that comes across as not only authentic but also pretty cool, and even appealing to any googlephobics (if such people exist) . It’s called Demo Slam.

Demo Slam is a place where boring tech demos become ‘gotta-show-my-friends awesome’, thanks to the creativity of Google users. You can watch the Slams and declare a Champ of the week. Then each week new featured slams will vie for your attention and a shot at demo glory.

The videos demonstrate how Google technology can be used to achieve both

great and silly things. In one example, a group of kids use Google Voice Search while their mouths are stuffed with marshmallows. Another shows teenagers creating a virtual parachute experience using a projector, bungee ropes and Google Earth. These videos take tech demos from mundane to mind-blowing, and encourage people who may never watch tech demos to watch and even share them with their friends. Making Demo Slam a truly ingenious form of viral advertising that is perfectly disguised as shared fun.

As much as I’d like to think I’m immune to even the most sophisticated marketing techniques, I can’t help but ask…is anyone up for making a Google Slam?

]]> http://hivehealth.com/2011/03/slammed/feed/ 0 http://hivehealth.com/2011/02/idoctor/ http://hivehealth.com/2011/02/idoctor/#comments Wed, 23 Feb 2011 12:00:46 +0000 Morgaine Matthews http://hivehealth.com/?p=2331 With iPhone and iPad apps to help one measure contractions, blood pressure and identify pills, it was only a matter of time before tablet technology made an appearance in the operating theatre and even doctors’ surgeries.

Last year Georgetown University launched a program that uses iPads in operating rooms to assist doctors with complex operations. The iPad app offers surgeons real-time access to images and patient data during an operation, while the touch screen functionality works regardless of whether or not the user is wearing latex surgical gloves. The iPad can even be placed in a waterproof (blood proof) zip lock bag without losing any functionality.

Now the iPad has left the operating theatre and entered the consultation room ,with Stryker launching its first iPad primary care app  just last week. The suitably named  ‘Flipchart’ app is designed to help orthopedic specialists explain a hip, knee or shoulder replacement procedure to patients who are either scheduled for surgery or contemplating total joint replacement. Using graphics and x-rays, it gives an overview of a normal joint, arthritic joint and replacement joint. Surgeons are also able to customize and annotate the images to support patient discussion. The hope is that this app will help engage patients while educating them about procedures.

The Stryker app isn’t the first example of iPad technology being used for patient education. Last year the Florida Hospital for Children launched a pilot app called jLog which uses videos and animations to educate patients about the procedure they are about to have. The application features animated, relatable characters that visually demonstrate what a child will experience and answers questions in conversational dialogue.

Since its launch last year, the iPad has demonstrated its value not only as a data and diagnostic device but perhaps more importantly as a patient engagement tool. With the very first medical app approved this month by the FDA and predictions that 20% of healthcare professionals will be using iPads during their daily practice by the end of this year, it seems that the iPad is on its way to becoming a ubiquitous component of the healthcare experience.