In Health Care Today, It's Electronic All the Way

I came across this article on Yahoo's front page captioned - 'Telemedicine' helps doctors see patients, give advice from afar (October 3, 2009). The link from the article was actually titled - In Health Care Today, It's Electronic All the Way, and can be viewed at url: http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/inhealthcaretodayitselectronicalltheway
Since I am talking a class in Telemedicine I decided to share the link to the this article so that others may benefit from reading it as well.

The article highlights how technology is opening new ways by which healthcare and healthcare data can be delivered to providers in the field from remote and mobile locations.

I would definitely recommend this article to anyone interested in Telemedicine.

Uses of Second LifeTM in doctor-patient relationships.

Second Life created by Linden Labs of San Francisco provides a 3D virtual environment where users can create a user account and using an avatar connect with other individuals as well as health care providers and create doctor-patient relationships. My first foray into Second Life left me with a feeling that I have not quite seen or experienced anything like this before. It was a feeling that provided a very surreal experience.

My self-exploratory tours of Second Life gave me some exposure to this new medium, but it was not till I took a virtual tour of Second Life with faculty’s Ms. Bernadette Swanson, that I began to understand the various tools available to users such as customizing one’s size, clothes, being able to make purchases using Linden currency. It is then that I began to grasp the versatility under the guise of anonymity this medium offered.

Knowing what I know now, I can definitely envision several areas where Second Life can assist in fostering and facilitating the doctor –patient relationships/interactions.

For instance, I can envision individuals who are shy or may have poor self-image of themselves could take on a fantasy character and while being in complete anonymity have therapy sessions with their doctor. Or for instance if someone had challenges secondary to an anxiety disorder such as Agoraphobia may benefit from interacting with others in a virtual environment and find this medium to be therapeutic.

Another area where I think a patient-doctor relationship can take advantage of the virtual environment offered by Second Life is teaching patients basic independent living skills of Money Management. Since Second Life offers the ability for users to make purchases using Linden Dollars it provides a perfect opportunity to for healthcare providers to work directly with their patients in a quasi controlled environment. It provides for an opportunity for the patients to empower themselves without sacrificing their personal independence in delicate matters such as money management skills.

While the above examples may represent only tip of an iceberg in terms of how the virtual environment of Second Life can be used to assist in fostering and facilitating the doctor –patient relationships/interactions, there are however some pitfalls too. Such as navigating in Second Life entails one be able to process and execute multi-tasking skills. For patients having difficulty with processing information and ability multi-task, this medium could be an hindrance. Also patients with low frustration tolerance would probably find Second Life’s environment to be challenging and a source of negative stimuli. Additionally, in order to fully benefit from Second Life’s virtual environment one would need to have a decent internet connection, per Second Life’s help section Cable or DSL, and hardware relatively newer (2-3 years old) computer.

All in all, I believe Second Life provides an excellent medium for fostering patient-doctor exchange, while respecting the patient’s privacy and not to mention the comfort of remote Telemedicine. Good for the doctor, the patient and the environment.

If it quacks like a duck, looks like a duck then it probably is a duck...

After reading a few blogs written by Healthcare Professionals (doctors, nurses, etc.) on various topics I began to wonder most of the time when patients go to see Doctors and other Healthcare providers they really don't come to know what the doctors personal position might be on certain political and social hot topics.

In fact, for the most part patients are hustled from a larger waiting room to a smaller waiting room, see a doctor, a nurse practitioner or perhaps a physician's assistant and off they go. There is no time for "getting to know you". However, web blogs can change all of that - for good and bad.

For instance, let's consider one of the current hot topics such as Health Care Reform. Let's assume a health care practitioner has a blog that provides a social commentary on why he/she may feel that illegal immigrants (yes, a hot topic) are a drain on the health care system. Knowing this would our opinion of this healthcare provider's ability to provide unbiased professional service irrespective of their patient's ethnic make-up and their personal beliefs change. After all, healthcare practitioners are not in the business of immigration enforcement and nor are they qualified to discern legal from an illegal immigrant. That's not their job, but their web blog now takes the shape of their personal opinions which one might say have bearing on their professional life.

On the other hand, an healthcare practitioner, let's say for the sake of an argument an MD, may have a blog that goes over the benefits non-traditional medicine such as acupuncture, acupressure, etc. Now in this case, there are some patients who may welcome reading such a blog wherein they may feel the MD is open to other non-scientific interventions.

Of course, the above examples are an over-simplification for purposes of illustration. Never the less, they point to one basic element that is - people are either going to like or dislike you for your personal opinion and their personal opinion of you may taint their professional opinion of you as well.

As they say.....if it quacks like duck, looks like a duck then it probably is a duck

"How Safe Are Your Medical Records?"

"How Safe Are Your Medical Records?"

I came across this article while doing some research on the internet and decided to share it as it has direct bearing on the use of Internet and the Future of Healthcare.

The article, published in Forbes magazine dated 06-03-09, provides details medical data theft at the University of Berkeley and how hackers were able to steal data from separate servers over a a span of six months, which included information such as Social Security numbers, birth dates and addresses, and immunization records.

Per the article, all in all the security breach affected 160,000 people, most of them current and former students. However, what was interesting for me was the close relationship one would not otherwise expect one's medical data could have to one's financial well being. For most people, I would assume, if someone stated that their medical records, then we may dismiss the theft by saying what is someone going to gain by knowing I had x, y or z condition. Since we are more focused on the medical theft aspect of the breach, we would not innately think someone could open false accounts under our name.

However, since name, address and date of birth information along with social security is standard information with all medical records it is not hard to see how one's financial well being can be exploited from one's medical records.

All in all, it was an interesting article to read. Should you interested then the entire article can be viewed at the following url: http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/03/health-identity-theft-lifestyle-health-medical-records.html

Cheers!

3 Reasons Why I Won't Use Twitter's Geolocation Feature

"3 Reasons Why I Won't Use Twitter's Geolocation Feature
Daniel Ionescu, PC World"

I am across this article on PC Worlds website (dated August 21, 2009). The article describes a new feature that Twitter is going to introduce called Geolocation. Much of the article is focused on the cons of this feature. Relevance to Healthcare? Well, as more and more information is moving to the internet and is in one way or the other, becoming a matter of public domain, the need for privacy is being challenged constantly. It is easier to keep your privacy to begin with then to ask for it back (if not impossible). Now the current course has encouraged us students to open Facebook and Twitter accounts. I have been reluctant to date, primarily over concerns for privacy, but will eventually sign-up (I do of course have to pass the course). However, I would be interested in finding out what the opt out policy is and how difficult or easy it would be to reclaim one's privacy.

The entire article can be read at the following url: http://www.pcworld.com/article/170574/3_reasons_why_i_wont_use_twitters_geolocation_feature.html?tk=nl_dnx_h_crawl

Enjoy!

Pfizer will make clinical trial networking site

Came across the following interesting article...

Pfizer Inc. said Wednesday it will team with information technology company Private Access to create a Web site where patients can find out about clinical trials of new drugs, and where physicians, researchers and drug companies can look for test subjects.

The New York drugmaker said patients will be able to post personal health information at the site, and using privacy options, they will be able to make the information visible only to researchers who are focused on conditions that interest them. Pfizer said that will make it easier for patients to find out about relevant trials, and for researchers and doctors to find the patients they need.

The full article can be accessed at: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Pfizer-will-make-clinical-apf-3202925545.html?x=0&&printer=1

Stanford prof sequences own genome in a week

I came across this article today, Stanford prof sequences own genome in a week. The article touts that in the near future technological progress in the field of DNA sequencing will allow for gene scans to be more affordable and perhaps pave the way to customized disease prevention.

Should you want to read the entire article, then it can be viewed at the following url:

http://www.chieftain.com/articles/2009/08/11/news/latest_news/doc4a8079deb939c029794975.txt

Enjoy!

And You Thought a Prescription Was Private

I came across this article, And You Thought a Prescription Was Private, published in the New York Times on 08-08-09. Very interesting article to say the least, and it goes over the following topics:

1. Personal Health Information
2. Privacy Laws
3. Efforts to de-identify patient information from medical/prescription records

Should anyone be interested in reading this article then they can view it at the following url:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/business/09privacy.html?em)

Introdcution

Hi,

This blog has been setup as part of a Health Informatics course - Internet and the Future of Patient Care - offered through UC Davis's Extension program.

Through the course of the semester I will periodically update this blog as and when I come across relevant reading material pertinent to this course.

Thank you for stopping by.

- Rajiv