Health 2.0 Europe or why I finally ventured away from North America
More than 500 attendees representing 15+ countries assembled at this week's conference to hear from leaders in online health from the Denmark, Germany, Hungary, the UK, the US, and many more. We heard about initiatives that connect patients to physicians or to each other and use technology to integrate patients into health care systems. We also learned about new self-care tools for patients and search engines or integrated platforms that provide content to patients and physicians.
After three years of conferences in the United States, the beautiful city of Paris was host to Health 2.0 for its European debut. It was quite a success, and quite a new scouting experience for me. As a volunteer, throughout this conference, I had a great look at the "behind the scenes" work that goes on. Working on the speaker management team also facilitated networking.
Matthew Holt moderated the first session around search and content which consisted of 3.5 minute demos from Orphanet, MedWord, Health on the Net Foundation, Healthline Networks, Organized Wisdom, and Webicina. The second session around patients and online communities was moderated by Indu Subaiya, and also included great demos from Pagine Mediche.it, ACOR, PatientsLikeMe, iWantGreatCare, imedo. This session also included commentary by Alexander Schachinger from Humbolt University Berlin and Susannah Fox from Pew Internet Project. The final session on Day 1 was moderated by Denise Silber and included demos of Sermo, Medting Doctors.net.uk, doc2doc, Neurosurgic, and Sante Log.
...to be continued
Giddyup! Horses teaching future doctors
I wish I remembered how I stumbled upon this clip, but like so many things, it has evaporated into the ether/webulous/what-have-you.
In any event, this fun clip from NBC shows students at Stanford Medical School learning about communication and interpersonal skills from horses. Unfortunately the clip is old (2007) but it is still an interesting concept. Looks like Stanford is still offering the class, and students are still enjoying it as evidenced by this blog.
The clip is posted courtesy of Horsensei, which offers a range of programs for equine-assisted learning (for your job, your medical school, your birthday, etc.)
Am I smarter than a fifth grader?
I didn't expect any red marks!
Nope. But hey, since I don't do the game show circuit for a living, the ability to respond to questions about obscure or not so obscure facts is not a top priority. But having the skills to ensure patient safety (especially when I am the patient or recipient of services) by preventing medical errors (more especially when you are the healthcare professional or provider of services), now that's a priority I can wrap my brain around. Health literacy, especially as it relates to patient safety, is a pretty hot topic. And whose literacy is always in question? Why, it's the patient's, of course. How refreshing to follow a tweet and find that in the UK, folks at the National Health Service (NHS) North West Strategic Health Authority think it's important to assess literacy/numeracy skills of aspiring healthcare professionals.
This very brief article Online assessment in numeracy set to improve patient safety in Nursing Times cites the results of a survey in which 87% of users thought the NHS assessment would improve patient safety. The article further pointed out that...
...despite the fact that the ability to make accurate calculations is an essential skill for all healthcare professionals to ensure patient safety, it is possible to attain a senior clinical role without ever taking a numeracy assessment.
So, even though I can't actually harm anyone (by accident) where I work, I thought I'd assess my own skills. Here are a few things I learned:
- I don't speak English; I speak American, and "realisation" is not misspelled
- My literacy skills are Level 2, and if the senate and congress continue to beg to differ on reforming healthcare, I can use other NHS resources to see how my skills match healthcare jobs in England, Scotland and other crown holdings
- It's probably a good thing that my computer froze during the numeracy test, as I have no idea if a penny is the same as a pence; I was only guessing that there might be 100 pence in a pound (the 'L' symbol with squiggly line through it)
- I might want to get my hearing checked, since my incorrect answers on the literacy portion involved listening/attending to an audio clip
But seriously, even though screening for literacy/numeracy skills seems like a good thing to do and people think it would improve patient safety, I know more than a few sticklers who'll want to see some evidence.
It was a little tricky finding the tool, so click on this handy dandy link if you'd like to try it out. C'mon what's one more assessment.
More on the mHealth Networking Conference
In follow-up to last week's post about the mHealth Networking Conference, I thought I'd share some of the summaries that have popped up around the web. Here they are, in no particular order:
Federal Telemedicine News: Status of Mobile Health
MobileHealthWatch.com: Mobile apps highlight possibilities, hurdles
SPEC: Smart Health Apps, Medical Devices and the Future of Mobile Health Debated
FierceMobileHealthcare: Mobile health technology leads the revolution
MobiHealth News: Does mHealth need a doctor's prescription? (probably!)
New Medical Schools Opening in the US
Today the New York Times told me that the US is planning on opening some new medical schools. In fact, they're planning on increasing the number of US medical schools by 18% over the next few years. Whoa!
The age-old discussion of whether MORE doctors is really the answer is touched upon in this article. I never went to medical school (obviously!), so I had no idea that folks could apply to 30 medical schools and receive rejections from 28 of them! More schools seems like a great idea to me, and probably to the students paying the admission fees to 30 medical schools knowing full well that they will receive mostly rejection.
The skeptics of curing the workforce issue by simply minting more doctors say that even if more doctors are accepted and study, they will most likely not go into practice in places where they're needed most - like primary care doctors in rural areas. Alas! They are probably right, too. Currently, primary care and family medicine have taken huge hits in their enrollment because of less than stellar reimbursements from insurance companies. Specialties are really where the money is at, and when you're looking at all the debt you incur becoming a doctor... well, honestly, I'd most likely go where I was most likely to make dough to pay off my education.
The article touches on a lot of different issues, of which I won't repost here since I'm going to be busy looking at all the new medical schools in Pennsylvania and rethinking my career. 
First International mHealth Networking Conference (I was there!)
Last week (February 3-4, 2010) I attended the mHealth Networking Conference in DC. Sponsored by mHealth Initiative Inc (mHI), the conference was focused around the use of emerging mobile technologies to improve healthcare delivery. Here are a few themes to give you a flavor: iPhones/mobile phones/Android phones, emailing your doctor, bringing evidence to practice via electronic alerts for patients and physicians, home health monitoring, real-time everything, connectivity, usability, patient literacy, technologies for chronic care management and geriatrics.) The full program seems to still be available, and relevant Twitter posts (e.g., for the #mHealth hash tag) are also available.
Throughout the conference I met a mixture of providers (physicians, nurses, PAs, etc), insurance company representatives, techies/code crunchers, expert patients, and informatics researchers. In fact, according to the mHI, there were about 300 attendees - not too bad for a first shot! Note: A second conference is planned for September 8-9 in San Diego (perhaps they'll provide an option for joining remotely?)
One of the biggest take-home messages I got from the conference is that smart phone technologies won't necessarily solve problems for patients who won't or can't use them (e.g., geriatric patients who may not be able to see small lettering). Usability and design issues again rear their heads in healthcare. We need to attack these issues as a "net", tackling many simultaneously so that when convergence occurs, quality improvement is what emerges.
I also wanted to mention that it was especially interesting to see Adam Bosworth, formerly of Google, present on his new venture Keas, which has the following laudable mission:
To help you understand what your health data means and how you can use it to be as healthy as possible.
Keas is in Beta right now - check it out! (And consider this question: How might healthcare change if the act of interpreting results of diagnostic tests and deciding next steps in treatment is done by a company like Keas?)
e-Patient Infiltrates Medical Professional Assessment Organization
On January 11, we had a guest come in and shake things up a bit here. Jen McCabe Gorman gave a really engaging talk (which can be found here if you’ve got an hour to kill and feel like you could use some stimulation) about medicine, social media, and how the two can be mashed together to help you become a participant in your care as opposed to simply the object of your doctor’s care.
We had a record turnout for her morning session – literally, I think we set a record for attendance! – and then she took the rest of her day to brainstorm with smaller groups of us about topics like patient safety and communication skills (See inset pictures of the white boards... it's okay if you don't understand them. I don't think I do anymore, either. But while she was drawing them, they really made sense!). It was really interesting to see the crowd really start trying to see things from a different perspective, that of the "expert patient" or e-Patient. Even a youngster like me (almost 3 years here which is a drop in the bucket for some folks) has been indoctrinated into thinking that an “expert" must have a bunch of letters after his or her name and run a medical school or a hospital. Jen’s perspective was, in a word used by many folks at the presentation, refreshing!
And now for a non-solicited plug: You should really follow Jen on twitter for awesome scouting tidbits, and get involved in her #getupandmove initiative. It’s a way to challenge your friends to improve their health by making microchoices about their activities. Also, you should check Jen out on LinkedIn to see the many projects she has and is working on currently.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll look at Jen’s profile and think, “She’s just about the same age as me… what the heck have I been doing with my life?!” Yeah. She’s that awesome. And productive. And hopefully a collaborator for many moons to come!
Relatedly, there are now hundreds of hospitals who are finally "getting it" as far as utilizing social media tools to create better strategies for caring for their patients. See if your local hospital is on the list!
About Face! The MIT Media Lab assesses microexpressions
When I was catching up on posts from one of my favorite blogs, Brain Pickings, I stumbled upon this post about a software application developed by the Affective Computing Group at the MIT Media Lab. The application, called FaceSense, detects and analyzes facial gestures in real-time, and then uses that information to make inferences about the person's mood and emotional state. As Brain Pickings points out:
An accurate disposition detection model for video can be used in anything from analyzing politicians’ televised appearances to testing news anchors for bias.
The possibilities - both wonderful and nefarious - are endless. Check out the video to find out more!
Patient involvement – Another public service announcement
Apparently this video has been out for some time, but someone asked me today if I'd seen the AHRQ commercial about asking your doctor questions. The video really needs no explanation; it's a great message. Share it with every patient you know!
Perfecting patient care
Since my last post referred to people who make healthcare better, a post on "Perfecting Patient Care" seemed appropriate. I recently made a short field trip across the great state of PA to Pittsburgh, where I learned you cannot hail a cab easily, but you can find the dedicated staff at the Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF) and Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PRHI) doing their best to address patient safety and quality improvement, often in one patient care setting at a time.
In her dual role as president of JHS and co-founder of PRHI, our highly energetic colleague Karen Wolk Feinstein and a fine cast of PRHI staff eagerly introduced us to "Perfecting Patient Care (PPC)," which is based on the "lean" concept, using Toyota-based methods. PPC is an interdisciplinary fellowship program targeted at graduate students that runs for eight weeks during the summer. Twenty to 25 students from several local universities learn a different tool or philosophy each week. Paired with a local mentor, they meet weekly at a different healthcare institution and set to work on a problem, identified by the institution. By employing learned observation methods, students are able to identify issues and design an action/improvement plan. It's an overall win-win situation, the fellows learn a valuable team-based problem-solving methodology, and the institution is provided with valuable information and insight into their issue without having to sacrifice staff time.
Can't participate in the fellowship program? There's always PPC University, a 4-day program to train champions and healthcare professionals in practice. Open PPC runs five times a year in Pittsburgh; participants arrive with a goal in mind, e.g., reducing patient falls, eliminating infections, etc., and leave with the design and implementation tools needed to identify the issues, address the problems and attain their goals. Customized PPC focuses the 4-day program on the needs of an individual institution or care setting and is delivered on-site.
"PRHI offers healthcare leaders the necessary tools, expertise, education, models and networks to perfect patient care and safety in their organizations. Using the Toyota Production System as a model, PRHI developed a quality improvement method for clinical settings known as Perfecting Patient Caresm."
There's also something brewing called Tomorrow's Healthcare, but if I tell you about it, I'd have to kill you. Before taking my leave, I was eager to sign up for University, as I'm sure there is something I can work on fixing around here!
To learn more about PPC and other projects and PRHI programs, check out their website or stop in and say hey to Karen, Laura, Linda, Steve, Keith, Barb, Gerry, Colleen, Brian, et al...
Scouting Themes
Research
- Experience-based design: from redesigning the system around the patient to co-designing services with the patient
- Sleep Deprivation, Physician Performance, and Patient Safety
- Education Research: Cognitive performance is preserved in sleep-deprived neurology residents
Bookmarks
- Wellcome Images - Biomedical, humanistic images under creative commons license
- openphoto.net | home to 14843 images
- John Mellencamp Likens Internet To A-Bomb
- Manymoon | Task/Project Management | Google Apps
- Augen's $150 Android tablet hits Kmart circular, coming to stores later this week