HIMSS 2010 is the largest Health IT conference of the year. I spent the last 3 days interviewing exhibitors in Atlanta about what’s hot in healthcare. For this segment I Skyped in to ABC News in DC to discuss some of the most interesting gadgets that I discovered during my interview process. The segment was short, so I only had the chance to present 3 devices: the Panasonic Tough Book, the GE Vscan, and Radar Find’s RFID tags.
This year, the Better Health team will be offering live coverage of healthcare’s largest tech conference: HIMSS in Atlanta, March 1-4. Three medical bloggers, Dr. Val Jones, Dr. Mike Sevilla, and Dr. Nick Genes will interview over 40 different exhibitors and stream their interviews live via UStream. You can ask questions of the interviewees by submitting questions to @drval during the event. Dr. Val Jones will report to ABC News, DC via Skype from the convention floor on Wednesday, March 3rd at 10:50am. Here’s a sneak preview of HIMSS:
Stay tuned to the Better Health blog for more information about HIMSS coverage… Or meet Dr. Val at HIMSS during her “Meet The Bloggers” panel discussion. Read more »
Today I presented 20 slides in 20 seconds each at the ePatient Connections conference in Philadelphia. It was in the new “Pecha Kucha” format whereby the presenter must encapsulate her thoughts very carefully as the slides advance automatically each 20 seconds.
I decided to do it as a Limerick, since timing could be more easily gaged that way. I wasn’t sure how the presentation would be received, but the crowd loved it and asked for a copy of my slide deck… so for you conference attendees who wanted it… here it is:
And here is what I was reading as the show advanced (the slides advanced every 2 verses). Enjoy! Read more »
All I could think of when I saw this photo was Gordon Ramsay screaming that the Cream of Wheat was lumpy.
But she’s smiling, so this can’t be Hell’s Kitchen.
It’s more like pot-luck-in-the-break-room.
Cherry Ames got in trouble for “sampling bread and butter” in the ward kitchen, which was apparently against the rules back in the day.
Now you can come into my department and have a four-course meal laid out on the table, which is great for morale but bad for those of us babes with too much “back”.
And when it really does look like “Hell’s Kitchen” in the ER, nothing boosts your serotonin like a big, chocolate brownie, or nacho cheese Doritos!
Sometimes it feels like my shift is one big exercise of will power, and I usually poop out by by 0300. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Emergiblog*
1. Myth #1: Breast cancer doesn’t run in my family, so I’m less likely to get it.
A strong family history predicts breast cancer in only 5-10% of women in the US. In fact, 80% of breast cancer cases occur in women with no known family history of breast cancer whatsoever.
2. Myth #2: A lump in my breast means that I have breast cancer. Read more »
New Media guru Clay Shirky was the keynote speaker at the Management of Change conference in Norfolk, Virginia. His recent book, Here Comes Everybody, is considered a must-read by most web 2.0 enthusiasts. Clay and I escaped the conference for a tête-á-tête at a local Starbucks where we wrestled with the thorny issues of healthcare and crowd sourcing.
Dr. Val: I’ve noticed that there is a difference between being right and being influential. Doctors are having a hard time adjusting their tone to be more compelling in a social media culture. What do you think physicians can do to be more influential online?
Shirky: The problem is that, since we all die eventually, everyone will be unhappy with their healthcare at some point. This creates a social dilemma that’s neither transitory nor small. First, there will always be snake oil salesmen peddling “eternal life,” and second, there will always be an unhappy faction who rail against the medical establishment. You should not try to stamp out that faction, but referee it. Federalist Papers No. 10 states that faction is the normal case of government - the trick is not to allow factions to gain disproportionate power. Physicians need to realize that patients have different priorities than they do, and speak to those as much as possible.
Dr. Val: What do you mean that we have different priorities?
Shirky: Take Medpedia for example - physicians are eager to write about rare types of liver cancer, but they don’t want to write about the basics of biopsy technique. For the physician, it’s perfectly obvious what a liver biopsy entails, so he/she doesn’t think to write about it. But the patient is probably more interested in learning about biopsy procedure than the scientific details of a rare liver cancer. The entries in Medpedia strongly reflect physician interests and priorities, though the resource is ultimately supposed to serve the educational needs of patients.
Dr. Val: What’s the best way to close that gap in priorities?
Shirky: We need to fuse the conversation between physicians and patients. The more they work together, the more valuable the content will be.
Dr. Val: What do you think about the trend towards “user-generated healthcare?”
Shirky: It’s important to have checks and balances. When lay people discuss medicine, their unguided conversation can degenerate into vitamin hucksterism. I think that whole movement was initiated when the FDA decided not to regulate the supplement industry - people have been used to getting input from others who aren’t scientifically qualified. Now everyone gives medical advice, and people listen.
Social media is a very new phenomenon. We have not figured out how to apply good checks and balances yet - amateurs’ opinions and voices can drown out the experts. We want to believe that everyone’s opinion is equally valid - but that’s just not the case. In the end, quality and clarity of messaging is a source of power.
Sam Solomon over at Canadian Medicine, did a great job of introducing our recent interview. Please check it out.
Educated in Nova Scotia before she moved to the United States to do degrees in biblical studies and medicine, Dr Val Jones is now one of the most popular physician bloggers. Her work has appeared in MedPage Today, Revolution Health, a now-defunct blog called Dr. Val and The Voice of Reason and, most recently, her own internet company Better Health.
Last year, Dr Jones was accredited as a member of the National Press Club in Washington, DC, and has focused much of her recent reporting on health policy reform efforts. She still practises medicine part-time as a rehab specialist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Dr Jones is also a talented cartoonist and her cartoons‘ take on medicine displays a sharp, wry sense of humour.
This week, Dr Val agreed to answer some questions for Canadian Medicine:
Canadian Medicine: Did you know as an undergrad at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that you wanted to be a physician?
Click here for the rest of the post.
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