November 23rd, 2011 by Berci in Opinion
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For the last 4 years, I’ve been teaching medical and public health students about the use of social media and generally digital technologies in medicine and healthcare and I got a good picture of what kind of medical professionals they would become soon. They represent the new generation of physicians.
Here are my points and observations:
- They are technophile. I remember the time when there was no internet, I remember the first website I first saw online. They were born into the technology and internet-based world. For them, websites, Facebook, Twitter and blogs represent the basics. They love gadgets and devices.
- They are fast. They use smartphones, read news online, follow blogs and know what RSS is, they are familiar with multi-tasking. They are much faster than the previous generations, therefore they need different tools and solutions in their work.
- But they use the technology for Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
November 5th, 2011 by Berci in Announcements
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There is a new social campaign being launched right now on Webicina.com that curates the medical resources of social media in 80 topics in 18 languages:
We receive hundreds of suggestions from empowered patients and medical professionals every week about which social media resources should be included in our selections, and we thought we must find a way to let them know how much we appreciate their help.
So now we kindly ask you to tell us your story about how social media helped you improve your health management or helped you get better in your specialty in order to win grand prizes.
As we curate resources in basically all the social media platforms, you can tell your story in any platforms from Twitter and Facebook to blogs and Youtube. Your submissions will be Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
October 28th, 2011 by DavidHarlow in Opinion
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I’m back from my pilgrimage to Rochester, MN for the Third Annual Health Care Social Media Summit at the Mayo Clinic, presented by Ragan Communications. I had a great time, and want to share the experience with you. So please take a look at the archived #mayoragan tweets, my presentation on health care social media and the law, and my blog posts about the pre-conference and the summit itself posted at HealthWorks Collective. Here are some excerpts:
Mayo Ragan Social Media Summit Pre-Conference:
A recurring theme in my hallway conversations [today] was that it is impossible to transplant a successful program from one location to another without taking into account myriad local conditions (social media program, heart transplant program – same problem). As I always say to folks Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
October 10th, 2011 by DavidHarlow in Health Policy, News
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On September 14, HHS released for comment draft lab results regulations that will, if finalized, effectively bathe the Achilles’ heel of health data in the River Styx of ¡data liberación! All lab results will be made available to patients, just like all other health data. (See the HHS presser and YouTube video from the recent consumer health summit. Todd Park, HHS CTO, is also the chief activist for what he calls ¡data liberación!)
Forgive me for mixing my metaphors (or whatever it is I just did), but even though there are just a couple dozen words of regulations at issue here, this is a big deal.
When HIPAA established a federal right for each individual to obtain a copy of his or her health records, in paper or electronic format, there were a couple of types of records called out as specifically exempt from this general rule of data liberation, in the HIPAA Privacy Rule, 45 CFR § 164.524(a)(1): psychotherapy notes, information compiled for use in an administrative or court proceeding, and lab results from what is known as a CLIA lab or a CLIA-exempt lab (including “reference labs,” as in your specimens get referred there by the lab that collects them, or freestanding labs that a patient may be referred to for a test; these are not the labs that are in-house at many doctors’ offices, hospitals and other health care facilities — the in-house labs are part of the “parent” provider organization and their results are part of the parents’ health records already subject to HIPAA).
(“CLIA” stands for the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988, which established quality standards for certain laboratory testing.)
This carveout of lab results from patient-accessible records has long been a thorn in the side of the e-patient. This month, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
September 24th, 2011 by DavidHarlow in Opinion
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I spoke on health care social media and regulatory compliance at the Health Care Compliance Association’s New England Regional Annual Conference last week. As you may expect, the room was full of the folks who, generally speaking, are the folks who block social media sites on health care organization networks. I sent a link to an online bio to one of the session organizers in advance, and even that site was blocked by his facility’s network. Clearly, we have a long way to go in educating health care compliance professionals about the risks and benefits of using health care social media, and an appropriate approach to balancing these risks and benefits so as to establish an appropriate social media presence for each health care organization.
My talk was followed by a presentation by two federal prosecutors, one of whom reminded the audience that they may need to produce copies of all online postings in response to government document requests or subpoenas. We may quibble about the scope of material that might be covered by such a production request, but the key takeaway from this comment should be Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
