November 18th, 2010 by StevenWilkinsMPH in Better Health Network, News, Opinion, Research
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What do cell phones and health-information seeking have in common? Very little, at least among the chronically ill (e.g., the folks who are driving healthcare use and cost). An American Medical News article about the latest Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project study on mobile phone use caught my eye. The introduction to the article reads:
Despite the proliferation of cell phones in the United States, the number of people using them to access health information is low. But experts believe the sheer number of people using mobile phones and wireless devices means that health information eventually will get more mobile as well.
According to the study, 85 percent of Americans use mobile phones, but only 17 percent of cell phone owners have used them to look up health information. Nine percent of Americans have downloaded a health-related app on their cell phone.
Get this: The highest use of cell phone health-information seeking and downloading cell phone health apps was among 18- to 29-year olds at 29 percent and 15 percent respectively. With the exception of accidents, 18- to 29-year-old adults are generally among the most healthy demographic. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Mind The Gap*
November 2nd, 2010 by StevenWilkinsMPH in Better Health Network, News, Opinion, Research
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Over the last year or two, lots of people have been jumping on the social media bandwagon, i.e., Twitter, Facebook, and so on. There has been a lot of talk about how social media and social networking will revolutionize healthcare, but little evidence to back this talk up. Until now, that is.
Before I get to the evidence that I referred to, I need to clarify something. The goal of social media as I understand it is to get people talking, sharing information and creating new ideas. As applied to healthcare, one of the goals of social media is to get people/patients with like medical conditions taking, sharing and supporting one another. Healthcare researchers refer to this phenomenon as peer support. Peer support is not new to healthcare. Disease-specific support groups (breast cancer, diabetes, etc.) have been around for years. “Group” physician office visits comprised of patients with the same diagnosis have been around for years as well.
The Study
Now to the evidence. As anyone with a chronic condition or who treats patient with chronic conditions knows, patient self-care is critical. Knowledge, skills and confidence are prerequisites for effective self-care management. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Mind The Gap*
October 6th, 2010 by StevenWilkinsMPH in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Research, True Stories
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A 69-year-old woman who swims in my master program came back to the pool after a total knee replacement. I asked her how she was doing. She said she is still in a lot of pain because of her physical therapy. She said that her physical therapist was disappointed that she still was still unable to achieve full flexion of 120 degrees. Why 120 degrees? Did you set that goal I asked her? “No,” she said, “the therapist did.”
She went on to tell how she already had more range of motion in her knee than she did before the surgery. My friend was quite satisfied with her progress and wanted to stop physical therapy. The pain from the PT was worse than anything she had experienced before the knee replacement. I knew she and her 80-year-old boy friend were going on a cruise and she didn’t want to still be hobbling around.
It turns out that patients and physicians disagree on quite a few things. We hear a lot about patient-centered care. You know, that’s where the provider is supposed to consider the patient’s needs, preferences, and perspective when diagnosing and treating health problems. But medicine is still very provider-centered. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Mind The Gap*
September 20th, 2010 by StevenWilkinsMPH in Better Health Network, News, Opinion, Research
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According to Marshall Becker, PhD, MPH, a one-time professor of mine and prime mover behind the Health Belief Model (HBM), four things must be in place for health behavior change to occur. I am paraphrasing here:
- A person has to know that they have a particular health condition.
- A person has to believe that having said health condition is bad.
- A person must perceive the benefits of behavior change to outweigh the difficulties of behavior change.
- There must be a “call to action” to spark the change.
Absent any one of these steps and the likelihood that behavior change will occur is diminished. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Mind The Gap*
September 7th, 2010 by StevenWilkinsMPH in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Opinion, True Stories
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A neighbor of mine was diagnosed with breast cancer about the same time my wife was being treated for lung cancer. I saw my neighbor the other day for the first time in several years. I asked her how she was doing. She said great. In turn I asked her how her PET/CT exam looked. PET/CT scans are often done to make sure that one’s cancer hasn’t spread. My wife gets one every year.
My neighbor told me her doctor never told her she needed one, that mammograms would suffice. She went on to say a friend had also recently asked her if she had a PET/CT as well. “Maybe I should ask my doctor,” she told me. That was the same response she gave me the last time I raised the subject two years earlier: “I should ask my doctor.”
So Why Don’t People Ask More Questions?
My neighbor is not alone when it comes to asking their doctor questions. In an earlier post, I cited research which found that patients ask their doctor an average of two important questions during the office visit. According to researchers, there are five reasons why people don’t ask their doctor questions. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Mind The Gap*
