January 1st, 2011 by Berci in Better Health Network, Research
Tags: Berci, Blog 4 Global Health, Dr. Bertalan Mesko, Facebook and Medicine, Global Health Communication, Global Health Council, Health 2.0, Health Bloggers, Healthcare Blogging, Healthcare Social Media, Medical Blogging, Medical Social Networking, Medicine 2.0, Science Roll, Social Media In Medicine, Social Networking and Healthcare, Twitter and Healthcare
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From Blog 4 Global Health — an “interactive blog from the Global Health Council’s Policy, Research and Advocacy team” — here’s The Top 10 in 2010 Global Health Communication. An excerpt:
If global health communication was characterized by anything in 2010, it was the rise of Twitter and other social media among non-profit organizations as a way of bypassing increasingly irrelevant traditional media and taking their messages directly to their target groups. From the Global Health Council, we saw more and more of our members — large and small — embracing new media like blogging, micro-blogging and social networks like Facebook. At the year’s last meeting of our Global Health Communicators Working Group in November, I asked for a show of hands of those whose organizations were not using social media. No hands went up.
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
January 1st, 2011 by Linda Burke-Galloway, M.D. in Better Health Network, True Stories
Tags: Adoption, Being Remembered, Birth, Children, Christmas, Circle Of Life, Death, Deceased Family Members, Dr. Linda Burke-Galloway, Family, Family Life, Holiday Season, Holidays, Human Experience, Infertility, Life Circle, Life Transitions, Loved Ones, Mothers, New Year, OB-GYN, Obstetrics And Gynecology, Pregnancy, Rebirth, Reproductive Health
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The holiday season is a time of both joy and sorrow. Tomorrow a childhood friend will be laid to rest — one of my favorite artists, Teena Marie, died unexpectedly two days ago and at least six other people have made their transitions as well. My own father died unexpectedly on Christmas Eve in 1981 leaving a great void in our family life. Why do people leave us during the holiday season? It has been said because they want to be remembered.
While I lamented about all the transitions that occurred in the past two weeks, one of my best friends announced that she had a new granddaughter that was born on Christmas Day. She stated that this was part of the “life cycle” or “circle of life.” Her comments gave me reason to pause and reflect. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Linda Burke-Galloway*
December 31st, 2010 by Toni Brayer, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips
Tags: Doctor-Patient Communication, Doctor-Patient Connection, Doctor-Patient Responsibility, Dr. Toni Brayer, Everything Health, General Medicine, New Year's Resolutions For Doctors And Patients, Patient-Doctor Partnership, Patient-Doctor Relationship
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#1 Doctor: Resolve to let patients speak without interruption and describe their symptoms.
Patient: Resolve to focus on the problem I am seeing the doctor about and not come with a list of 10 complaints for a 15-minute office visit.
#2 Doctor: Resolve to keep a pleasant tone of voice when answering night and weekend phone calls from the answering service, patients, or nurses.
Patient: Resolve to get my prescriptions filled during office hours, not forget my medications while traveling, and to use night and weekend phone calls for emergencies only.
#3 Doctor: Resolve to exercise a minimum of four times a week for better health.
Patient: Ditto.
#4 Doctor: Resolve to train my staff and model excellent customer service for patients.
Patient: Resolve to understand that getting an instant referral, prescription, note for jury duty, or letter to my insurance company from my doctor is not my God-given right and I will stop [complaining] if it doesn’t happen the day I request it. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*
December 31st, 2010 by PeterWehrwein in Better Health Network, Health Tips, News, Research
Tags: Annals Of Internal Medicine, Cold and Flu, Cold Remedy, Common Cold, Echinacea, Harvard Health Blog, Harvard Health Letter, Harvard Health Publications, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Infectious Disease, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Natural Medicines, Natural Remedies, Nature Medicine, Naturopathy, NCCAM, NIH, Peter Wehrwein, Self-Care
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Does echinacea, the popular natural cold remedy, really work?
It depends on what you mean by “work.” Results [recently] reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that echinacea may reduce the length of a week-long cold by 7 to 10 hours and make symptoms a little less onerous. That can’t be characterized as a major effect, so many people may figure that the trouble and expense of echinacea just isn’t worth it (fortunately, side effects from echinacea don’t seem to be much of an issue.)
But others may decide that some benefit is better than none, and these results do fit with others that have left the door slightly ajar for echinacea having some effect as a cold remedy — a modest effect, but an effect, nonetheless.
A summary for patients published by the Annals summed up the situation nicely:
People who take echinacea to treat colds may experience a decrease in the length and severity of their cold symptoms but to such a small degree that they may not care about the difference. Although many studies of echinacea have been performed, researchers still disagree about its benefits in treating the common cold. This study is unlikely to change minds about whether to take this remedy.
Have you tried echinacea as a cold remedy? Has it worked? How do research findings, pro and con, affect your opinion of so-called alternative medicines?
Many of the echinacea studies, especially early on, were sponsored by companies making or selling the product. This study was supported by a grant from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which is part of the National Institutes of Health.
– Peter Wehrwein, Editor, Harvard Health Letter
*This blog post was originally published at Harvard Health Blog*
December 31st, 2010 by DavedeBronkart in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Research
Tags: Dave deBronkart, e-Patient Dave, e-Patient Skills, e-Patients.net, Empowered Patients, Informed Healthcare Consumer, Informed Healthcare Decisions, Informed Patient, Participatory Medicine, Patient Empowerment, Patient Participation, Practice Variation, Salzburg Global Seminar, Shared Decision-Making, Understanding Statistics
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This is the first of the follow-up posts I hope to write from participating in the Salzburg Global Seminar titled “The Greatest Untapped Resource in Healthcare? Informing and Involving Patients in Decisions about Their Medical Care.”
One of our purposes on this site is to help people develop e-patient skills, so they can be more effectively engaged in their care. One aspect is shared decision making, which we wrote about in September. A related topic, from August, is understanding the challenges of pathology and diagnosis. Both posts teach about being better informed partners for our healthcare professionals.
I’ve recently learned of an another topic, which I’m sure many of you know: Practice variation. This is a big subject, and I’ll have several posts about it. It’s complex, the evidence about it is overwhelming, and its cost is truly enormous. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at e-Patients.net*
