November 18th, 2010 by Felasfa Wodajo, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Interviews, News, Opinion, Research
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[We reported last week from the mHealth Summit in Washington, DC — a conference covering the integration of mobile technologies with medical research, information, diagnosis, treatment, and care.]
One of the highlights of last week’s mHealth Summit was the keynote interview of Bill Gates. While inseparable from his history as founder and leader of Microsoft from 1975 to 2008, his current passion is global health.
Through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has now given 3.8 billion (with a “b”) of targeted philanthropy into global health since 1994, he and his wife Melinda are helping bring about profound change to the lives of millions around the world. In a meeting dedicated to exploring the power of mobile devices to shape health in developed and developing countries, Bill Gates eloquently refocussed our attention towards the real urgency of saving the millions of our fellow humans who die needlessly for want of vaccinations or the simplest treatments. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
October 26th, 2010 by BarbaraFicarraRN in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Health Tips, Interviews, News, Video
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Microsoft’s Dr. Bill Crounse Talks with Todd Park, CTO of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, on Health Tech Today
There’s a plethora of health information for consumers today. We are surrounded by smart meaningful material, but somehow it is easy to get lost in the maze of information. We get stuck navigating through it and we find it hard to obtain information that is right for us.
Even the most savvy health consumer may find it difficult to find information out about healthcare reform, insurance plans and the Affordable Care Act. But Dr. Bill Crounse, host of Health Tech Today talks with Todd Park, CTO of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, about Healthcare.gov — a government website that makes it simple to find information on prevention, consumer rights, health insurance plans, and tools to assess the quality of care you’re getting.
Dr. Crounse calls Todd Park the “tech guru” behind the government website, charged with improving the nation’s health through the innovative use of technology and data. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*
May 16th, 2010 by Berci in Better Health Network, Health Tips, News, Opinion, Research
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Internet addiction is becoming a major problem, and it’s less and less surprising when reports focusing on this issue are being published. Lately, the New York Times came up with the analysis of a recent study:
Researchers at the University of Maryland who asked 200 students to give up all media for one full day found that after 24 hours many showed signs of withdrawal, craving and anxiety along with an inability to function well without their media and social links.
Susan Moeller, the study’s project director and a journalism professor at the university, said many students wrote about how they hated losing their media connections, which some equated to going without friends and family.
I did some research and browsed the website of Microsoft’s Internet Addiction Recovery Program. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
October 29th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Celebrity Interviews
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Joan Lunden
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Former Good Morning America host, Joan Lunden, is getting behind the personal health record industry. As the daughter of a physician, Joan grew up believing that she’d become a doctor one day. She told me that all that came to a screeching halt when she “realized that she didn’t like blood or stitches.” But Joan has always kept women and children’s health advocacy initiatives close to her heart. She will soon be starring in a new Lifetime TV show called Health Corner. I caught up with her about her recent work with PassportMD.
Listen to the podcast here, or read a summary of our discussion below.
Dr. Val: Tell me about your experiences in taking care of your mom, and what led you to become involved with a PHR company.
Lunden: I lost my brother to type 2 diabetes a little over a year ago. As it happens, he had been managing my mom’s medical care, and so with his loss I needed to step in and take it over. Of course she lives on one coast and I live on the other. I’ve got 4 little kids (two sets of twins) and three young adult children. It becomes really daunting to keep track of everyone’s medical care. Around that time I met some folks from PassportMD, and when they showed me how easy it could be to keep everyone’s records in one place, I said, “this is exactly what I need.”
I think I’m really typical of a lot of women out there in what we call “the sandwich generation.” Today a high percentage of women with small children are working outside of the home. It’s really a lot to juggle – a career, raising a family, and getting everyone to the doctor on time – forget about getting YOU to the doctor on time. As good as we women are at nurturing others, we tend to be at the bottom of our own to-do lists.
What I really love about PassportMD is not just the organization (I can immediately see all my kids’ vaccination schedules for example) but the fact that I’m building a family medical history. It’s so important to know your family history so that you can engage in appropriate screening tests and take preventive health measures. This PHR even sends you reminders when its time for immunizations, mammograms, or other appropriate screening tests.
Dr. Val: As a doctor I’ve encountered resistance to PHRs from patients because they don’t want to have to enter all the data themselves. They’d like it to be auto-populated with their medical record data so that they don’t have to start from scratch. Has the PassportMD tool solved that problem?
Read more »
