July 22nd, 2011 by BarbaraFicarraRN in Opinion
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Recently, I had the pleasure of being surrounded by brilliant health care thought leaders. First, I delivered a social media presentation at the Eyeforpharma conference. Secondly, I sat in the audience at the Social Communications and Health Care 2011 conference to listen to others present on social media, and participate in a round-table discussion on social media.
It’s clear from the personal discussion that followed with folks from the pharma industry, medical device companies, and hospitals, that they understand the need for social media (or social networking), but they are cautious to dive in.
A few concerns I’ve heard: “social media can be paralyzing,” “senior leadership in the pharma industry is looking for the FDA to make decisions because it’s such a highly regulated industry,” and “it’s still so new, what’s the ROI?” Concerns are real; however there will always be concerns and questions. Sometimes, the best approach is to just dive right in.
The brilliant reason to dive deep into the social media health space is Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*
July 14th, 2011 by GarySchwitzer in Opinion
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This is not a lesson about the limitations of 140-character messages on Twitter.
Rather, it is a warning about careless Tweets that mischaracterize the real meat of the message in longer stories linked to in the Twitter message. As I wrote on Twitter in response to these two episodes, “Better not to Tweet on complex health care topics than to mischaracterize your own story with a misleading 140 characters.”
First, my friend Andrew Holtz caught the fact earlier this week that Men’s Health Magazine tweeted:
If you’re a smoker, you NEED to get a CT scan. Here’s why: http://ow.ly/5x34y
That “here’s why” link took you to a Men’s Health Magazine story, that despite being headlined “The Medical Test Every Smoker Needs,” went on to explain:
Don’t run out and ask for a CT scan, though. More than 96 percent of the positive screens in the study were false positives, which could subject you to unnecessary surgery, cancer treatments, and the complications that come with them. They’re also expensive: A chest CT scan can cost up to several thousands of dollars.
So look at how silly Men’s Health looked on this confusing back-and-forth message:
1. You NEED to get a CT scan.
2. It’s a test “every smoker needs”
3. But don’t run out and ask for one.
Then this morning I caught AARP doing the same thing. They tweeted:
Are you a smoker? CT scan those lungs – they’re proven to cut risk of lung cancer death for 55-plus: http://aarp.us/rdleHu
That links takes you to a story that includes caveats such as the following: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
July 13th, 2011 by DavidHarlow in Health Policy, Opinion
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I spoke with Harvard Business School professor Regina Herzlinger this week about health reform – the good, the bad and the ugly – touching on ACOs and demonstration projects under the Affordable Care Act; innovations coming down the pike in the private sector either because of the law or because of market forces; social media in health care; and two key fixes to the ACA that she believes are absolutely necessary in order to make it work, or work as best it can.
First of all, she expressed her delight at the passage of a federal law nudging us ever closer to universal coverage, combined with dismay at its failure to address rising costs (noting that we’re looking at policies yielding an accumulated Medicare deficit of $90 trillion, as compared to an annual GDP of $12-14 trillion) and at the paltry fines to be leveled at noncompliant employers that do not offer health insurance as required. As rational actors, she expects that more and more employers will simply opt out of the health care insurance market one way or another: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
July 9th, 2011 by GarySchwitzer in True Stories
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Marilyn Mann is a very smart woman. She’s a securities lawyer. But she’s also educated herself about health care out of necessity. She’s a breast cancer survivor and she has a daughter with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, a genetic disease causing very high LDL-cholesterol. She is one of the administrators of a Facebook group called Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH) Discussion Group – intended primarily for people with FH or their family members.
Recently, Mann got a message from a PR woman who had joined the Facebook page.
“Hi Marilyn,
A few months ago, I had emailed you about some research I was doing about a new treatment for FH. I am now working with a pharmaceutical company, and the company currently has a drug in development to help treat people with severe FH that may not be responding to current therapies. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
June 30th, 2011 by Dr. Val Jones in Announcements
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It is with great pleasure that I welcome our CDC colleagues to the Better Health blog team. Going forward, Better Health will feature content from the CDC blogs on a weekly basis, and our collaborative efforts will be highlighted on the CDC blog pages as appropriate.
Better Health and the CDC share a common mission: to reach as many Americans as possible with scientifically accurate, trustworthy, and helpful medical information. As social media platforms (such as blogs, Twitter, and Facebook) become a gathering place for people seeking health information – it is important for experts to be able to provide content through these channels. The CDC’s relationship with Better Health is an excellent example of a public-private partnership that can magnify reach and relevance.
By becoming a content partner with Better Health, the CDC joins a prestigious international team of physicians, nurses, health experts and patient advocates, including notable organizations such as the American College of Physicians blogs, Harvard Health Publications, Diario Medico, Healthline, the Center For Advancing Health, and the Columbia University Department of Surgery. Read more »
