As Highlight HEALTH 2.0 celebrates its’ first year following the use of Web 2.0 in health and medicine, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your readership.
Three websites make up the Highlight HEALTH Network:
Each of these sites has a different purpose. Highlight HEALTH 2.0 is a group effort to follow the use of Web 2.0 in health and medicine (if you’re interested in writing a review about a social health network or co-blogging about the integration of Web 2.0 technologies into health and medicine, please let us know). Highlight HEALTH promotes advances in biomedical research to encourage health literacy. Lastly, the Highlight HEALTH Web Directory is an online reference guide for reliable health and medical information.
There are more ways than ever to connect with the Highlight HEALTH Network, including email/RSS, Twitter and Facebook. If you have an internet-enabled cell phone, Highlight HEALTH 2.0 can be accessed via the mobile web.
If you enjoy the articles and reviews here at Highlight HEALTH 2.0, I’d like to ask for your continued support.
… and above all, please continue to read and participate.
Top 5 most popular articles
Here are the most popular articles for 2008 (top 5 based on the number of page views/number of days posted):
- Online Patient Community Battle for Survival: MDJunction
- iMedix: Reliable Health Search and Patient-to-patient Social Network
- Mednar Search … and Hope said, “It is good.”
- Following the Tweets of Health
- Core Biomedical Research Software and Web 2.0 Tools
Thank you and Best of Health in the coming year!
Twitter is a micro-blogging service that allows users to send and receive updates or “tweets”, which are short text-based posts. In contrast to a conventional blog, which combines text, images and links to other websites, a micro-blog post is typically restricted to 140 characters. Twitter users can “follow” others by visiting their profile page and clicking the “follow” button. Following someone simply means you will receive their Twitter updates. Interestingly, Twitter is also frequently being used as an instant messaging service, with lengthy real-time exchanges between users.
You might think that very little can be said when you’re restricted to 140 words, but just the opposite is true. You have to be succinct and get straight to the point. This has been a criticism of Twitter since it was launched in October 2006. Call it what you want. Soundbites … media snacking … everyone is busy today and consuming small bits of information is how we’re keep up with the world’s never-ending data stream.
Although there’s been a great deal of speculation in the blogosphere about the death of Twitter, it remains the most widely used micro-blogging service. I’ve mentioned previously that Twitter is a useful communication tool. The social media service allows you to connect with other people who share your interests. I’ve found a great many people interested in health and medicine on Twitter, and have been actively using it since early this year.
Mark Hawker, a health care informatician in the U.K., recently published a list of the Top 30 Health Tweeple or Twitter users. I’m honored to be one of the 30 Twitter users on the list. The top 30 health tweeple include physicians, nurses, medical librarians, medicine and health 2.0 educators and advocates, and healthcare entrepreneurs from around the world. Mark compiled the list of health tweeple you should follow “based on the quality of their contributions and their overall influence in the field.”
However, it was soon realized that many health tweeple were missing from the list. Thus, Mark’s follow-up post, The Forgotten Health Tweeple rounds the list up to 50. Although many of the top 50 health tweeple I already follow, Mark’s list introduced me to others I had not yet discovered.
Even though it’s subjective, I think Mark’s top 50 list accurately identifies people that are actively “tweeting” and discussing health, health 2.0 and medicine 2.0 online. This niche social network within a social network — the health community on Twitter — posts useful and informative content and frequently engages one another, exchanging information and resources. If you use Twitter and you’re interested in health, I highly recommend you follow the top 50 health tweeple.
Interestingly, consumers are also looking for companies on social media websites. Indeed, a recent study found that 93% of social media users believe a company should have a presence in social media [1]. This means that brands are being recognized and sought after in a social media environment. I mention this because I maintain two separate Twitter accounts, one for the Highlight HEALTH Network, which provides a way for Twitter users to stay up-to-date with new articles and resources posted on the Highlight HEALTH websites, and a second for personal use (my personal account made the top 30 list). Feel free to follow both.
A word of caution: in my experience, it’s difficult to keep up with the flow of information when you follow too many people. I try very hard to only follow people that are engaging and share my interests. Even when you’re media snacking, you can eat too much!
Here’s a tip: easily keep up with tweets directed at you by locating the RSS link at the bottom of the @Replies page and subscribing to it in your feed reader. You can also convert the feed to email using a service such as Feed My Inbox and you’ll always know when someone sends you a tweet, even if you’re not currently using Twitter.
References
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Cone Finds that Americans Expect Companies to Have a Presence in Social Media. Cone Inc. press release. 2008 Sep 25.
Welcome to the twenty-seventh edition of Medicine 2.0, the bi-weekly blog carnival of the best posts pertaining to web 2.0 and medicine.
Medicine 2.0 is the science of maintaining and/or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis and treatment of patients utilizing web 2.0 internet-based services, including web-based community sites, blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, folksonomies (tagging) and Really Simple Syndication (RSS), to collaborate, exchange information and share knowledge. Physicians, nurses, medical students and health researchers who consume web media can actively participate in the creation and distribution of content, helping to customize information and technology for their own purposes.
Communication amongst and between healthcare professionals and healthcare consumers is a necessary element to improve health and is critical for the delivery of optimal medical outcomes.
This edition of Medicine 2.0 covers a wide array of posts with one thing in common — Communication.
Web 2.0 Tools and Slideshows
Gunther Eysenbach’s Random Research Rants
Dr. Gunther Eysenbach presents an archiving system for Citing Blogs, Preserving Cited Webpages etc with WebCite.
Clinical Cases and Images
Do you Twitter? Dr. Ves Dimov offers A Doctor’s Opinion: Why I Started Microblogging on Twitter.
Scienceroll
23andMe presented a slideshow recently in Second Life in the latest session of the Scifoo Lives On series. Dr. Bertalan Meskó covers 23andMe in Second Life: LIVE.
Jay Parkinson+ MD + MPH
Dr. Jay Parkinson asks us to Look, posting a presentation from George Halvorson, CEO of Kaiser Permanente, about health reform.
Pharma 2.0
Bunny Ellerin writes about Within3 and the results of a survey at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference. There’s no doubt that social media is Changing Physician Behavior.
Online Video
Gene Sherpas: Personalized Medicine and You
Dr. Steve Murphy writes about the upcoming second Helix Health CliniCast on genetic testing, genomic medicine and the science of accurate warfarin dosing, asking How’s that for Genomic Medicine by Press Release?
Digital Pathology Blog
The Digital Pathology Blog reports that Mayo Launches YouTube Channel with videos highlighting the latest research and treatment advances at Mayo Clinic.
WSJ Health Blog
The Wall Street Journal Health Blog discusses online doctor consults, announcing that The Doctor Will See You on the Webcam Now.
Information Tools and Tests
College@Home
Many of us might forget there’s other search tools out there besides Google. Laura Milligan provides a comprehensive list of 100 Useful Niche Search Engines You’ve Never Heard Of.
davidrothman.net
David Rothman posts An Evaluation of the Five Most Used Evidence Based Bedside Information Tools in Canadian Health Libraries, a recent study published in the journal Evidence Based Library and Information Practice.
Medgadget
Personalized Medical Search Engine: With Medgadget describes the inclusion of Medgadget in Scienceroll Search, a personalized medical search engine powered by Polymeta.com.
NursingDegree.Net
Jessica Merritt highlights a number of ways to use Google’s Personal Health Record (PHR), offering The Ultimate Guide to Google Health: 60+ Tips and Resources.
Canadian EMR
Digital records and privacy can be a mixed bag. Alan Brookstone reposts the media report UK Health Agency Loses 31,000 Patients Records.
Sharp Brains
Alvaro Fernandez writes about the Brain Age, Posit Science, and Brain Training Topics, reporting both good and bad news regarding the assessment and training of cognitive skills.
Microarray Blog
Albin Paul discusses the options for a Semantic Search Engine for PubMed — Microsoft Vs Yahoo Vs Google Vs Oracle in Semantic Web Search.
Tomographyblog
András Székely discusses TomographyBlogSearch in the Making, describing the SeekRadiology Project, a search engine for diagnostic imaging.
Doctor-patient Communication
Canadian Medicine
Graham Lanktree reviews a study of prepared patients and internet information, which finds that the Web Buoys Doctor-patient Communication.
Medical Economics
Gail Garfinkel Weiss writes how the shift from authority-based medicine to one of shared responsibility is playing out in the exam room in The New Doctor-patient Paradigm.
The iPhone
Dr Penna
Dr. Sreeram Penna provides a list of health care applications currently available for the iPhone in Mobile Medical Software for the Iphone 3g.
Efficient MD
Dr. Joshua Schwimmer also writes about potential applications on the iPhone for doctors in The New 3G iPhone, the App Store, and Doctors.
Conclusion
That concludes the 27th edition of Medicine 2.0. My thanks to everyone who submitted an article. You can find more information about the carnival as well as the hosting schedule and past editions at the Medicine 2.0 Website.
Have you written a blog post about web 2.0 and medicine? Submit it to the next edition of Medicine 2.0 using the carnival submission form.
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