Health Care 2.0
June 17, 2008
You may have heard the phrase “Web 2.0.” It refers to how we are now in the second phase of the role that the Internet plays in our lives.
Originally the Web was a source of information and entertainment, written and produced by “professionals.”
In recent years, Internet users have themselves moved onto the Web - actively creating content, blogs, and new software and tools. You could say that the Internet has exploded, and is continuing to explode.
So Health 2.0, then, involves these new ways of using the Web in order to share and make use of health care information. As with Web 2.0, oftentimes this means promoting a very individualized and personal online experience.
Country Living
June 13, 2008
Most Americans live in cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas and suburbs. Around 1 in 5 Americans live in the “country” – farms as well as small towns.
When country folks get really sick or injured, they typically have to make the long trip to a city medical center to get expert help. Though 20% of America’s population is rural, only 9% of its doctors are.
A recent study suggests that special programs in medical school to train students for country caregiving could boost the numbers of doctors available.
The Benefits of Telehealth
March 11, 2008
If necessity is the mother of invention, then it should be no surprise the innovative world of computer science and technology is being harnessed to help bring down health care costs.
Telehealth - or remote patient monitoring - refers to when medical experts use a digital network (like the internet or telephone lines) to provide automated monitoring and treatment delivery to a patient who is in a different physical location. This can range from email messages of basic care instructions to remote robotic surgery.
Dr. Net
February 25, 2008
Around 3/4 of the U.S. go online at least occasionally, an amount that by some accounts is up 80% since 2000. It should be no surprise then that a segment of these folks are using the Internet as a resource to troubleshoot their health problems. And like the number of those who use the Internet for entertainment, information or communication, the number of e-patients is steadily increasing.
Nurses Prefer Contact to Computers
January 9, 2008
Picture yourself in a hospital bed. Unpleasant, for sure. But aside from family and maybe friends and a super-competent doctor, what’s the most reassuring presence? A nurse. Nurses are often the lifeblood of hospital care - performing the doctors instructions, making sure you’re as comfortable as possible, administering the pain meds and fetching an extra blanket. But the question is now becoming: would you rather have a nurse hovering over you or hovering over a computer? As hospitals move to adopt new technology to help insure quality of care and to reduce medical errors, nurses find they’re getting more and more face-time with a computer screen than with their patients.
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