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.
DNA, Disease, and Discrimination
June 10, 2008
Can you imagine being faced with the difficult decision of having your breasts removed - not because you have breast cancer, but because you’ve determined that you carry the genes for it? Women at risk for the disease can now find out whether they have the same DNA that killed their mothers and grandmothers.
In recent years, advances in genetic research have helped push medicine into realms once reserved for science fiction.
In the 1850s there were only 140 categories of disease, differentiated by their symptoms. By 1993, genetic mapping had allowed scientists to distinguish 12,000 categories of disease, to determine that some diseases were linked genetically despite having widely different symptoms, and to find better drugs and measures to treat or prevent these diseases.
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.
Microsoft Launches HealthVault
November 26, 2007
Microsoft has done it again. While Americans have been hearing inklings of the progress being made on digitizing their health records for a decade, that day may be fast approaching. Banks and retailers have long known how to provide account access to consumers through the internet. But a large majority of doctors’ offices and hospitals use paper records only. While there have always been privacy concerns about storing a patient’s medical history online, the benefits of doing so are compelling.
- What if you could access your cholesterol levels or immunizations online, without having to call your doctor?
-
Connect to WhatIfPost.com
