The Top 5 Health and Fitness Websites of 2010

The Time magazine has recently published a list of Top 50 websites in 2010.

The point to note in all the medical ( and also non-medical) websites is that almost all websites are directly benefitting the consumer. These are websites which add Value. Most of these websites allow you to use various tools, like Google Maps or online videos, to derive maximum benefits.

Also, all these websites allow creation of Communities. Thus these websites are good community portals, allowing visitors to connect with each other and thus learn more.

Below are the 5 websites from the Health and Fitness category:

Health & Fitness

• Keas : Founded by the former head of Google Health, Keas aims to provide tailored health programs for individual users by combining personal medical data with general health advice. Companies like Quest Diagnostics have teamed up with Keas to input personal data, like blood-test results, to the site.
• Mayo Clinic : The renowned Mayo Clinic's website keeps its tips legitimate, combining ease of use with sound medical advice. The site offers an encyclopedic index of diseases and a symptom checker to see what that forehead pain could mean.
• Exercise TV: On-demand cable channel Exercise TV allows you to get fit with only a laptop and some extra floor space. Every month, the channel's site uploads more than 100 free workout videos. You can pay to download the clips or you can stream them online cost-free.
• Fit by Fun : Fit by Fun animates your exercise with illustrated trainers, upbeat music and a community feel, giving you a list of "classmates" currently using the site. The fickle can adjust their workout scenery and sound track. Though many of its classes and services, like progress tracking, require a paid membership, some are free.
• Walk Jog Run: Walk Jog Run utilizes Google Maps and community involvement to map out the best routes in your area. Just input your address and user-generated routes will appear, handily mapped out and measured by distance, speed and calories burned.
  

  Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,2012721,00.html #ixzz180sfCaQa

Health IT Initiatives at USF Health

University of South Floria Health Center has made good use of the health IT stimulus money to push the campaign to go completely Paperless. And then some more.

So now work is done with touchscreen pads and electronic prescribing systems. You can play, view, and download lectures, news, seminars, music and other USF Health-related media on your iPod, Mac, PC or MP3 player. New talent is recruited online via the Center for Transformation and Innovation

A video report on Tampa Bays leadership in Health IT with the Paperfree initiative

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• USF Health News Center

• USF- Health on Social Media

                    

Social Media and a Medical Practitioner: Guide from 'Down Under'

Research Projects like those carried out by pathoftheblueeye.com as well as by Accenture have pointed out Medscape.com and WebMD.com as the most often visited sites by Medical Professionals ( 50 % of the time spent within health category) as well as non-medicos. Social Media sites showed  a rapidly rising 6% of time spent by a large number of people.

Social Media is now being widely used by doctors as well as patients. All doctors even remotely on social media face many ethical and moral questions regarding online physician-patient relationships. So when is it Okay to use social media and when is it Not ?!

Recently, The American Medical association posted some guidelines for Doctors use of social media tools in a professional capacity.

But now we have the Australia Medical Association and New Zealand Medical Association come out with their version on this dilemma. Here is the google document ( a 14 page pdf you can download/ view online). It is one of the most practical and useful guide of its kind online.

Attached: Social Media and the Medical Profession_FINAL with links.pdf

Related articles

• AMA Issues Social Networking Guidelines (medgadget.com)
• Social Media Policy Adopted by the American Medical Association (healthblawg.typepad.com)

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• Using Web 2.0 technologies and social media for the cardiologist's education and update (medicineandtechnology.com)

Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs of 2010 : Time.com

Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs

• AIDS Drugs Lower the Risk of HIV Infection
• Synthetic Cell
• Blood Test for Alzheimer's
• FDA Approves Botox for Migraines
• Taking the Resuscitation Out of CPR
• The FDA Restricts Avandia
• Blood Test for Heart Attack
• Predicting IVF Success
• Artificial Ovary
• Creating iPS Cells Safer and Faster

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2035319,00.html#ixzz17dbUFNgZ

Health IT far from Useful Yet.

Health Data remains stuck in silos and needs to be better integrated so as to allow meaningful analysis.

Health IT won't realize its full potential until analytics software can mine EMR databases to identify trends and help clinical leaders refine best practices, but interoperability and patient trust stand in the way. "[S]till unresolved are questions about how patients' records will be handled--and how they want their records handled," Computerworld reports. "Should they be able to opt into a system of shared electronic records, or should they have to opt out? And who will be the owners and custodians of the information--the patients themselves, or the caregivers or facilities that created the data?"Read more at www.fiercehealthit.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/i0m0

Which Healthcare Workers get Assaulted the Most on-duty?

Healthcare workers get assaulted 4 times more often than any other sector!
Amplify’d from blogs.wsj.com

They looked at government stats and found that while shootings in health-care workplaces are pretty rare, the rate of assaults is relatively high — 8 per 10,000 workers vs. 2 per 10,000 for all private-sector industries. Nursing staff in nursing homes or long-term care facilities, ICUs, psych units and emergency departments are at higher risk, the paper says.

The authors — Gabor Kelen and Christina Catlett, both from Hopkins’s emergency medicine department and its office of critical event preparedness and response — cite a couple of factors that may be behind the higher-than-average assault rate. Among them: physicians are no longer “viewed with reverence,” health-care is increasingly viewed as a business and patients are often frustrated in their dealings with the system. At the same time “societal incivility may have reached new lows,” with some people turning to violence.Read more at blogs.wsj.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/i0lv

Hospitals and Doctors to Create the really Useful Apps

A recent report by Research2Guidance predicts that in the near future, creating and distributing medical apps will no longer be the purview of pure tech/creative companies, but trickle down to doctors, hospitals and other health care service providers. And seeing the enormous amount of action in this field, this prediction seems just right!

via imedicalapps.com

See this cool Symptom Checker iPad app by Mayo Clinic.

This is a great free app which provides useful patient information as well as helps propogate additional Mayo clinic services, free as well as paid.

• Guidance on self-care strategies as well as information on when to seek care for more than 40 symptoms. 
• Relevant links to MayoClinic.com, Mayo Clinic's award-winning consumer health information Web site, for more in-depth information on each symptom 
• Easy access to information on thousands of additional health topics from MayoClinic.com. 
• Information on receiving care at Mayo Clinic, including the ability to inquire about an appointment at Mayo Clinic locations in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota.

Read more: http://bit.ly/fcaOVA

Also, going on similar lines is the Florida Hospital.

The Walt Disney Pavilion at Florida Hospital for Children is piloting a new iPad application using interactive video to explain common medical procedures such as CT scans and MRIs to patients.

“This application will support our patient resource specialists in ensuring that children and their parents understand and feel comfortable with important medical procedures and mitigate any potential fears or concerns they may have,” said Marla Silliman, administrator of Florida Hospital for Children.

Read more: Children’s hospital piloting new iPad app | Orlando Business Journal 

Creating and distributing apple iPad/iPhone apps is a low entry barrier strategy. The availability of a large number of trained, medically and technically proficient experts in countries like India can give it a great fillip. Do check www.emedsim.com for a taste of a few medical apps from a India based creative center.

Related articles

• Mayo Clinic and Social Media : Success Stories (digmed.in)