A 2.0 Interview of Miguel Cabrer, MEDTING founder and ex digital hospital CIO

Miguel Cabrer founder of MEDTING, a global site for the exchange of  medical information and images, will be a panelist at Health 2.0 Europe in Paris. Formerly CIO of Hospital Son Llatzer, the first digital hospital in Europe (European Commission eHealth Award in 2004) and eHealth Coordinator for the Balearic Islands Health Department,  Miguel Cabrer is now an independent eHealth Advisor, Member of the HIMSS EMEA Governing Council and Member of the IMIA Web 2.0 taskforce workgroup.  Our Health 2.0 Regional Ambassador to Spain, Miguel even found the time to be interviewed!  

 

Denise says: Please tell us the main reason for a physician to use Medting?  

Miguel says: Physicians use Medting to share a clinical case with a colleague from anywhere in the world.  They also store images and videos, build clinical cases, and access content for research and learning purposes. Content can be restricted to invitees only.  A hospital or other organization can create its own extranet with the Medting Enterprise platform.  

Denise says: How did you get the idea that there was a need for these different functionalities?  Was it something you would have wanted  when you were working in a hospital?  

Miguel says: Yes, my background as a CIO in a hospital, doing HIS / EMR Implementation showed me that EHR is challenging with many variables to control: integration, data privacy.... There are lots of barriers, and development is not really good. A few years ago,  Web 2.0 started to come on the scene, with Facebook, Youtube.  I noticed that some of my doctors were using them without having been taught. Web 2.0 development and style is magic. It's about social networking with easy tools.  We can build a Global Telemedicine Platform with Second Opinion Networking, if we solve data privacy, language issues.    

Denise says: When you say “Web 2.0 is magic,” do you mean that  development works better, because you're using  techniques that already exist?  

Miguel says: I mean that 2.0 software adapts to the user and not the user to the software, as compared to traditional software.  ;-)  

Denise says: Do some physicians store all their cases on Medting? Is there space?  

Miguel says:  Yes. We  observed a big need to store cases in a structured way. So we allow them to store the cases with powerful media management and image viewers. Some will use free Medting.com and still share with other colleagues; some will want to have a private space and will use the Enterprise version.  

Denise says: Tell us more about the Enterprise version.    

Miguel says:  With the Enterprise version, Medting provides private, personalized networks, which can even be  installed in the customer data center.

Some examples of platforms on Medting are the GlobalStroke Network platform led by Dr. Demaerschalk at the Mayo Clinic, the Madrid Health Region’s first Social network for physicians in Spain, and Second Opinion for Emerging Countries where we are working on three continents.  

We have also explored how to group all content generated in University Hospitals. We saw a hospital with 5 TB of images, research, discussion... If you allow them to put all that content in a private intranet, that's great content for future research. We call that Experimental PACS. Another new concept is MMA Multimedia Medical Archive. Medting is a provider in that space  

Denise says: What about the "social network" side of Medting?   

Miguel says: We have 6.000 registered users, 40.000 images / videos and about 3.000 clinical cases.

Most of the "Second opinion conversations" take place privately, so that only logged-in participants can see the comments.  

Denise says: We'll be seeing each other in Barcelona at WOHIT, where you created a session about Web 2.0.   

Miguel says: Yes, I am a member of HIMSS Governing Council, and I proposed the session about Web 2.0 for Hospitals, Health Organizations.  Most hospital CIOs and managers still know little about 2.0. You Denise, will also participate and help show them the possibilities offered by Facebook, Twitter, and professional platforms. We will also present some of the Enterprise projects. The Madrid Health region will participate as well.  

Denise says: Thank you Miguel. Great chatting with you in advance of our panels in Barcelona #WOHIT and at Health 2.0 Europe in Paris #HEALTH2EU

 

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