The Original Manifesto from Doctors 2.0 & You #doctors20

Acccording to Wikipedia, a manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. The Doctors 2.0 & You manifesto is not political.  It is a collaborative work in progress. Our goal is to identify the ways in which the inclusion of collaborative digital tools and social media platforms can improve care and translate this into the words of a manifesto. 

Our point of reference, is  The Cluetrain Manifesto, a set of 95 theses put forward as a manifesto, or call to action, for all businesses operating within the newly-connected marketplace.

What does Health Care have to do with this? Everything! The Cluetrain Manifesto tells us that the market is the conversation; the Internet facilitates the bypassing of formal hierarchies creating a more informed marketplace and consumer through those conversations. Substitute "health care" for market place and healthcare organizations for businesses, and we're ready to move forward!

The list below was collated by Janine Budding ..when we launched Doctors 2.0 & You in 2011. Technologies come and go, but the first sentence is still key. Let's talk.

Doctors 2.0 & You Manifesto in 80+ sentences

1. A patient is not a diagnosis but a human being in need of compassion.
2. “We are Smarter than Me” in coping with disease
3. Let's go from the former Isolation of Illness to the We of the Wellness with hyper connectivity.
4. The key is that the patient is the source of critical information and engagement.
5. Patient-centric care is a hybrid of Internet-based education, mHealth technologies, telehealth, and provider supervision and visits.
6. There is a need for an active and critical role in the digital public space.
7. Physicians should understand the social changes and their changed role in healthcare systems (which in many countries are in dire straits) and the emergence of a new breed of patients.
8. Medical professionals of the future have to be team builders between social media, telemedicine, patients, healthcare providers and healthcare insurance and payers.
9. We need to move from evidence-based medicine to science-based medicine and find a way to bring the latest research directly to the patients and doctors.
10. Health is co-creation.
11. Health 2.0 is win-win, if we are all better trained to support a more informed patient.
12. Health 2.0 is a permanent round table among all stakeholders for the creation of a citizenship of health ... all members of the same team!
13. Health 2.0 should improve the quality of exchange and management of patients when involving all stakeholders, professionals & patients
14. Patients like this Health 2.0 much better. In fact, they are co-creating it.
15. The World is flat. Healthcare is now Horizontal.
16. Diseases, treatments, healthcare actors are now convos on the Social Web
17. Adaptative Darwin Theory is fueling the healing connections at the Social Web; it's not Serendipity, nor forced or guided connections
18. As a result, patients are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in their treatment changes healthcare fundamentally.
19. Crowdsourcing patients and doctors have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from books and research. Healthcare in co-creation is about adding value to the quality and speed of treatments for common and rare diseases.
20. Patients who come to the medical appointment with information about their symptoms are eager to understand what needs to be done to cure their disease and are more actively engaged with their doctors.
21. There are no secrets. The networked crowd knows more than a doctor or hospital does about their own products. And whether their treatment is good or bad, they tell everyone.
22. “Bye Loneliness, Hello Community!"
23. Social Media has been widely adopted throughout the world and in healthcare; professionals are no different than other people
24. The Social Web is leading into co-creation of a new participatory medicine
25. Social media brings an unprecedented ability for people to collaborate continuously on a global basis. This will enable scientists to quicken the pace of discovery and research leading to a greater understanding of disease with better treatments faster than ever before.
26. Social media includes the challenging issue whether the content complies with regulations. Social media will have to fall in line with the spirit of these regulations.
27. Social media offers us the advantage to reach out across multiple generations of patients to increase the dissemination of information.
28. Social media are primarily used to teach and to learn and hardly at all to treat. Since treating patients is healthcare’s core business, these networks have not yet reached that core.
29. We need to “Mind the Gap” between social media networks of patients and those of healthcare professionals. Bridging the gap will bring us a a step further.
30. Health convos on the Social Web are driven by Generosity and the Joy Factor.
31. Healthcare Social Networks and online conversations are challenging and transforming the establishment and status quo of the Healthcare arena controlling the power of education, professional and patient associations, etc.
32. The question is not whether physicians or healthcare opinion leaders have to use social networks or have to blog, but if they are aware of the challenges and social responsibility in these times of epatients, ehealth and never ending online health information.
33. The huge power of healthcare conversations will bring down the existing and constricting regulatory walls
34. There may be a need for more robust platforms for safe use of SoMe in healthcare.
35. These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.
36. “Stop just marketing, Start socializing”
37. Social is Healing.
38. We should not focus on technology too much, and we should certainly not use this argument as a reason to postpone innovation.
39. The Internet is enabling conversations among patients and doctors that were simply not possible in the era before the mass use of Internet.
40. TeleHealth has to be globally acknowledged by medical professionals as a sound alternative for meeting the patient in his clinic.
41. With the introduction of eHealth, medical professionals have to refrain from income-driven, perverse stimuli.
42. The Internet provides us with new ways to bring the latest research directly to patients and the doctors are co-investigators in the search for the desired improvement of Healthcare.
43. The legalistic requirements of evidence-based medicine (EBM), such as its insistence on treatments that have met the “gold standard” of “well-designed, large-scale, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, clinical trials,” actually prevent doctors from effectively diagnosing and treating patients.
44. Imagine a world where every individual had the option to speak to the best doctors in the world, where getting multiple opinions or an average opinion on a condition was possible.
45. Collaborative medicine will change the level of care some third world patients receive
46. The Internet had the catalyst role of democratizing medical knowledge that was until a few years ago only in the realm of health professionals
47. In just a few more years, the distant "voice" of doctors as the sound of the medical profession will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th Century French court.
48. Healthcare organizations that think it’s enough for a healthcare organization to just be online misunderstand the potential of an optimized mobile website, for their communication with patients and future patients.
49. Health care workers who don't realize their markets are now networked inter personally, getting smarter as a result and deeply joined in conversation, are missing their best opportunity.
50. Mobile internet access is not a mere fad; widespread adoption of mobile communications means that an investment in mobile development now can set your healthcare organization apart.
51. Hospital websites that are optimized for smartphone browsers attract new patients and better satisfaction scores.
52. Patients have got some ideas for you: new skills, improved service, new tools for telecare, new stuff that saves time and money.
53. Co-creation and transparency are key.
54. Medical care should be easily accessible at all reasonable hours.
55. A patient must able to get in a doctor's advice within 48 hours.
56. Social Media and mobile access are the tools to finally share information between caregivers and caretakers and for (big) pharma, the opportunity and obligation to communicate with patients and doctors instead of pushing their products for profit-driven reasons.
57. Patients can now access a huge amount of high-quality information that can be used for self-care and to understand when to seek professional care.
58. Access to information will increase a patient’s ability to affect the course of their disease and decrease their need to use the established healthcare system.
59. A key point for eHealth is the public access and use of the information about health (diseases, diagnostic, treatments…), but the huge quantity of information to patients and general public are difficult to interpret, because of the lack of medical education.
60. Through eHeath information, patients have the ability to access, view, monitor and communicate with the medical community that can have a profound impact on QOL scores and have a positive healthcare economic impact.
61. Medical information on the internet with a proportion of information not applicable to a patient’s specific situation can result in people believing they are informed when they are not.
62. The internet and eHealth are excellent tools in the hands of healthcare policy makers: they offer the possibility to quickly adapt to changing scientific and socio-economic conditions in healthcare.
63. Decisions on policies that regulate public health must be submitted to the public, so that citizens express their opinions freely.
64. The views of citizens on a decision of public health policy must be subject to assessment.
65. The Internet is the most suitable means to encourage public participation in evaluating the decisions of public authorities.
66. With the use of eHealth, SoMe, self-management in Health Care, productivity gain can reach 1 billion euros
67. eHealth reduces the amount of nurses, doctors, psychiatrists and leads to smaller staff shortages in health care.
68. eHealth limits the growth of health spending: large-scale investment in e-health and self-management concepts provide significant savings for business and insurances.
69. E-health, telecare and self management are available outside work hours for lower costs than normal daytime healthcare. Significant productivity gains will be realized.
70. The potential of e-health and self-management is underused.
71. Innovation-Driven Health Care, is health care that develops care in co-creation with patients
72. One human is different from the other, the physician should see the person in front of him in connection to any guideline and not vice versa.
73. The internet enables communities to form and people within those communities to communicate. This enables the support of patients by patients, particularly in certain disease areas like rare diseases where there may not be anyone with the disease nearby. This also enables the interpretation of the wealth of information based on personal experience so patients can understand the difference between the information and misinformation (but it can propagate misinformation). These both help patients to be more informed and better supported, again without using the established healthcare systems.
74. Smartphones now have more computer power than most medical devices.
75. Smartphones are enabling remote monitoring and investigation. This will change healthcare by removing the need to visit healthcare centers and enable the monitoring of a patient’s condition continuously.
76. Smartphones will change the way diseases and their burden on patients are understood, leading to new treatments and better care.
77. Public Relations does not relate to the public. Healthcare companies are afraid of communicating with all their patients: happy and unhappy patients
78. Compassion for care is not a parlor trick to pick up.
79. Command-and-control management styles both derive from and reinforce bureaucracy, power tripping and an overall culture of paranoia.
80. Paranoia kills conversation, and lack of open conversation kills healthcare organizations.
81. Patients have real power and they know it.
82. The recognition of a problem or situation mostly leads to innovations that have greater positive impact on a society than high-tech health innovations.
83. We know some doctors that are pretty cool online. Do you have any more like them? Stop hiding in hospitals and healthcare institutions and come out and play.
84. When patients have questions they turn to each other for answers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Social Media Accts Denise Silber, Doctors 2.0 & You, Basil Strategies #doctors20

With Social Media, is the more the merrier? Maybe, maybe not. In any case, here's where you can find more information related to digital health from "us", beyond this blog in English.

• Doctors 2.0 & You blog

• ScoopIt Doctors 2.0 & You, ePatients, Medical Error.
• Twitter
•     @health20paris  (Denise Silber)
•     @doctors20 (Doctors 2.0 & You)
•     @basilstrategies (Basil Strategies)
• Hashtag #doctors20
• YouTube 220+ videos on digital health
• Facebook page Doctors 2.0 & You
• Google+ page Doctors 2.0 & You
• LinkedIn  Basil Strategies
• Lanyrd Doctors 2.0 & You
• Pinterest Doctors 2.0 & You
• Basil Strategies Blog

And this doesn't include my personal accounts on FB, LI, Instagram, G+
 -- or the French equivalents which you can find listed on www.DeniseSilber.com

;-)

 

 

Twitter, it's time to reinvent yourself! #rethink

Some facts about Twitter that you may not know and a conclusion you were not expecting. (Charts from MediaBistro).

--Twitter is the 4th largest social network worldwide, according to MediaBistro..although it's hard to believe that Twitter follows so closely on the heels of YouTube.

--Twitter has been stagnating for the past year, in the US, its home country, ie growth is only foreign (see chart on the right).

--And finally, Twitter's usage is astonishingly parallel in different countries and languages, according to the chart below.

--So, would the logical conclusion not be that Twitter as it currently is, is going to stagnate at 22% of internet users? You might say that that is not a bad place to be, and if we take the healthcare sector, where Twitter is booming, maybe there are niches.

But for a company quoted on the stock market, it isn't going to be enough...

Twitter has already undergone a transformation or two from the founder's original intents...And I think that more will be underway soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Has the FDA dealt a lethal blow to 23andMe?

I'm based in Europe, and so it was the afternoon today, when the news of the FDA warning letter to 23andMe surfaced. The FDA have asked the company to stop selling the 23andMe Saliva Collection Kit and Personal Genome Service (PGS), which is basically the only product of the company.

One year ago, I had the great fortune to be the panel moderator at Medicine X, (Stanford Medicine, Palo Alto). Medicine X is a partner conference to Doctors 2.0 & You. Anne Wojcicki the brilliant  and charismatic co-founder of 23andMe described her company's genetic testing service and why she had created it. Here's the video.  

Two reasons for consumers to use 23andMe, according to their CEO: consumers own their data and once they know their results, they can take preventive actions. Everyone must act instead of remaining unknowingly at risk for the inefficacy or intolerance of certain drugs, or at risk for certain diseases. 23andme had tested Sergei Brin, the Google co-founder and then spouse of the 23andMe cofounder and found that he had a high risk for Parkinson's disease.

What can a patient do with the information? This is a different story, and that is where the PGS becomes a device, in FDA terms, a device that is not authorized to be one. Yet, in listening to the video, it sounds like 23andMe makes action recommendations based on  the test results.

When I asked the Silicon Valley audience for a show of hands on how many people had done a genetic test, almost everyone's hand was raised. And genetic testing isn't limited to 23andMe. They have competitors (who must be quite concerned as well).

23andme had dropped its price this year to go to mass market. At $99 a test, 400 000 users had signed up. This growth may well have contributed to the FDA's timing...They couldn't wait any longer with that number of users.

The FDA warning letter is here. It's not news to 23andMe, because the FDA had begun to raise red flags in 2009, two years after the company's launch. The FDA said, "you are a device. Please act like one." Who knows why they didn't heed the warning? Was it impossible to maintain a going business and undertake the investment? Was it lack of experience with the regulatory side of healthcare? Was it some form of internal miscommunication?

I believe that if 23andMe had been managed with strong input from managers with drug and device backgrounds, the business would have taken the FDA requests very seriously and not moved forward in the same way.. I would imagine that there would have been investors to follow them on that solid if slower path.

The story will surely unfold over the coming weeks...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mobile health without borders at Stanford online: Video by Denise Silber #doctors20 #mhealth

The new course at Stanford Online, Mobile Health without Borders includes my video entitled "Postcards from Paris" presenting mobile health examples from outside the United States. 

 

Interview with Denise Silber at Stanford Medicine X #medx #hcsmeu #doctors20

Thank you Larry Chu and team for the lovely video. The interview is about healthcare social media, the empowered patient, the physician, Europe, the US...

 

Quantified Self, Connected Objects, Crowdfunding, Kickstarter, Intelligent Fork #doctors20 #eatingslowly

 

"Digital" gets lots of attention for sure. But one underplayed impact of digital is the new vocabulary it generates. Quantified Self refers to self-measurement by individuals interested in understanding the data our body produces. Quantified Self goes along well with connected objects. The connection between the objects is digital of course; the objects are connected to the web to transport the data. An example is the intelligent fork, invented by Jacques Lepine of SlowControl.com -- the fork that knows when we eat too fast (HAPIfork)

Next along comes crowdfunding, a second generation method for getting financed, thanks to the wisdom of the masses. It's also CGU but the "c" is for contribution generated by the user ;-), if I may. Since many of these connected objects come from start-ups, some financing model has to be found. Kickstarter is a leader in the area of crowdfunding, and so it was normal that the intelligent fork would benefit from this great platform for a campaign running through May 31.

And then one week later, the intelligent fork will be present at Doctors 2.0 & You, June 6-7 in Paris, which is one of the reasons why I'm posting this information. Jacques Lepine and Fabrice Boutain travel the world, but they'll be together in Paris. So, if you can't see them in the US or Asia, try to make it to Paris, the world's conference center. We'll be waiting there for you. And that's not virtual.

 

 

 

Hospital Use of Social Media in Europe

This is an old infographic, by internet standards, dating from May 2012 and based on a study done in the Netherlands regarding hospital use of social media in Europe. A similar study is  done in the US, noting state by state, which hospitals are active on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, FourSquare,.... The original author stopped doing the study when the use became very frequent and passed it on for continuation to the Mayo Clinic Social Media Center.

We aren't there yet in Europe, but there is activity!

 

Health Care Social Media: Hospitals in Europe Embrace Social Media infographic

Meet Jorge Juan Fernandez Garcia, Hospital San Juan de Dios, Barcelona, at Doctors 2.0 & You.

 Jorge Juan Fernandez Garcia, from the Liquid Hospital in Barcelona, has been very active at Doctors 2.0 & You as a speaker and advisor.  He was  interviewed by Muriel Londres, last spring  during the conference to talk about his hospital, eHealth, healthcare social media, patients and professionals. Thank you Jorge and Muriel.

 

Online physician communities: news from WorldOne + Sermo

Digital healthcare is fascinating. And one of the most fascinating facets is the world of online communities, and within that, physician communities. Why? Physicians have so much to gain from exchanging with colleagues with similar questions. Healthcare organizations have so much to gain if they can target and scale their relation to physicians. Patients have everything to gain if physicians can gain insights and perhaps even professional motivation through communities. And yet, it isn't that simple. The most basic questions remain. Why should the physician join that community? Why should he or she stay? What's the business model? And in every country around the world, the history of online physician communities has evolved in a different way.

And so today we learned that WorldOne  + Sermo (1.8 million healthcare professionals spanning 80 countries, including more than 385,000 US physicians) has received new financing: US$35 million from Deerfield to support the company's physician engagement platform. (Sermo had been acquired in July 2012 by WorldOne). These are not minor events in international digital health.

Nor was it a minor event in August 2011 when Doctors.Net, the British physician community leader was acquired  by M3 based in Japan and the US, and we discussed it here.

Organizing international digital healthcare conferences, such as Doctors 2.0 & You, and speaking at others, such as Stanford Medicine X, I can say that the online physician community space remains very exciting.

You may just want to refresh your memory and watch our Doctors 2.0 & You 2012 panelists here. Stay tuned for even more excitement in June 2013 with our latest physician community sessions, including Sermo, DXY.cn, Dermaweb and several others

... As you wait, I am sure that the words of WorldOne's CEO will surely interest you.

 

 

Healthcare Social Media Identity Survey to be discussed at Doctors 2.0 & You : Participate now. #doctors20

I've been interested for some time in the role of online identity in healthcare on the social web.

Why? Because on the one hand "transparency"  is key to quality and on the other, the social web has introduced us to the possibility of developing as many identities as we can manage.

So, where do we go with this question? Well, it depends on whom you ask...

To clear the air, we're surveying you, right here and now, if you agree, and around the world The results will be discussed in Paris in June at Doctors 2.0 & You, and online. 

In the meantime, please take 5 minutes to answer here.

Doctors 2.0 & You with Kathi Apostolidis

Doctors 2.0 & You Paris June 6-7, 2013 | Infographics

The Story of the Single Tweet that Cured #doctors20

It took:  Lucien Engelen, Berci Mesko, Larry Chu, Sean Ahrens, Roberto Ascione, myself Denise Silber, and first and foremost the patient herself, but one single tweet did change a life and remarkably so!

Here is the story.

In the fall of 2010, someone in the United States, whom I didn't know of or meet until recently, suddenly developed an inflammatory bowel disease, colitis. Her life was turned upside down as she dealt with this new medical problem that was constantly present. She asked her physician if any food allergy could explain her problem. He said no. And so the colitis went on.

In the fall of 2010, I went to Maastricht in the Netherlands to attend Lucien Engelen and Gunther Eysenbach's Medicine 2.0. There, Dr Larry Chu from Stanford was scouting for speakers for Medicine 2.0 2011 in Palo Alto. Berci Mesko spoke to him about me. (You can see that Berci and Lucien know each other and also enjoyed Paris's Doctors 2.0 & You).

And so in September 2011, off I flew to San Francisco, on my way to Palo Alto for Medicine X.  Larry Chu and I quickly realized that our two events, Medicine X and Doctors 2.0 & You, were based on the same philosophy and would be natural partners. 

Denise Silber, Larry Chu

 

Also attending  Medicine X was Sean Ahrens, founder of the Crohnology community. We had a great chat. After the conference, Larry and his team produced a beautiful video interview of Sean, interesting for both its substance and the style.

Back in Paris to prepare for Doctors 2.0 & You 2012, a new partnership came up, with the brand new video platform, Videum that facilitates translation automatically and by volunteers. We chose the Sean Ahren's interview to open the plenary and project it off of Videum for the subtitles. When the video came on in Paris, Roberto Ascione of Razorfish (then Publicis), father of the platform, tweeted the Videum link. 

 

One of Roberto's twitterfollowers from Razorfish was the colitis patient. She saw the link, watched the film, and discovered that a gluten allergy could  indeed explain her symptoms. Two weeks later, she was back to normal!  I did not know the person with "the story", until we met recently, 7 months after the conference to talk about Doctors 2.0 & You 2013. When I described how the conference in 2012 had opened with a video on Videum, she said, "Oh, I have a story to tell you about that video, that "cured me" And so I learned how one tweet had changed a life for the better, with all due thanks to Lucien, Berci, Larry, Sean, Roberto, and, well, me and the patient.

 

New News from Berci Mesko

Berci Mesko and I keep in touch regularly through many Social Media channels and even via old-fashioned email to discuss Doctors 2.0 & You, Webicina, and how all of this can or cannot improve...life for patients...You'll see Berci in Paris next June :-).

Perhaps you know through Facebook that Berci recently celebrated his birthday. Well, there is an even bigger bit of news tonight : Webicina has just won 2nd prize in Luxemburg's Social Media Tournament, run by the European Investment Bank. I thought that Berci Mesko's many Social Media fans would love to hear more from him. So, read on.

1. Denise: So, Berci, what was it like growing up in Hungary? Were you a great student from your earliest years?

Berci Mesko:  I always loved living in Hungary even when I started traveling 30-40 times a year and saw many cultures and countries. The one thing I really admire about Hungary is the educational system in which I always felt very comfortable. I was a very good student from the first years and as I decided to become a scientist instead of a football player (because I realized I wouldn't have a chance to play in FC Barcelona) at the age of 6 I focused on my studies in my entire life.

2. DS: When did you decide to go towards medicine and also genetics? Is there a fun story behind this?

BM: Science was clear from the early years, medicine became the target at the age of 12-14 and at the same time genetics got into my full focus. I was amazed by the tools and discoveries of genetics and I feel lucky to get involved with research just after the Human Genome Project was completed therefore I eye-witnessed all the modern changes around the concept of genomic medicine.

3. DS: How old were you when you started using computers?  What did you first use them for?

BM: I remember having an Amiga 500 at the age of 7 and of course I used it for playing video games but I was fascinated by computers and I knew even back then that I would have a personal computer soon.

4.DS:  When did you realize that there was another side to medicine, ie, the Web 2.0 and Social Media side, where the human factor, facilitated by technology, brings  better conditions for patients?

BM: My social media "career" started with becoming active in Wikipedia in 2005, but I only realized the potential of social media in the future of medicine, when I came across the presentation of Dr. Ves Dimov who was kind enough to send it to me privately as well. I was blown away and I knew that would be my way, combining two great fields, medicine and digital technologies. After that I started giving presentations at local clinics and departments talking about how they could facilitate their workflows with social media.

5  DS: When did you first realize that there were issues in the relationship between the patient and the health system and within the health system?

BM: It was a perfect decision to launch a medical blog in 2006 because as I came up with my posts and thoughts, I received plenty of comments as feedback therefore I always got a good picture about what patients think of healthcare and the internet. I became a huge supporter of the e-patient movement and I had a chance to see all the important moves and changes in this area. Again, I feel lucky to live through those years.

6.  DS: You've been to two Doctors 2.0 & You conferences. Did they change something for you? And for the future?

BM: Absolutely! I made an amazing number of new contacts and friends; I gave two keynotes with incredible feedback and it changed the way I think about the future of medicine 2.0 as it managed to bring together all stakeholders of healthcare with a clear mission in mind: to improve healthcare with digital technologies together.

7 DS: And on the personal side, I believe you got engaged in Paris right after Doctors 2.0 & You... Do you see the two as related?

BM: A night you can never forget. And of course I owe you one, Denise, for helping me organize that very special night in Paris.

8. DS: You also joined Mensa this year. Have you met other Mensa people? How is that?

BM: I feel grateful for belonging to such a vibrant community. Yes, I met many of them at recent meetings and became even more addicted to puzzles and logical games.

9. DS: And now, you are preparing to be a Futurist?  I love it. Tell us more. And will you tell us even more at Doctors 2.0 & You 2013?

BM: Yes, this is the topic I plan to discuss in details as I'm making a shift in my academic career from genomics to being a medical futurist. This is not a simple career path but I've been enjoying every moment of it so far. Let me reveal the fascinating details in Paris next June! See you there!

Doctors, Social Media, Conflict of Interest: which doesn't belong? #doctors20

Berman Bioethics Institute, at  Johns Hopkins has just published a new article with a striking title, Physicians, social media, and conflicts of interest. If we need to eliminate the piece that doesn't fit, it would have to be conflict of interest.

The author suggests that social media cannot function without the elimination of conflict of interest, because, in his opinion, Americans are already wary of online doctors. The wariness stems from the news of fraudulent studies published by doctors in the US, and growing information regarding conflicts of interest. The use of pseudonyms, while fortunately not universal, is a hindrance to the establishment of trust with doctors online. Additionally, the author reminds us that the brevity of web articles and microblogging make it practically impossible to ensure that specific conflict of interest information reaches readers.

Although the good news is that various professional organizations in the US, have published guidelines for social media, Johns Hopkins notes that these guidelines are ineffective. They may be voluntary or not even mention conflict of interest.

We can only concur. Consumers must know the real identity of physicians they contact online and whether they have conflicts of interest...ie the Dollars for Docs initiative. The question remains of course, to define "conflicts of interest."...Isn't "fee for service" a conflict of interest in itself.

Healthcare Social Media Research: how should it be done? where should it be published?

Those of you who are interested in healthcare social media must have given some thought to the questions posed by research regarding healthcare social media.

• What happens when we use traditional research methods to study Healthcare Social Media  ? 
• Do we publish the results according to the principles of traditional scientific journals?
• Do we, given the subject, avoid paid subscriber-only journals ?

 An article* from researchers at U Penn Medical School and which was just published in PubMed demonstrates some of the issues around the above questions. 

The authors' purpose is to analyze the use of Twitter on the topic of resuscitation and cardiac arrest.  62000 tweets were examined on the basis of a series of keywords relating to cardiac arrest and resuscitation. Author profiles, retweets, time of day, were studied. 

The findings demonstrate the difficulty of doing research on tweets. Here are three key results - the issue being that this research was observational and you can only observe the  things Twitter allows us to measure.

• Only 25% of the examined tweets included specific information on the topic - a fact which merits further analysis...75% of tweets containing keywords do not have information on the topic???
• 13% of tweets were retweeted...meaning that we can't count on retweeting to diffuse a message.
• Users with more than 15 resuscitation-specific tweets tended to have 1787 followers (which is a high average number).

The conclusion of the abstract shows the promise of healthcare social media.

Twitter can be filtered to identify public knowledge and information seeking and sharing about cardiac arrest. To better engage via social media, healthcare providers can distill tweets by user, content, temporal trends, and message dissemination. Further understanding of information shared by the public in this forum could suggest new approaches for improving resuscitation related education.

HOWEVER,

The tweets were published in April-May, 2011....almost a year and a half ago...which is a huge period on Twitter.

The article is published in a subscriber-only journal, meaning that only the abstract is visible. 

I would submit that researchers should come up with new Social Media methodology! 

 

*Resuscitation. 2012 Oct 26. pii: S0300-9572(12)00871-4. doi: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2012.10.017. [Epub ahead of print]  Decoding Twitter: Surveillance and Trends for Cardiac Arrest and Resuscitation Communication. Bosley JC, Zhao NW, Hill S, Shofer FS, Asch DA, Becker LB, Merchant RM.Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

HealthCare Social Media amplifies French physician grassroots movement

The "Doctors aren't stooges" movement in France (les médecins ne sont pas des pigeons) shows that French physicians have come a long way in using healthcare social media. You may recall that the French government had to give them financial incentives in the late '90's to acquire their first computer. 

And now, Dr Philippe Letertre, founder of the movement, has inspired an incredible result in barely two weeks. Please note that almost all of their traffic is from French healthcare professionals, their primary objective at this point in time.

• The initial open Facebook group launched October 8, 2012, had 37482 members today;
• the Facebook fanpage has 10657 fans.
• A Twitter account @medecinspigeons did its first Tweetchat with us (#health20fr) on October 22, 2012. 
• A website was launched on October 23, 2012: LesMedecinsNeSontPasDesPigeons.fr The site introduces the UFML, Union Française des Médecins Libres, or French Union of Free (in the sense of liberty) Doctors, a not for profit association in which the physicians can enroll in the association via PayPal.

That the emergence of this French grassroot physicians and surgeons movement could not have occurred without the help of Social Media should be food for thought for all of healthcare stakeholders...Some questions to healthcare organizations for example:

• Are you satisfied with your current web presence?
• What will you do if there is a major disruption in your communications landscape cia social media?
• Should you wait and see at present or  maybe encourage more dialogue at the present time?
• What is the risk of the status quo?

 

New Survey on Telehealth in France: consumers are favorable

Numerous scientific articles have demonstrated the efficacy of telemedicine, in its many user scenarios, whether linking professionals or professionals and patients, synchronously or asynchronously. Mobile apps on smartphones and iPads have significantly increased the potential. However, practical application generally remains small-scale, with a few exceptions around the world.

Quite often, the reasons for the low adoption rate are considered to be economic and organizational. How can telemedicine be financed? Where does one start to put these processes into place? What do physicians and patients think about it?

Mondial Assistance in France published a consumer survey of 1006 French adults in October, 2012. Key results are as follows:

--62 % think that a distance medical advice service can replace a consultation at a doctor's office

-- 28% have realized afterwards that the consultation they have just undergone was not necessary .

-- 79 % would like a 2nd medical opinion, in case of doubt regarding a diagnosis or a prescription 

-- 58 % would like to have an immediate medical opinion whenever they need one

-- 60 %  manage their own medical situation, when they do not have access to a physician, (39 % indicate that gaining access to a doctor is a problem)

This survey was undertaken by Mondial Assistance in relation to their introduction of new tele-health services in France. A French healthcare professional will be able to answer medical questions at a distance and orient the person, if needed, to an expert able to provide a 2nd opinion. Mondial Assistance, being a well-known brand in France, it will be interesting to see how this develops...Perhaps largescale telehealth will be in place sooner than we think...

 

> 20 000 French MD's enroll in "Doctors aren't Pigeons" (Angry pigeons ;-) Facebook group in 2.5 days

Breaking news: At 20 000 + doctors enrolled in his FB group, the founder Dr Letertre is appearing on TV and on his way to becoming national news.

For the first time in my blog-writing history, I had a hard time today getting my blogpost out, because every few minutes, the number I was writing about shifted upward. I'm writing about the latest French social media phenomenon, an open Facebook group called "Doctors are not pigeons". This group was launched October 7, 2012, not by a veterinarian ;-) but by a French plastic surgeon, Dr Letertre, from Nice, France. The name has nothing to do with the famous Finnish angry birds app. Dr Letertre just put a briliant end to his weekend. He astutely recycled the "we are not pigeons" theme that was so successfully used last week by French entrepreneurs to revolt against a potentially 60% tax on sale of start-up shares. The government back-pedaled and Dr Letertre applied a winning formula to his future Facebook group. "Les médecins ne sont pas des pigeons" (the name in French), moved from 3500 people in the early evening to 10 809, a minute ago on Facebook ;)...

Will the group cosmetic surgeon turned FB administrator be able to get his beauty sleep? Nothing guaranteed on that front.  I haven't seen anything like it on Facebook in France, since perhaps the H1N1 virus when a couple of hundred thousand people expressed their anger in 2009/10...However, this is quite different. It's a professional group...physicians complaining about the growing restrictions on their ability to function on the economic front.

In theory, this is not a topic that the average French person should support, because they know that there is a limit to insurance company reimbursement and the higher the fees, the higher their out of pocket cost. On the other hand, people love their doctors and surgeons. So, it will be interesting to see how far the popularity of the group goes. Dr Fréderic Letertre (photo on left),

is enjoying his Facebook fame, and I can understand why. His message as he reached the 10 000 member mark, was  "Bravo to the members, but only 5% of physicians  so far in the group". Long way to go!

I would have to wonder how many of these group members are physicians and surgeons; given the rate of acceptance by Letertre to the group, he doesn't have enough time to verify all those identities. Nonetheless, so far the contents looks professional. And his is clearly the right way to communicate. And Dr Letertre was not totally new at the game. If you Google his name, you will find his website, his Twitter account @drletertre, televised interviews during the breast implant scandal,  a couple dozen videos on his YouTube channel, and a modest Facebook account of 400+ friends.

Plastic surgeons are amongst the most active provider users of the web and social media in France. So, what will the French public health institutions do? The Ministry of Health is not on Facebook. The communications department is not set up to be able to manage this situation on the right channel: Facebook. Same is true for the national insurance agency.

On YouTube, you can publish videos and block commentary. On Twitter, you can be followed and not follow...So turning social media into asocial media is an obvious reflex for governmental organizations. But, as regards, the "Doctors aren't pigeons" group on Facebook, I am sorry to say, the institutional approach just won't fly ;-)

 

 

Meet up with ePatient AfternoonNapper in Paris at Doctors 2.0 & You (video)

Do you know Sarah Kucharski, AKA @afternoonnapper ? If you venture out into the world of healthcare social media, be sure to look for her...Sarah is a woman on a mission, to accomplish as much as possible, in terms of improving the patient experience and to help the FMD (fibromuscular dystrophy) cause. She took some of her precious time in Paris, while at Doctors 2.0 & You to talk to the camera lens, skillfully managed by @misslondres, Muriel ! The result is simple and elegant. Have a look.

TIanTian Li, founder DXY.com presents this several million member online HCP community in China.

Awesome Tiantian Li, Awesome China, Awesome iPhone..That was what we all thought at Doctors 2.0 & You as we listened to DXY.com's founder.

So, do you too want to hear all about one of China's largest physican social networks and maybe you just can't pop off to China right now? ...Listen to the founder of this several million member community. And wait for the exciting twist starting at around 8'55"...

Pat Rich explains how Not to launch an Online Doctors Community #hcsmca #doctors20 #socmed

Every week we hear about yet another eHealth wonder...But, how often do people have the courage to learn from failure and to talk about it so that they can help others learn as well? Hat's off to Pat Rich from the Canadian Medical Association, who came to Paris to do just that at Doctors 2.0 & You 2012. Listen as he explains what went wrong with the physicians' community they called Asclepios (?) Asklepios (?) ...If they can't spell it, it can't succeed!

Video Postcard from Doctors 2.0 & You #doctors20 #FMDAware

So what's a video post card? It's what we have the great fortune to communicate to you thanks to the talent of @MissLondres. It's not Flick'r. It's not Instagram, but a YouTube 3'48" moment with Sarah Kucharski, Kathi Apostolidis, Berci Mesko, Jacques Lucas, Franck Schneider, Jorge Juan Fernandez Garcia, and myself.  It's in 4 languages, one after the other, no subtitles! It's the fun we have behind the scenes at Doctors 2.0 & You. And oh yes, congratulations to Sarah Kucharski on her birthday and on the launch of #FMDAware

Study of French doctors on Twitter: 50% use pseudonym

What is the profile of French doctors  on Twitter? You have to find them first ! This appeared to be a good subject for one of the posters we would present at our own conference ;-) Doctors 2.0 & You 2012,  in view of the existence of two lists totaling 200 French-speaking doctors curated by Henri Gracies. This blogpost includes the resulting work: a traditional scientific poster and an infography. The project was shared by Denise Silber @health20paris, Mathilde Holard, and Henri Gracies @meditwitt.

Download Poster_twitter_2012_V2_ebook-1

The infography is below in turquoise.

 Note: the analysis, based on data collected in March, April 2012) was limited by the anonymity of the physicians and the ensuing lack of data.

Findings :

1. Approximately one half of the list could be identified as working in France. (109/200).

2. Of those, 50% use a pseudonym and ensure that the reader cannot identify them.

3. Also of note, physicians tweet regarding subjects other than medicine in about half of the tweets that they emit.

4. A distinguishing factor was the fact of being male or female.

a) Those we could identify as male physicians had been on Twitter for a longer period than those identifiable as women.

b) Males also had more followers than the female physicians.

c) Women had a greater tendency to use a pseudonym than men.

d) Few of these Twitter physicians could be identified on Facebook, despite the high presence of the French population on Facebook, given the physicians' anonymity:  29% of our male Twitter physicians and 19% of females could be identified on Facebook.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shopping for an online patient forum? Read about the Francophone online diabetes community poster presented at Doctors 2.0 & You

How would someone choose an online community to join, in for example, diabetes? We applied this question to the Francophone web world as a study theme for one of our two poster entries at Doctors 2.0 & You 2012.

To download the poster, click here.

Using Google to search for active online diabetes communities, we found 4 dedicated sites and 9 portal sites that include a Francophone diabetes community. 10 of the 13 are based in France.

While portal sites including diabetes communities were generally established as businesses and dedicated sites, the work of volunteers or not for profits, this did not lead to quality differences per se.

One portal site, Carenity.com based in France, does present a distinguishing feature, the offer of self-monitoring web tools to community members.

No generalizable distinguishing characteristics emerged from our study, which lead us to the (obvious) conclusion that forum and community managers should make a greater effort to differentiate their "offer" and explain to potential members why that community should be of interest. 

Also, at a minimum, forum producers should provide easily accessible activity data to members.

Copenhagen eHealthWeek Mobile Health Symposium May 7: will we see you there before Doctors 2.0 & You Paris?

The title is almost longer than the post. I'll soon be in Copenhagen, hosting a panel on Smartphone Apps I've put together with Jorge Juan Fernandez Garcia (San Juan Dios Hospital) and David Doherty (3GDoctor) from Ireland. So we'll present a European overview of smartphone apps,  the hospital perspective and the use of smartphones for distance consultation between a patient and a physician around an electronic health record. Looking forward to seeing the eHealth crowd at the mHealth symposium.

(left: Denise and David at a recent conference in Spain) 

Facebook and organ donors: beware of the Maginot line

in Silicon Valley, a med school student whose boyfriend happens to be Mark Zuckerberg comes up with the idea of using Facebook status to signify organ donor acceptance and it is announced on May 1, 2012. Within a few hours, there are 39,000 occurrences of this announcement on Google, in English alone. So, with nearly 900 million FB subscribers around the world,  has the social media giant potentially solved the organ donor problem around the world, just prior to its IPO?

Not really. First of all, even in the US, individuals must register on their state's donor registry to be sure that their wishes will be respected (Okay, Facebook facilitates the link to the registry). Secondly, while social media breaks down barriers between individuals, it doesn't substitute for national laws. And so, the sun sets on Facebook's empire, as soon as the question involves someone, even temporarily, situated outside of American borders. And fewer than 18% of FB subscribers are American.

In England, where the FB organ donor introduction is happening at the same time as in the US, a patient's family can refuse, after the individual's death.

France, whose famous Maginot line was unable to keep out invading armies, will nonetheless also apply different laws from the US as regards organ donor authorization. Yvanie Caillé, president of Renaloo, the French association of dialysis and kidney transplant patients told Silber's Blog that authorization is assumed in France, unless the person declared their opposition during their lifetime. So, the issue in France is not about authorization by the donor. There are other problems around organ donation.

And there are undoubtedly many variations and scenarios on the theme of these laws in the nearly 200 countries around the world.

But to end on a very positive note, let us remind ourselves that the Facebook announcement is generating tremendous good buzz about organ donation and that is, in and of itself, good for the cause, even if Facebook is not THE solution.

 

Impact of New Technologies on HealthCare WebRadio March 14 11 AM EST, 5PM Europe.

SURVEY This survey asks you about the impact of New Technologies on healthcare, a subject that will be examined at the  Doctors 2.0 & You Conference in Paris, France - May 23-24 2012. Can New Technologies Improve Healthcare? Exploring the 2.0 Doctor A conversation with Denise Silber, CEO of Basil Strategies and Founderof Doctors 2.0 & Youconference, and Dr. Frank Antwerpes, President, DocCheck Medical, about the use of Web 2.0 and social media such as Twitter for improving patient care. They'll be giving their international perspective on the uptake of Web 2.0 and Social Media, the advantages and disadvantages from the physician and patient perspective, and how the ever-evolving landscape of tools and devices are impacting things. Airs LIVE on: Wednesday, March 14, 2012 * 11:00 AM (Eastern US)

Open access social media guidelines for pharma

For the past number of months, Berci Mesko, founder of Webicina, set up the challenging mission of producing social media guidelines for pharma. The method he chose: Social Media itself, with a mix of shared Google Docs, Twitter hashtag #pharmaSMguide, and others.

"A set of guidelines created collaboratively by the most important online voices of pharma and social media designed to facilitate online interaction with and within pharma.” 

You can download the document here. 

Download: Webicina-open-access-social-media-pharma-guide

What it is not: is not the product of a regulatory body

What it is: is the best practical, easy to read set of recommendations concerning health care social media platforms

To pursue the discussion: #pharmaSMguide

 

 

Paris, international capital of web 2.0 & social media in Health, May 23-24, 2012

Basil Strategies announces the 2nd edition of Doctors 2.0^_TM & You, the conference (Paris, May 23-24, 2012). This year will focus on emerging trends in Health Care Social Media Communities, Tools, and Apps in Europe, the Americas and Asia

Paris, France, December 9, 2011 - Paris France will be the world capital for Web 2.0 and Social Media in Health and Medicine, when the 2nd edition of Doctors 2.0^TM and You convenes on May 23-24, 2012, at the International Residence situated in the elegant Cité Universitaire campus. Doctors 2.0^TM & You will shed light on strategic issues for all of Health Care. The exciting program will examine: how doctors and other professionals, patients, hospitals, government, pharma, and payers use Social Media, mobile apps, and Web 2.0 tools to connect and the best practices that emerge for each.

One of the unique features of Doctors 2.0 & You is that

What does this 2011 Survey on Social Media in Workplace Tell Us?

Part 3 social media in the workplace final

View more presentations from shrm

-- Let's hear your thoughts about this survey.

Doctors Inventing Social Media Apps to help make life better for Patients AKA Jennifer Dyer

Okay, I was supposed to wait until we got the new speaker page up on the Doctors 2.0 & You web site -- but I just saw Jennifer's Tweet go by and we're so excited to announce that Dr Jennifer Dyer, @EndoGoddess is going to be speaking in Paris in the spring, May 23-24, 2012. And here she is today on NBC TV from Columbus, Ohio, where she is mostly! And she is talking about what she talks about mostly: trying to make things just a bit better for patients. It's an amazing app that is for diabetes and it's social.

Good luck, Jennifer! We're counting on you here in Paris to draw the conversation together about doctors and patients collaborating, on diabetes and measurement, thanks to social media, mobile apps, iTunes and motivation. Did I get it all?

 

What do Shakespeare, Healthcare, and Social Media have in common?

 The answer is a quote from Othello, 

Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
’Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name,
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.

Over 400 years ago, Shakespeare understood the immeasurable value of a trustworthy reputation. And this quote came to mind in relation to the Edelman 2011 Barometer (download below) that actually measures the value of trust. 

When a company is trusted, according to the worldwide Edelman annual barometer, 51% of people will believe positive information after hearing it only 1 or 2 times and only 25% will believe negative information after 1 or 2 times.

When a company is distrusted, we find the reverse: 57% of people will believe negative information after hearing it only 1 or 2 times and only 15% the positive.

 Social Media is about developing relationships, which means that it's about developing trust. A relationship requires trust and it requires two way communication -- While traditional media can communicate trust-worthy information, if there is no dialogue, can we really speak of a relationship? What better way to dispel misunderstandings than a conversation?

And what is health care without trust? So, in our ever more challenging environment, the logic of participating Social Media is ever more compelling.

Téléchargement Edelman Trust Barometer Global Deck

 

2.6 Social Media Accounts per Engaged US Hospital #hcsm #hcsmeu

A good number of hospital social media and communications people follow "Found in Cache," whose author Ed Bennett (@edbennett on Twitter) is a health care social media blogger who has been painstakingly following hospital use of social media on major platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs. Thank you Ed! I also like your pedagogy in response to those asking about social media's ROI:"What is the ROI of my red plaid pants?" asks Ed,"since I can't go to work without pants." Anyway, regarding statistics, I decided to make a numbers chart out of Ed Bennett's latest bar charts, and play with the figures, in order to provide my analysis.

 

1) Facebook has clearly affirmed its lead in 2011, with Twitter coming in second and YouTube third. So, if a hospital is only planning on managing one account, Facebook would seem to be the one to choose at present.

2) If YouTube is lagging to Twitter, the practical difficulty of producing videos versus producing tweets is undoubtedly the reason here.

3) LinkedIn is gaining popularity quickly and at 566 could overtake YouTube's 575 in 2012, despite the fact that YouTube is third most popular site in the world.

4) The increase in number of hospitals adopting social media is slowing, from 200% to 140%...Hmmm, will end 2012 see only 15 or 1600 hospitals? Could be.

5) And finally, for the past two years running hospitals are averaging 2.6 accounts each, Facebook and Twitter, being the most frequent couple.

 

Doctors 2.0 & You New Interviews

At Doctors 2.0 and You, there were many conversations, many cameras, all discussing THE movement toward a new physician-patient relationship. And we hope you'll come and contribute your remarks  here to the Doctors 2.0 & You draft Manifesto.

In the meantime, please catch a glimpse of : Catherine Cerisey, Ronan Denoual, Lucien Engelen, Cedric Hutchings, Felix Jackson, Jean-Denis Koeck, Frederic Llordachs, Joris Molenaar, Susan Nicholas, Franck Panaget, Denise Silber, Xavier Simon, Lucie Tesquier. They were all interviewed off-stage by Basil Strategies' partner, MedicalProTV channel by TechToc. The interviews in French are subtitled in English. 

Aller voir le site

iPads reveal hidden capacities of autistic children

The iPad "opens windows into children's minds." Discover the amazing progress in communication for people with autism, thanks to the iPad and learning apps. I am sure we are only at the beginning of a new world.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7385686n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox

Steve Jobs: Larger than Life, Best-Seller in Death. Let's talk medical choices.

As you can see on the left, Steve Jobs was present with us at Doctors 2.0 & You 2011, in a larger-than-life image, with an amazing caption : "Apple announces the iPad, changes the course of history." Click to enlarge the photo even more!

The iPad taught us that the killer app  for physicians is in fact a killer device: doctors, hospitals, med schools have snapped them up as never before--hopefully ending some of the persistent skepticism around professionals and computers. But, Steve Jobs' legacy will not be limited to technology. It will be about the man, the man with a will to do things on a big scale, perfectly, a will to change not only IT but music as well and maybe other fields had he lived on.  I, like many if not most of you, knew very little about the personal experiences in his early years that helped shape him into the person he would become and certainly little to nothing about his medical choices during the final chapter of his life.

Steve Jobs' authorized biography will be launched on October 24th, 2011, in the US. The book is above all Steve Job's legacy to his family, his desire to tell them his innermost thoughts in a structured way. But there is every reason to believe that the biography will be a runaway best-seller for perhaps millions around the world who will be interested in knowing more about this visionary --  which is why I want to focus here on the medical side as did the New York Times in an article entitled "Jobs tried exotic treatments to combat cancer, book says."

We learn through this article two things of major importance. Steve Jobs first learned of his pancreatic cancer in October, 2003 and refused to accept surgery and medical therapy for around nine months,  

preferring "fruit juices, acupuncture, herbal remedies and other treatments — some of which he found on the Internet — and that infuriated and distressed his family, friends and physicians".

"When he did take the path of surgery and science, Mr. Jobs did so with passion and curiosity, sparing no expense, pushing the frontiers of new treatments (DNA sequencing to determine personalized treatments). According to Mr. Isaacson, once Mr. Jobs decided on the surgery and medical science, he became an expert — studying, guiding and deciding on each treatment."

So, some questions :

Thoughts from Medicine 2.0: Going Full Circle or the real story of SoMe #med2

There's an amazing conference going on in Palo Alto at the lovely Stanford Med School campus, organized by the no less amazing Larry Chu under the supportive eye of Gunther Eysenbach. The weather is sunny and crisp. We're a stone's throw of some of the US's if not the world's most amazing tech companies and medical institutions. But, I am not going to talk to you about "hi" as in tech and the latest sensor or app or mobile tablet.

I am going to talk about "hi" as in the way we greet one another, because that's what all of this is about.

We have gone from a pre-technology world, where man/woman survived by living in communities, at a time when it was impossible to do otherwise. And with that community came not only food, clothing, and shelter, but also belonging, a place, a role, a natural support group, a spirtuality.

And then, thanks to technology, we could progressively travel greater distances and ultimately live on our own thanks to the advent of electricity, mail order, frozen food...I think you get what I mean. 

And with each invention, we went one step further -- unwittingly-- in making that distancing possible...In the 21st century, our ability to satisfy our individual needs has led us to live with almost no consideration for "the other". Those who are not able to support themselves are not automatically attended to, whether ill, old, homeless...in need.

But, and this is the key point, technology has also enabled man/woman to come full circle to what we are meant to do.  We are all seeking at least moments of happiness. We all know that real happiness doesn't come from material gain, even if the promotion, new home or expensive object are momentarily fabulous. It comes from "feeling good about yourself".  And when do we feel best about ourselves?

It's above all when you're doing good. And we all know what that is. I may sound Pollyanna-ish, but I've been interested in the "study of happiness" for sometime. And so I was even more attentive to keynote Jennifer Aaker and her happiness lecture, where she talked of the contribution of thousands to potentially help a stranger with a bone marrow graft.

And now in a subsequent session, we've just heard 10 patient voices -- all people with medical challenges. Not only are they each examples of courage, we can see how that courage is multiplied by coming together with others.

And how is this all achieved? This is the Full Circle. We have for the past number of 2.0 years invented ways for technology to bring us all back together again. And that is the real story of Social Media. It's about putting people together as we were meant to be biologically and that is why in this room as we've heard this morning first from Jennifer Aaker and now from the epatients, there is an extraordinary sense of well-being and endorphins flying around. I don't need to measure it. I know they are there. Thank you all!

Shifting GeoPolitics of Online Physician Communities (purchase of Doctors.Net) #doctors20 #hcsmeu

How would you describe the universe of online physician communities? Up until today, there were two historic categories, those  launched within the borders of one country and those, generally more recent, that were launched with a global perspective. This of course can change through acquisitions, and one such acquisition was posted today.

One of the first communities to think beyond borders was DocCheck who created a multi-country network in Europe. This was followed by Medting  from Spain which integrates Google Translate,  Doc2Doc from BMJ in English, and most recently VoxMed which operates in 8 languages.

We could also talk about specialties. Specialties tend to think more globally and work in English, even in non-English speaking countries.

Amongst the national communities, Sermo in the US has generally been cited as "the" example, because the US is the most common eHealth reference. Yet, Doctors.Net  of the UK, the object of the acquisition,  had been created prior to Sermo and counts more physicians (186k) both in the absolute and as a per cent of the number of practicing physicians in the country than Sermo. The Doctors.net.uk email domain is also cited as the primary email address for many UK physicians. In addition, Doctors.Net  developed a working relationship with other important physician communities on the Continent, in France, Germany, Spain, in the past 12 months.

So the August 23rd, 2011 acquisition  of Doctors.Net Uk by M3 USA is no minor event. M3 USA  manages MDLinx, an English-language medical news publisher of physician-recommended online bibliographies, itself a subsidiary of the Japanese corporation. By placing in one hand, a significant physician presence in Japan, the US, and Europe, this sale most certainly represents a seismic shift in the geopolitics of online physician communities.

Many questions remain. What will  physicians gain from this greater proximity with other communities? Will some of the content assets of the acquiring company be applicable to Europe? Will British physicians be comfortable as a subsidiary of a multi-national corporation? Will all of the various partner companies get along in this new constellation? Will multi-country programs be able to work smoothly despite legal and regulatory differences? M3 USA's announced objective is to be able to interface with global companies such as pharma and health investors. Will the new company be able to deliver on global promise? In the current climate, will this put too much emphasis on pharma's rôle?

I am sure the team at Doctors.Net tested out their hypotheses before the sale, and that we'll be seeing some interesting developments in 2012.

 

Yes, favorable internet evaluations be purchased.

While internet rating sites for physicians in the US have been around for a number of years and a number of specialized sites are now part of the online health landscape (HealthGrades, RateMDs, and others), this is not the case in Europe in general, and France in particular, despite the presence of Yelp, GoogleMaps, and other US-based sites that allow for physician ratings. Health care professionals in France believe that physician rating will lead to either a) friendly reciprocal reviews amongst professionals (I'll evaluate you, you'll evaluate me, and we'll all evaluate each other) or b) unjustifiedly negative patient reviews. There is simply insufficient trust in crowdsourcing re docs. While French sites such as Le Guide Santé and Hôpital.fr do allow patients to rate hospitals and clinics, they don't provide for ratings of the individual professional. What's the latest on this front?