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154 posts in "Health 2.0"

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.

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

Capture d’écran 2013-12-20 à 01.21.48Some 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).

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

twitter's world

--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.

 
 
 
 
 
 

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

Capture d’écran 2013-06-10 à 00.26.37The 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

SlowControlDigitalFork

 

"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!

 

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.

Capture d’écran 2013-04-03 à 21.49.03

 

 

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.

Capture d’écran 2013-03-13 à 00.15.10

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.

Berci, Lucien Engelen 16.25.21In 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. 

Silber Chu 16.18.24
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.  SeanAhrens Chronology 16.12.11

 

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.

 

Healthcare Social Media: What Can We Learn from a Fork? Or 8 Reasons for Slow Control to Succeed.

Capture d’écran 2013-01-09 à 02.30.18In the first few days of the New Year, we are always smothered in summaries, insights, and perspectives on the year past and the trends to come, especially in the fast-moving area of digital communication.  What and who will succeed on the web, in Social Media, in Mobile Apps? What's going up? What's coming down? You get the picture. But, to my mind, there is only one question? When will healthcare "get it" in a major and concrete way?  When will digital healthcare play as much of a role in as many people's lives as say e-commerce ? The answer is Marketing 101: when what people want, the products, and the business models are aligned. We aren't there yet.

Where I'm going with this, is that some innovations do speed forward with less effort than others. And herein lies my story about the potential success of Slow Control, a company -- which in all transparency has been a client since 2012. Their first product, a digital fork branded as the HapiFork, has been unveiled at the Las Vegas Consumer Show. This fork vibrates when the user eats faster than he's supposed to and it generates graphs of the user's eating speed. Why set up such a system? Because eating too fast is unhealthy and conversely "eating slowly" has various health benefits on digestion, metabolism, weight management.

We are seeing an extraordinary amount of interest in this internet-connected fork, the concept of "eating slowly for better health" which it supports, and the story of the inventor, Jacques Lépine. Journalists and bloggers are very present. The exhibit stand is never empty.

And so, we ask ourselves "why this one"? What are the lessons learned? Here is my take. My theory is that Slow Control is capturing everyone's imagination for a number of reasons.

  1. A fork used for eating is an important and ancient tool going back to the Egyptians and Romans. 
  2. It is something that everyone  likes, because it means that serious food is not far away. 
  3. A fork is a three-dimensional object that everyone can easily visualize.
  4. Eating is one of the most positive human activities that people can discuss and food, unending in our interest.
  5. Eating too fast is something that almost everyone thinks they're guilty of at least occasionally.
  6. The concept of the fork has not had a major technological innovation, since perhaps the introduction of plastic, and none as significant as the integration of electronics.
  7. The application of the quantified self approach to the fork is a mindbender. Everyone knows that we can count and graph our steps, calories consumed, weight gained, heart rate, and blood pressure. But no one even knows how many forkfuls we take a day, let alone how to record them.
  8. A new entrant (Slow Control) to the market has brought all of this together in one product and the interest skyrockets...
Generating buzz is  "not simple" as all that. Look at how many valid public health campaigns have failed to interested the consumer. But, develop a way to measure for the first time an important human activity, and as such transform a historic object...and you're bound to stir things up...It's not about trends in general. It's about what makes us tick...Hey, we can count that too.

New News from Berci Mesko

Capture d’écran 2012-11-29 à 21.31.36Berci 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?

TEDmeskobertalanlapozoBM: 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 JCZhao NWHill SShofer FSAsch DABecker LBMerchant RM.Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

HealthCare Social Media amplifies French physician grassroots movement

Capture d’écran 2012-10-23 à 11.36.43 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.

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?

 

Smith College Conference in Paris Focusses on Advancing Women's Leadership in Public Health

Capture d’écran 2012-10-17 à 22.36.12Am honored  to be a part of this:
 
Smith College Conference in Paris to Focus on Advancing Women's Leadership in Public Health
Co-sponsored by Smith College and the U.S. Department of State, with the support of the French government and the European Parliament, the event will bring together emerging leaders from francophone Africa, France and greater Europe with experts in public service, global health and women’s education.

NORTHAMPTON, Mass.—Under the aegis of the Women in Public Service Project (WPSP), a joint venture of leading U.S. women’s colleges and the U.S. Department of State, Smith College will host “Women’s Leadership: Public Service and Global Health,” a four-day conference in Paris designed to give emerging public service leaders deeper understanding—and broader professional networks—around issues of infectious disease, domestic violence, nutrition and hunger, and gender disparities in access to medical treatment and resources.

The intensive four-day session, to be held Oct. 17 to 20, reflects the overall goal of WPSP: to increase the participation and influence of women in all spheres of public service. Participants will enhance their skills for attaining elected and appointed positions in the public sector while establishing networks within and outside their nations through which they can share strategies, tools and support.

Participants were selected from the global health arena in countries across francophone Africa and greater Europe. The location and venues of the conference acknowledge the long—and at times complex—relationship linking France and francophone Africa, as well as Smith College’s near century-long presence in France, the site of its oldest study abroad program.

Co-sponsored by Smith College and the U.S. Department of State, with the support of the European Parliament and the French government, this conference reflects the strides that France and greater Europe have made in women’s representation in government and public service.

   
   
Admission to the program was highly competitive; more than 170 applications were received for 35 delegate opportunities. More than 15 countries will be represented among the delegates, who are physicians, epidemiologists, health educators, journalists, health policy officials, women’s advocates and NGO officials.

The conference’s opening session will include an address by Nora Berra, former French Minister of Health and Member of the European Parliament. Mrs. Berra spoke at the WPSP launch at the invitation of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in December 2011. She will be joined at the opening session by Farah Pandith, Smith Class of 1990, special representative to Muslim communities, U.S. Department of State, a key figure in the development of WPSP.

Among the presenters throughout the four days will be Caroline de Haas, adviser to France’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs; Fatma Bouvet de la Maisonneuve, psychiatrist and women’s rights advocate; Saniye Gülser Corat, director of gender equality, UNESCO; Ambassador David T. Killion, U.S. Permanent Representative to UNESCO; and Denise Silber, Smith alumna, international e-health consultant and recipient of the French Legion of Honor for her work in promoting the use of new technologies in health care.

During the conference, delegates will attend a reception at the U.S. Embassy in Paris as guests of Susan Tolson, Smith Class of 1984, director, AMI-American Media Group, and her husband, Ambassador Charles Rivkin.

Sessions will include keynote addresses, small group workshops, case studies and informal discussions centered on the broad topic of public service in public health. A number of sessions are open to the public.

The program will be directed by Smith professor Robert Dorit, who has published extensively on public health issues. Dorit’s expertise includes the search for narrow-spectrum antibiotics, the genetics and epidemiology of antibiotic resistance, the biology and politics of breast cancer and the interaction between urbanization and human health.

About Smith College

Founded in 1875, Smith College, located in Massachusetts, is one of the largest women’s colleges in the United States. Its graduates are found in positions of public service and leadership around the world.

About The Women in Public Service Project

Developed by a founding partnership of the U.S. Department of State and five leading women’s colleges—Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Smith and Wellesley—the Women in Public Service Project provides vital momentum to the next generation of women leaders who will invest in their countries and communities, provide leadership for their governments and societies, and help change the way global solutions are developed. The Project is a program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

About the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

The Wilson Center provides a strictly nonpartisan space for the worlds of policymaking and scholarship to interact. By conducting relevant and timely research and promoting dialogue from all perspectives, it works to address the critical current and emerging challenges confronting the United States and the world.


       
Office of College Relations
Smith College
Garrison Hall
Northampton, Massachusetts 01063

   
Kristen Cole
Media Relations Director
T (413) 585-2190
kacole @ smith.edu

 
 
               
 

> 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 ;)...

Capture d’écran 2012-10-09 à 00.00.38 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),

Capture d’écran 2012-10-08 à 23.53.29is 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

Capture d’écran 2012-07-23 à 22.08.34So 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

Capture d’écran 2012-06-04 à 01.36.56What 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

Capture d’écran 2012-06-04 à 01.10.20

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.

Doc20FrMDTwitt_igraphics2012_en

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

Capture d’écran 2012-06-03 à 22.24.12How 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?

IMG_3065The 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?

Capture d’écran 2012-05-01 à 23.25.21Not 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
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 U
S)

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

Open access social media guidelines for pharma

Capture d’écran 2011-12-16 à 20.39.48

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

Capture d’écran 2011-12-16 à 22.56.58

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 2.0TM & 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 2.0TM and You convenes on May 23-24, 2012, at the International Residence situated in the elegant Cité Universitaire campus. Doctors 2.0TM & 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

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

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. 

Capture d’écran 2011-10-29 à 23.30.54When 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

Capture d’écran 2011-10-28 à 00.38.18

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.

 

Capture d’écran 2011-10-28 à 00.34.24

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.

 

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.

Capture d’écran 2011-10-23 à 23.30.47

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 :

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

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?

Continue reading "Yes, favorable internet evaluations be purchased." »

Clinicians, fear the e-patient no more ; read this scholarly publication. #doctors20 #hcsm

Are e-patients, -- as for example, online patient bloggers or members of an online patient community -- attempting to serve as "amateur doctors" for other online patients? Those who read this blog know that that is not my perspective. I welcome the engaged, expert patient and wonder why it is taking us so long to give them their rightful place in health care. But many people are still uncomfortable with the online patient, even simply seeking information on the Web, let alone engaging with other patients. The Journal of Medical Internet Research has just published a very interesting research paper entitled "Managing the Personal side of health: How patient expertise differs from the expertise of clinicians" by Hartzler and Pratt at the University of Washington.

Continue reading "Clinicians, fear the e-patient no more ; read this scholarly publication. #doctors20 #hcsm" »

The Physician-Patient Partnership, an interview with Catherine Cerisey

Capture d’écran 2011-08-11 à 00.25.59 For today, Silber's blog presents Catherine Cerisey, a French patient advocate and author of her blog "after my breast cancer", « après mon cancer du sein ». Since we launched the health 2.0 chapter meetings, community, and blog in France, Catherine has been present  IRL and virtually via Twitter and tweet-ups #health20fr  #hcsmeufr #doctors20. This June, Catherine Cerisey participated in the French-language Doctors 2.0 workshop about patient expectations.

Catherine and I had a rich exchange recently about the rôle of patients and I want to share with you her insights on "patient partner". Have as a well a look at this brief video animation called "Communicate" about the before and after of the Internet and its impact on the physician-patient relationship.

And here is the interview with Catherine.

Denise Silber : What is your perspective on the cancer patient's rôle? What has the Internet changed?  

Catherine Cerisey :   In a chronic disease such as cancer, in my observation, the patient has always known when and here it hurts, which drug brings relief, where the nurse can inject with the least pain;  it is often the patient who sounds the alert of an abnormal pain that may lead to a series of tests, for example.

Continue reading "The Physician-Patient Partnership, an interview with Catherine Cerisey " »

How interconnected are we?

At Doctors 2.0 & You, the "& You" referred  to the fact that the health care system is (or should be) a very, if not fully, interconnected world. However, this is still a work in progress. To connect  people within their own country, as most health care is still local, is already a challenge and to go beyond national borders presents an even greater challenge given language and travel requirements. Personal and collective resources both play a rôle. The advent of healthcare social media will help accelerate the connection, where basic resources are available. But much more needs to and will be done!

However, the international language, despite  the improvement of automatic translation tools, tends to be English (or globish ;-) and, given as well, the early start that the US had both on the internet  and in the demonstration of the need for eHealth, many of the most-known protagonists, whether patients, physicians, start-ups have tended to be based in the US while much is happening around the world. We can salute to this end, the hashtags developed by @andrewspong and @whydotpharma in the  #hcsm... series.

Nonetheless, Sermo is still often cited as "the" physician community, because of its rôle in the US, whereas Doctors.Net in the UK has more physicians both in the absolute and as a percentage of UK doctors. Doctissimo in France has a higher proportion of internet users in France, than any health site to my knowledge around Europe or North America. Various countries, organizations and individuals are doing amazing things. The list would be too long to place here.  But we have previously posted on this blog articles in English about both Gilles Frydman of Acor, a Frenchman in the US and Dave de Bronkart  an American in...the US and author of the remarkable Laugh, Sing, and Eat Like a Pig. I highly recommend a re-read of thoseposts.(And for the Francophones, there are other articles on the French version of Silber's Blog --use the search box-- and the Santé 2.0 Blog.)

At Doctors 2.0 & You conference in Paris, one of our key goals is to highlight the best in healthcare and social media and web 2.0 tools with an international perspective. While we could not of course cover all continents, speakers represented many countries and participants even more, a total of 22. And  amongst the patient advocates present were (by alphabetical order) Kathi Apostolidis (see her bilingual blog), Catherine Cerisey, Gilles Frydman, Jan Geissler who prepared a video for Doctors 2.0, (See also this link to an interview of Jan by Silja Chouquet).

Our next blog post presents Catherine Cerisey, a first in English. 



Infographic about Doctors' Use of Technology

++ Click to Enlarge Image ++
The Doctor's Tech Toolbox  | Infographic |
Image Source: Spina Bifida Info.com

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