#eHealthPromotion, #SaluteSocial

GE Healthcare has launched a new global awareness campaign that uses ‘gamification’ and social media to promote cancer prevention through healthier lifestyles.

At the heart of the Get Fit campaign is a six-week competition that will see users of Twitter, Facebook and Chinese micro-blogging site Sina Weibo collect points by tracking their progress against specific health challenges or by posting comments about healthier lifestyles.

John Dineen, president and CEO of GE Healthcare, said: “Prevention and active participation in our own better health are the first steps in improving health outcomes.

- Dr Tamas Horvath - Doctors 2.0 & You speaker presents his use of the web in his practice in Hungary.

Open mHealth is a new not for-profit organization for creating open software architecture for mHealth to improve health outcomes.

The 25th anniversary of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion provided a glimpse into Israels struggle for a healthier population.

Written for public health professionals and students, the Dictionary of Public Health Education and Health Promotion, Second Edition (Naomi Modeste, Teri Tamayose), includes definitions for terms and concepts frequently used in public health education and promotion. The book offers both students and professionals a handy resource and contains a wide range of health education related terminologies and effectively eliminates the need for wading through scores of books or articles to find a definition. The book also provides an easily used reference for those working in research or design of public health interventions and:

• Offers a reference list of the terms found most often in the professional literature

• Includes key terms used in related public health disciplines such as epidemiology, health administration, biostatistics, environmental health, and behavioral sciences

• Presents terms relevant to the four settings of health promotion and education—community, workplace, primary care, and school

• Provides a useful study aid when preparing for the exam to become a Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES)

Although the number of mobile health applications has grown dramatically over the past few years, there has not been a corresponding rise in the number of people downloading health apps, the Washington Post reports.

Rise in Mobile Health Apps

Brian Dolan, editor and co-founder of MobiHealthNews, said data show the number of consumer health apps in the Apple Store has increased from 2,993 in February 2010 to 13,619 in April 2012.
He noted, "But a persistent trend is that the majority of these apps are focused on tracking fitness or diet ... and far fewer are focused on what most people would consider true health problems, like chronic conditions or chronic condition management."

Low Download Rates

Recent data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project indicate that about 88% of U.S. residents have a mobile phone and about 50% of those are smartphones. However, only about 10% of smartphone users have downloaded health-related apps, a figure that has remained steady since 2010.

Susannah Fox, lead health researcher for the project, said, "We are in a situation where we have the technology and we certainly have the need -- just look at all of the statistics on the rise of obesity and other unhealthy trends." She added, "But what we have not yet seen is an uptick in the percentage of people who are adopting and using these health apps."

As the ground shifts under their very feet, savvy health insurers are figuring out that engaging consumers will be the key to succeeding long term.

mHealth is an emerging trend in technology. It stands for 'mobile healthcare' and means utilizing smartphones and medical mobile devices to help diagnose and monitor health conditions.

Scientists to hunt for lifesaving information buried in cradle-to-grave data collected by GPs and hospitals...

When medicine met the Internet, there was a global expansion of medical information: some evidence based and accurate, others misleading and false; for professionals and patients alike to peruse and usurp. Soon, there were online appointments and the ever controversial doctor rating websites. Now, hundreds of millions of people take to the Internet every day to post their own views and stories in an endless sea of social media websites.

Twitter, a free microblogging website inviting users, or tweeters, to post 140 character tweets, now boasts 500 million active users. Whilst it may have started as being a portal into the celebrity world, Twitter€™s demographics have boomed and now includes many doctors and those soon to be.

The buzz of the social media hive is like nothing else and the growth of social media giants like Twitter as well as Facebook with over 900 million active users poses a new question. What role does social media play in the modern day doctor-patient relationship?

I argue that whether we like it or not, their unification has already begun.

Social media has a place in almost every home. Laptops, iPads, tablets and now, in the palm of their hands, people accessing Twitter and Facebook on the go using their smartphones. More and more doctors are emerging on Twitter, some gaining an impressive following. Whilst most simply tweet their day to day lives, some make political references and use hashtags to contribute to debate and protest.

Some doctors, including well known TV doctors, take Twitter one step further and answer medical questions and even recommend diagnoses and treatments.

If you are experienced, knowledgeable and willing to answer such questions responsibly, what is the problem? It offers an excellent way for people to gain simple advice quickly and easily, and has great potential for engaging with young people. I feel the problem is finding a place to draw the line. A consultant offering an answer evokes a different response to if a medical query was answered by an inexperienced Foundation Year doctor.

If an eight minute GP consultation is a time limited struggle, a 140 character tweet with no physical examination is not very insightful. As well as issues regarding false information and patient safety there are concerns regarding data protection. How can we keep patient information confidential if we plaster it over Twitter? A system with doctors communicating medical information to patients over social media appears chaotic and impossible to archive

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To include Twitter as a middle man between doctor and patient has the potential to negatively impact not only the patient, but the doctor. Twitter offers a platform to patients, which some inevitably will use to complain and may choose to name their doctor specifically. Concerns regarding doctor rating websites have been well publicised and Twitter offers a new way for patients to vent their anger about named doctors publically.

Where will Twitter take us? Could we one day see doctors and patients communicating blood results via security encrypted social media sites? Will patients be logging on to tweet their GP their morning blood pressure check or BM result?

Social media is expanding daily, as does our capability to employ it in our working lives. I argue that Twitter is a new tool in medicine that we can use to reach out patients, to pool opinions, and shape the health service and methods of practice.