For more information, check her at @amcunningham

This was a “talk” that I did at the MGFamiliar.net Talks.

I’m just preparing an audio file, so that it can be more understandable.

Delta Exchange is a social networking for primary care physicians created by TransforMED, an American Academy of Family Physicians subsidiary. Its main goal is to enhance the family physicians knowledge in the patient centered medical home model.

Transform to a medical home — with a little help from your friends

We learned from the National Demonstration Project (NDP) that transforming to a patient-centered medical home (PCMH) isn’t easy — it actually IS rocket science — and it requires meaningful change throughout all aspects of a practice.

We also learned that medical practices can be lonely places: physicians and staff often feel isolated. What they want and need are opportunities to communicate, collaborate, and learn with other practices in order to maintain the momentum of change.

And lastly, we also learned that some practice leaders have a DIY attitude (Do-It-Yourself). They were not interested in having a consultant or practice coach in the practice; they just wanted useful information, some accountability, and connections with other practices to learn best practices.

TransforMED’s Delta-Exchange provides all of that in an online, social networking platform.

With the cost of 30$/month per user, this is an interesting solution for knowledge sharing and collaborative virtual work among family physicians.

Nowadays, creating technologic platforms for health education is more than an alternative; it’s mandatory.

This is certainly going in that direction: Medikidz - medical information for kids!

The 5 Medikidz – Axon, Gastro, Skinderella, Pump and Chi – are a “group of larger-than-life. space-dwelling characters” that live on a 3D virtual world, a planet called Mediland and shaped as the human body. By using graphic novels, medicine information pamphlets, an online information edutainment environment, online games, and of course, social networking, the Medikidz are determined to explain medical concepts in a simple and understandable way, empowering children and their parents. Everything starting in next July.

This is the 3D view of the Stomach Room with some food in it.

Will it be possible for grown-up docs to pay a visit? I would love to take a journey trough Mediland and remind those days of “Il était une fois la vie”.

More information:

Facebook – Medikidz Foundation

E-Health Europe: World’s first kid’s medical website announced

Habbo – Medikidz group

Jay Parkinson, @jayparkinson, author of the jay parkinson + md + mph blog and a health 2.0 revolutionizer, presented hellohealth in June 2008, a social network between patients and doctors that steps aside from the US healthcare insurance companies and their dense billing system. Although a little focused on an economist point of view, this video from Jay presents the way that primary care should be on the 21st century: personalized and citizen centered healthcare based on a high usage of the communication technologies.

Is this is the doctor-patient relationship 2.0 ? Probably yes.

Ladies and gentlemen, Jay Parkinson.

More information:

Scienceroll: Jay Parkinson and Hello Health

Jay Parkinson MD website

During the last Portuguese National GP Meeting, that occurred in Vilamoura from March 18th to 21st, I and Tom Nolan, from doc2doc, organized a 90 minute workshop entitled Social Networking for General Practitioners and Trainees. This was the first time that Portuguese GPs had the opportunity to discuss and try some of the tools that web 2.0 brought to light during the last years.

Tom presenting the “Social network: what’s in it for GPs?”

The workshop main attractions were the social network platforms doc2doc and, of course, Twitter. Participants had the chance to endure on a live tweet discussion between me, @amcunningham, @brownleader and @JRBTrip who kindly accepted to be available on Twitter for 30 minutes on that morning. A lot of tweets were exchanged among Portugal (Vilamoura), UK and Australia during those moments, mainly regarding the use of Twitter by GPs, electronic communication between physicians and patients and also different working conditions for GPs. You can tweetsearch the discussion with the hashtag #26encg.

This conference was particularly interesting, due to high scientific interest, focusing General Practice/Family Medicine and Quality Assessment, but also regarding the fact that it was the first time that a GP conference in Portugal was being live tweeted. Carlos Martins, @mgfamiliarnet, was avidly following the stream during his daily GP activities 600 km away, in a health centre in Porto.

This was a starting kick for Portuguese GPs in social networking 2.0, we hope everyone feels enthusiastic about it.

And Vilamoura… see you next year!

The recently published “Virtual Doctor Visit Report”, conducted by Prophis eResearch on 1600 online US adults, proves that patients perceive online consultation as being positive, and even more if one is consultated by a personally known physician.

How should GP practices prepare themselves for this upcoming reality? Should Instant Messaging services and virtual reality consultations be as common as a telephone consultation?

In my humble opinion, yes they should.

The “Virtual Doctor Visit Report” results – via imarketinsights

Further information:

• Scienceroll: Call Your Doctor Online: The Future of Medicine

• Innovation Playground: The Coming Healthcare Innovation – Doctors Need to Go Virtual… and Social

• Prophis eResearch: Virtual Doctor Visit Report – Perceptions, Projected Use and Users of Internet-based Doctor-Patient Interaction

What are the differences beetwen eHealth 1.0 and 2.0?

A simple and objective comparison was posted on ehealthnews.com

ehealth 1.0 -   ehealth 2.0
Hospital news  -  Care Pages
Executives speech -  Executive blog
Taxonomy  -  Folksnomy
Quick poll  -  Discussion Forums
Generic report  -  Regular podcasts
Wellnes information  -  Patient sharing sites
Content management  -  Wikis
Directories (A-Z)  -  Tagging
Sticky content  -  RSS

More information:

• eHealth insider: web 2.0 revolution in healthcare

“those who ignore the deep trends of e-health 2.0 risk missing the early stages of a social, economic and technological tectonic shift in healthcare planning and delivery” in Web 2.0 in the Health Sector: Industry Review with a UK perspective

I think it could be useful to list all the family physicians/GPs or GP trainees that are on Twitter.

If you want to add someone, please write your comment below or send me a tweet.

• @amargaridaz – GP trainee

• @amcunningham / www – GP and Clinical Lecturer… interested in everything:)

• @brownleader / www – inner city primary care doctor

• @doc_rob / www – Primary Care Doc, Goofball, Daddy, Hubby

• @doctoranonymous / www – Family Physician, MedBlogger, Internet radio show host, all around nice guy

• @drbonis / www

• @DrHubbard / www – Family physician and publisher of James Hubbard’s My Family Doctor, which is medical information for the general public written by health-care professionals.

• @drottematic / www – Final year med student at UBC, Vancouver. Canadian Family Practice Resident, starting July 1, 2009

• @Dr_Paige / www – Family Practice doc for Family Practice West in Columbus, Ohio

• @GPforhire – Family Doctor, husband, father, geek, gardener, old skool Jedi, um, and loads of other interesting things…

• @holmspun / www – A Family Doc and a Medical Student musing about medicine in the Midwest.

• @japrados

• @jmbhan / www – I am a Family Physician and tech junky, trying to change the world

• @kevinmd / www – Primary care doctor Kevin Pho, M.D. provides commentary on physicians, patients, hospitals, medicine and health care.

• @KittKlaiss –  Small Town Doc, mom of 2, knitter, scifi junkie

• @meducate / www – Global, strategic medical education professional. Interested in clinical practice gaps and outcomes measures. Also humorous speaker/writer globally.

- @mgfamiliarnet / www – MGFamiliar.net

• @rqgb / www – Spanish GP trainee in Madrid

• @ruraldoctoring / www – Rural family doctor, hospitalist, baby catcher, restlessly creative.

• @tedeytan / www – Health Informatics. Patient Empowerment. Washington, DC, Oh, I’m a doctor too.

• @tiagoMGF / www – GP trainee/Family Medicine resident and Freelance Writer

Join the Primary Care Twitter Group, launched by @amcunningham.

Check the full list of medical Twitterers created by @medicalstudent here and take a look at the Twitter Top 100 Health and Medicine rank.

Some days ago, I wrote a newsletter for the Second Virtual Congress of General Practice and Family Medicine, regarding health literacy and the impact of knowledge in healthcare. This is a subject I am very keen on, and it will dramatically change the way health systems organize themselves and also the relationship between healthcare providers and patients.

For an aditional point of view, I’m also posting a video interview to Sir Muir Gray, Director of the UK NHS National Knowledge Service, focusing the importance and goals of mapofmedicine®. Thanks to @amcunningham for the bookmark on the video.

Globalizing Health Knowledge

Tell me, I forget.
Show me, I remember.
Involve me, I understand.
Chinese proverb

The everchanging essence of knowledge and the continuous seek for new discoveries have driven mankind to a tenacious dedication for unveiling the paths and boundaries of the human body. The extent of our knowledge about ourselves has increadibly reached the genetic book of life, allowing in a certain way to forecast the future. But is this immense knowledge leading us to higher levels of health literacy?

Nowadays, citizens are empowered through the fast access to information, and the gap between patients and health information has significantly been curtailed. Health related searches on the internet have increased over the past few years, and online communities of patients, that have physically never met, are flourishing at a fast pace. These current trends of the information and communication technologies are changing the lives of individuals and their families, and also the way that health systems are developing.

We see health consumers rapidly becoming key health players, taking increased responsability for their health status and data, and ultimately gaining critical knowledge about the quality the health care they receive. Patient-centeredness is a new order, and consequently the web 2.0 effect on the patient-doctor relationship is far for being totally understood.

For general practitioners and family physicians, who are at the forefront of health care systems around the world, this represents an exciting challenge. Moreover, this undoubtedly requires an upgrade of skills which entails joining the technological breakthrough and to face a new set of communication channels: instant messaging, electronic mail and virtual reality, just to name a few… Reassuring the important role of primary care providers in promoting health literacy is of crucial importance and can be achieved at a global scale, and not just simply in local settings.

Thirty years after the Declaration of Alma-Ata, primary health care needs once again gather forces in order to help decreasing inequalities around the world. The demands of health care systems require innovative solutions. As such, eHealth now represent the common voice for globalizing health literacy. The main goal for the Second Virtual Congress of General Practice and Family Medicine is to enable the use of eHealth, so as to empower citizens to use health information in an operational way – in other words, working globally for a wiser health.