Indian Medical Association Plans Programs to Make Members Tech Savvy

The potential of improving Healthcare quality by proper use of technology is immense.Recent advances in information technology offer clinicians valuable new tools to support the medical management of patients. HIT has the potential to enable a dramatic transformation in the delivery of health care, making it safer, more effective, and more efficient.

The national unit of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has decided to make its two lakh members across the country, especially senior medical practitioners, more tech savvy. The National vice-president of IMA, Dr Devendra Shirole says,“Short contact programs of four days will be organized at all local branches of the IMA. Doctors will be trained on how to use information technology for the betterment of medical profession and patents’ data collection.” He said the doctors will be also trained on using e-books in their daily practice.

The IMA will launch this project initially in Maharashtra and the inauguration will take place in Mumbai. Groups, formed for research purposes, will use information technology to study diseases and viruses.To undertake this vast project, talks are on with software companies to provide trainings and technical support, as well as help IMA build web pages for the same.

Also See:

• Costs and Benefits of Health Information Technology
• Technoclinics- Upcoming scenario in India

 

NHS Inform- Personalized Health Information Site for Decision Makers

The NHS Information Center is England’s central, authoritative source of health and social care information for front line decision makers.
Our aim is to revolutionize the use of information to improve decision making, deliver better care and realize  increased productivity.
Find out more about us, our work and our objectives.

Check it out for all sorts of data and information, like:

• Ambulances – How many ambulances in any particular district…
• Cancer Screening – Prevalence rates..
• Immunization – Statistics and more..
• Health care workforce – How many are there?
• Contraception, and lots more…

 

Finland officially becomes first nation to make broadband a legal right

Today Finland officially becomes first nation to make broadband a legal right

via thenextweb.com

Starting today (July 1), every Finnish citizen now has a guaranteed legal right to a least a 1Mbps broadband connection, putting it on the same footing as other legal rights in the country such as healthcare and education.

Last year, Finland was the first nation in the world to pass this type of legislation, followed by Spain in November.

The Finish government has promised guaranteed speeds of 100Mbps by 2015 for all of its citizens, and currently about 97% of Finns already have access to broadband connections.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Broadband Is Now A Legal Right In Finland (techdirt.com)
• Finland the first country in the world to make broadband access a legal right (engadget.com)

 

What Doctors Want at CME Programs

In a Pri-Med survey of 2,211 PCPs across 15 branded speaker programs, 48% said the general disease area covered in the program was their main reason for attending. Of these, 53% of audience members were drawn to the topic of asthma/COPD but only 8% said it was because of the brand discussed. And about half were drawn to the topic of cardiovascular disease or diabetes, but only 12-15% due to any specific drug. Overall, only 14% said the primary attraction was hearing more about a specific product or therapy, with pain drugs cited most often (35%)

When it comes to these programs, “topics are the draw, not necessarily the drug name,” said Dara Warn, Pri-Med SVP.

via mmm-online.com

Learning about new therapies (49%),

obtaining perspective on common topics (43%),

learning from peers (16%) and

the ability to ask questions (14%) were the aspects physicians found most valuable.

 

What is Next Generation Publishing?

via youtube.com

What is the future of the publishing industry in this networked world of information creators and consumers?

Henri Van Engelen, CEO of Wolters Kluwer Belgium, talks about the changes in the publishing industry brought about by the Internet and Web 2.0 technologies.

Related articles

• The United States of Publishing 2010: Status and Predictions (slideshare.net)

 

Twitter in Health conversation

In some ways, the Internet’s evolution is akin to that of a particularly efficient virus: RSS feeds, Digg, Twitter, Google Buzz. Now the next step appears to have arrived, courtesy of the ad agencies of the world. Imagine a Twitter feed tailored to specific therapy areas, packaged in a creative, engaging design. That’s what digital firm Zemoga and inVentive’s Palio teamed up to create with their Health Tweeder, a part of their joint-venture Pixels and Pills blog; and what newly-formed Razorfish Health has in their Health Conversation.

The Health Tweeder and the Health Conversation are the fruits of long months of design and technical wizardry. But while their mechanisms are similar, their purposes differ.

via pharmexec.findpharma.com

Twitter tools and twitter accounts are wonderful way to build up a social conversation around specific therapy areas. Check out our effort for the Indian Rheumatology association on
www.twitter.com/iraupdates

 

71 Million Indians Claimed to have used Internet in 2009

71 million people claimed to have used internet in 2009 according to the Internet in India [I-Cube] Report published by the Internet and Mobile Association of India [IAMAI] and market research leader IMRB.

Active users, those who use internet at least once a month according the international standards of reckoning, rose from 42 million in September 2008 to 52 million in September 2009 according to the study, registering a year on year growth of 19%. The ‘claimed users’ is an important category for understanding future trends in active user base.

This surge in number has been primarily due to the increased numbers of the users in the remote urban pockets (small metros and towns) and among lower socio-economic classes (SEC C, D &E). This development has been more striking this year as the combined usage of these geographies and classes have overtaken top cities and higher socio-economic classes in numbers.This finding clearly indicates that the Internet has reached to remote masses in urban India

via iamai.in

 

Swine Flu guidelines from India

On 14 th august, Friday night, after facing flake for the past two weeks on the bungled handling of Swine Flu epidemic in India, the government has come up with a better set of guidelines.The new guidelines allow ALL doctors to treat for Swine Flu (Believe it or not, earlier only designated hospitals and doctors  < and no other doctor> could treat Swine flu!!) The guidelines were finalized after a five-hour meeting chaired by Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.

The patients have been categorized as follows:

* Category A: Patients with mild fever plus cough/sore throat with or without body ache, headache, diarrhoea and vomiting. They do not require Oseltamivir and should be treated for the symptoms mentioned above. The patients should be monitored for their progress and reassessed after 24 to 48 hours by the doctor. No testing of the patient for H1N1 is required. Patients should confine themselves at home and avoid mixing with the public and high risk members in the family.

I agree with this

* Category B: (i) In addition to all the signs and symptoms of Category A, if the patient has high grade fever and severe sore throat, he/she may require home isolation and Oseltamivir; (ii) In addition to all the signs and symptoms of Category A, individuals having one or more of the following high risk conditions shall be treated with Oseltamivir: children under five, pregnant women, those above 65 years, those with lung diseases, heart disease, liver disease, kidney disease, blood disorders, diabetes, neurological disorders, cancer and HIV/AIDS; Patients on long term cortisone therapy. No H1N1 tests are required for Category-B (i) and (ii). Such patients should confine themselves at home and avoid mixing with the public and high-risk members in the family.

I think all such cases be tested for H1N1, and antiviral therapy started without delay

* Category C: In addition to the symptoms of Categories A and B, if the patient has one or more of the following: breathlessness, chest pain, drowsiness, fall in blood pressure, sputum mixed with blood, bluish discolouration of nails; irritability among small children, refusal to accept feed; worsening of underlying chronic conditions. Such patients require testing, immediate hospitalisation and treatment.(

All such patients should be started on antivirals without even waiting for test results!!, its already late!

)

During the meeting, various guidelines and protocols developed by the World Health Organisation, Geneva, the Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Atlanta, United States, and the National Health Service, United Kingdom, were also discussed.The death toll has already reached 26 today, and is rising exponentially. Hope these guidelines help, but i really think its too little too late.

Related articles

• Inside the Fight Against a Flu Pandemic – TIME (time.com)
• Swine flu deaths go up in India (news.bbc.co.uk)

 

The Zorg 2.0 (Health2.0) Event in Nijmegen

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Linked here are some great presentations from the recently held Zorg 2.0 event at Nijmegen

You will see how to make health care more transparent and make the best use of web 2.0 tools to enhance communication and interaction between patient and health care professionals.

This Health 2.0 event was held at Lux in Nijmegen.

Experts in Online marketing, Health IT professionals, entrepreneurs and many others gathered to discuss the best use of Web 2.0 in Health care.

The Zorg 2.0 (Health2.0) Event inNijmegen

It was a great success. The range of talks and perspectives was very broad, but also gave a number of specific good examples of good practice in Health2.0 projects.

Points of note which emerged include-

• Arrange the care around the patients and not around the doctors.
• Train your staff to deal with, to engage and emerge in this vision of healthcare.
• Choose your applications wisely to get, use, adapt or even create your own best applied use of it in your organization.
• It is not about the tools, but about the whole process and workflow around healthcare and your vision.

Wish i could have attended. But i have the next best thing on my Screen via all the numerous Blogs, Photos, twitter updates and videos.

Related articles by Zemanta:

• The “Green Patient Lab” provides a glimpse of future healing environments
• Catch the Wave – Using the Net for patient care

 

-A Fantastic Medical Informatics conference in India

Just back from the Meditel 2008, the fifth International conference on Medical informatics and Telemedicine. The theme of the conference this year was “ICT for Medical Education and Research” and there were some pretty sharp presentations in Medical e.learning. Hopefully, as promised, most of the presentations would be available on the MCSI website soon.

The few presentations i thoroughly enjoyed included,

• E-Learning- Current trends in India- by Dr.Balasubramanyam, Prof. ans head, Dept. of Anatomy, SJMC, Bangalore.

• Cochrane Collaboration- Informed healthcare in South Asia- Dr.Pratap Tharyan

• Improving Healthcare via Transparent monitoring- Mr.Bill Thies, MIT and Microsoft ( use of microchip within pill boxes to monitor compliance in National health programs like DOTS India.)

• World”s first prepaid service for Doctors consultation from any Phone- by Mr.Sunil Kulkarni, Group President, Oxigen Services (India) Pvt. Ltd.( a beautiful concept to allow pre-paying for telephonic medical consultations)

There were a number of other interesting ones, like this Virtual conference using Webex services, via a lowly Tata Indicom plug2surf device !!

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