Runkeeper - A new IPhone application for runners

Runkeeper is a new IPhone application for runners.

Outside the great design it gives you the opportunity to :

1. Track your fitness activities, including distance, time, speed, pace, calories burned, elevation, and path traveled on a map by the GPS capabilities of the IPhone

2. Store all of your activities on your personal web dashboard in RunKeeper web site and monitor your progress.

3. Your results can be sent to Twitter and Facebook as soon as you finish your activity

About other features you can read here:

RunKeeper features

3D animations for medical education

Long time since my last post and Im really regret about it.

Its time to get back with full engines for writing about so many new issues and topics relating to Health 2.0

Today' Uts not about a new site but still worth to mention here.

Understand.com

Under stand.com is a global provider of animated, web-based educational services that enhance physician’s web sites and practices. The engaging 3D Animations and Videos are customized and integrated into medical websites of organizations, clinics and private physicians sites as well as medical portals.

You can choose either buying already made videos and images or developing and producing a new product via their service and production capabilities.

Try and look at the site and watch several images and videos.

There are images in categories such:

Plastic surgery, Orthopedics, Dermatology etc.

You can also see the link on our Medical20index.com .

Medical 2.0 index

Hello all

Im glad to announce and share with you our new site called

Medical 2.0 Index

What is Medical 2.0 about?

Its about giving you top notch aggregation of tools , services, sites and applications belong to the Health 2.0 / Medical 2.0 sector.

We are doing constant collection of advanced sites , portals, services which are giving added value both to Health professionals as to consumers, patients and caregivers.

You can search for topics and content by highly specific tags. You can get first visual impression about sites by looking at the boxes we presenting in our sites. You can also help us rate the services.

As there is a positive movement at the Health 2.0 sector its about time to give you ( almost everyone) an easy and usability site and index to start looking and search for information and services that fit to your needs.

We will update the site constantly. We will be grateful to get suggestions from you about any kind of link concerning Healt 2.0 or E-Health.

We will be interested also in any kind of creative collaborations with other services and sites in our field.

Thanks a lot to Cnaan Aviv - An excellent programmer and internet geek which help as a partner to create Medical 2.0 index.

Enjoy and share with us your thoughts about it. Dont hesitate to tell others about it.

Yours

Uri

Use Twitter for Your Chronic Illness

So many talks and news about Twitter lately. Its also takes power on the Health 2.0 arena.

Here's an excellent post that describe how to use twitter for the benefit of the chronic illness patient. It was published just now at the BB Health blog.

The main concept is that there are so many details and situations in the daily activities and of the chronic patient which can be worth a lot from the medical aspect and in the eyes of the physician ( important anamnestic details). If someone describe in his twitter account many of these situations that directly belong or even partly belong to his medical condition than his doctor can make an important input from those 140 characters notings.For example : notings of diabetic patient or someone who suffer from chronic pain condition.

In her post Lisa Copen suggest 5 steps to use Twitter in such circumstances.

The new edition of Medicine 2.0 carnival

Hello

Im glad and proud to edit the new edition of this carnival.


These days we can observe that the Health 2.0 sector is no longer in his premature age. Another evidence for understanding the growing interesting on this sector we can see from the last month article published on Economist .
There are more and more private as well as public organizations and firms which are contribute to the development of the sector by investing efforts of time, money, and human equity ( journals, hospitals, health organizations etc.). These organizations are joining to private people- professionals as well as non pro which are contribute to the success of the Health 2.0 world. This unique world is no longer stnading by itsef (as a virtual world).More and more connections are seen between the health sector of the real world with that of the "web world".

In Found the Cache blog there is a summary about hospitals using the social media tools.

You can even read this article ( mentioned by scienceroll) to understand how the new social media tools influence on health organizations and hospitals.

Berci Mesko share with us some important and relevant tools for following news regarding the swine flu ( Here also we can see how major organizations are using web 2.0 tools ) .

The Healthinformaticsblog posted about a new new research project looking at using Social Media to track flu symptoms ( social media = Facebook).

The other side of the success ( so many items and news regarding medicine/health ant the web/Technology) is the danger of being overloaded with all of this information.

The EfficientMD.com blog mention this in one of his post and share with us some tools and suggestions how to deal with this problem.

In E-Health blog you can watch an excellent presentation - " Roadmap to web 2.0 in healthcare organizations". This presentation summarize and explain the new web 2.0 tools used by these organization ( not only organizations but also privates in the health sector) via the web for marketing/BD/educatin/knowledge sharing etc.

Interesting discussion and thoughts regarding the impact of mobile applications and SMS services in the in the health sector you can also read in Mobilehealthnews. ( Thanks to Health Management RX for referring to this post).

One example shows the new generation of Health applications via mobile phones and iPhones is the application that gives the physician as well the mother to watch her baby grow on the mobile.

If we are talking about new web tools in the service of health ( including health organizations) we should also remember and understand the place and the role of our Mobiles in this field - MHealth ( Mobile Health).

Another important presentation is about the position that Twitter is taking in our lives ( professional lives). You can read and observe some interesting facts and numbers regarding "twittering from conference - Boston Health 2.0 conference".

New England Journal of Medicine is showing us again the new role of the "new journals" in the "new web days" by creating the H1N1 Influenza center ( continuous updates about the swine flu).

Other interesting posts seen lately in our Era:

1. Wiimote Is Not Only For Gaming Anymore from Medgadget . Its about findings from a study showing that using the Nintendo Wii gyroscopic remote can be a viable option for modern radiologists.

2. Another post from Medgadget is about a new human atlas via iPhone.

3. Watch about the upcoming new visual EMR ( again, thanks to medgadget).

4. You can watch many videos from the Health 2.0 Online Care Symposium ( Thanks to Health 2.0 blog).

5. Post from the Healthcare IT Guy about ways for medical students and professionals to join the Health IT community ( for those who desire to work in this field).

Some interesting blogs worth to watch and read:

The idea is to mention not only new blogs but professional ones which share with us interesting content in specific subcategories related to Health 2.0:

1. healthGAMERS - Its about Health Games, an emerging field that uses game-based technology to improve the health of the public.

2. An old one but like a wine, getting better from day to day is the Street Anatomy blog . Its about art, design and medicine. For those who didnt find it until now, worth to following.

I hope you enjoyed reading this carnival edition.

Thanks once again to Bertalan Mesko fororganizing this carnival ( as well as creating some other excellent projects regarding Health 2.0).

Handle your pain by PDA

Today is about two subcategories of the Health 2.0 world- Combination of PDA tool and PHR.
The concept is to handle your pain by the PDA- Chronic pain management.
The idea of the product is a new PDA application that handle through graphic interface the pain management of every user. You can also transfer the data to your own PHR and even give the precious information to your physician ( actually this is the main practical goal lt- Help your physician helping you to deal with your chronic pain).

Some information from the application site:


"the application allows people with pain to record structured information on
their pain experience, treatment and physical activities every two hours throughout
the day."

"The team is also working on developing software that will automate the
analysis of information captured in the EPAD to offer patients and providers key
insights about a patient’s pain and treatments informed by best practices in pain
management."

New Contraception Checker

A new service from NHS Direct web site is the Online Contraception Checker .

Health 2.0/ Medicine 2.0 is not only complex and highly advanced and innovation platform .Its also about the idea of bringing people to check, s.investigate, informed and manage even simple acts and events concerning their health through the web.

The new service was used already by 34,700 people. Its another smart and simple algorithm of questions and answers leading the user to the right decision following his condition ( for example ; what to do if someone had an unprotected sex three days ago).
There is ability to make an unidentified web chats with web advisors available all over the working hours throughout the day ( 8 am - 8 pm)' and even in the weekends.

Simple service, that solve major problem for so many people in a quick and usable manner.

Below you can read Some interesting and useful information about this NHS Direct service:

1.Medicine information enquiries are one of the top three reasons people phone the service and emergency contraception makes up the largest percentage of those calls.

2. So far there have been 34,700 unique visits to the new online Contraception Checker and of those 409 engaged in anonymous web chats – 3% of those were from men.

Practical Questions and Answers for Health professionals

Today I found and read a practical post from the " Health Informaticist" blog .

Its about web resources for health professionals who deals with the concept of quality practical answers and questions in the medical field.
The post mentioned two sites worth to visit and get your own impression about their utility.

First is the " Tripanswers" and the second one is the "Attract".
Im sure that the subcategory of "finding quick and relevant answers for common questions" is important and highly potential. Physicians need simple and smart tools to help them find relevant and reliable resources in short time . Probably we will see in the near future more platforms or ideas focusing in this subcategory .

Businessweek is covering Health 2.0

Businessweek published yesterday an interesting article about Health 2.0 and the concept of "Patient empowerment".
For consumers, Its a great 3 pages article with very interestings samples and real life stories. Its called : "Patients as Partners."
Enjoy and share it with your colleagues and patients.

You even can watch an additional slideshow on Businessweek with so many examples of Health 2.0 ventures ( some of them are not clear cut Health 2.0 but more Medicine 2.0- like sermo).

Txtalert- An efficient Health mobile application

Txtalert is an example of truely positive use of mobile phones in the Healthcare sector.

The concept is to help patients and physicians to handle with the obstacles concerning long term treatments in HIV positive patients.

Txtalert uses text message reminders to improve the health of HIV positive people, by reminding them when they need to go for their next visit to the clinic. Apart from notifying patients of their upcoming appointments, TxtAlert also requests that they reschedule if they are unable to attend.

Seems simple but for my opinion simple and smart . This is an example how we can use the technology that is actually in our hands for accelerating "Advanced Medicine" and empower the "Patient- Physician" connection.Thats what Health 2.0 is about, or mostly about.

Txtalerts is just an example for being simple, creative and thinking usability in the aspect of technology and Healthcare.

Podcasts about Chron's Disease

Abbot released lately a new series of podcast about issues concerning Chron's disease.
Its about knowledge, clinical experience and tips at variety of subcontents like : nutrition, emotional impact etc.
Each Crohn’s Cast also includes a first-hand account from a person living with Crohn’s disease

Its their way to contribute some knowledge with their consumers - those who are using Humira (adalimumab), as a treatment for their illness ( of course, its an open source for eveyone who is interesting with these issues).
This is an example of the new equation on the web (Health 2.0 equation) - Pharmas dont just commercialize and making P.R. on the web. They are also serving their consumers with knowledge on medical/health topics.

FitBit- Track your fitness online

Hello

I want to introduce you with a consumer health device called FitBit
Fitbit is a wireless consumer device which tracks fitness and sleep.
Everyone can wear this small device easily all over the day and even at night while sleeping.
The parameters regarding the holder are transmitted to Fitbit website automatically by wireless technology.
The holder can watch and investigate his own parameters constantly on the web.On the device itself there is ability to watch calories, walking distance through the day and steps.
As an Health 2.0 tool there are community and social networking features on the website beside the personal detailed parameters .
The current price for the tracker (device) is 99$ .

Some interesting quotes from the company site :

"The Fitbit Tracker contains a motion sensor like the ones found in the Nintendo Wii. The Tracker senses your motion in three dimensions and converts this into useful information about your daily activities. The Tracker measures the intensity and duration of your physical activities, calories burned, steps taken, distance traveled, how long it took you to fall asleep, the number of times you woke up throughout the night and how long you were actually asleep vs just lying in bed. You can wear the Tracker loosely in your pocket or clipped to your clothing, even bras"

"The Fitbit is optimized for walking, running and general household/lifestyle activities and gives you a good general 24 hour picture of your day."

Asklepois- Exclusive Canadian network for physicians

We are hearing about so many social networking in the health 2.0 sector.
The competition is seems to be too hard to survive for the long run.
Maybe there will be a chance for a social networking that will focus on a specific geographic area or country. Still, most of the physicians, although its an international profession, prefer to know their closer mates before others who are practicing and working in other countries.
Its not our vision for the near future ( international collaboration) but it can give nice and practical solutions by side to the future expectations.
Sklepois is a new Canadian social networking for physicians ( and Med students as well) that is supported by the Canadian Medical Association and its provided exclusivley for canadian.
The platform is Bi- Lingual (English and French) and its including, among others:

1.Personalised profile pages
2.Discussion groups
3.Lives chats

Possible uses in Health via the mobile

Here's a link from Alfred J. Fortin'S( PhD) blog. He gives us a long list with a variety of thoughts and ideas how to use the mobile phone and interaction in the healthcare sector. Its written shortly but I assume that these ideas can lead some of us for deeper thought and brain storming concerning this part of Health 2.0.

Pubget- save time while searching on Pubmed

Pubget is aiming to give you the ability of searching the same as in pubmed with an extra value such as getting the articles in a PDF's version immediatley without time consuming clicks and passing through several linkages for reaching the desired content or download it.

Of course , some of the content, especially the newer one, is avialable only after registration to the content resource but still there are a lot of resources which are free of charge and others can be reached via pubget after formal registration.

There will be probably more advanced apllications through Pubget in the future.

Google's Health - Is it going to be the leader in this sector?

Yesterday I read an interesting article published at Economist.com.
Its abouts Lively, Google's virtual world which turned to be so far a flop.
Mark Evans wrote in his blog about some other misses and swings of Google in other web sectors such as Orkut for example, in the social communities sector.

Others as me wrote about the leading power of google's project in the health 2.0 world. Im not changing my view.Im still thinking that Google will have a tremendous influence in the E-Health sector, but still, this article just explain us that probably many others, already here and yet to come, firms and start-ups, are going to bring and create enormous positive competition on the Health 2.0 sector.

Taking notes Applications

Every physician or researcher who is looking for and gathering information from the web can get some help by "Taking notes" applications.
Mashable gives us an excellent summary that covers 10 applications of this kind.
Even here, in this section, you can find a Googles variation but there are others which are helpful and fulfill their task.
Enjoy.

E-Anatomy Atlas

Attached here an excellent imaging/anatomy E-Tool.

Its a free interactive anatomy learning web/Health 2.0 tool.

It is based on More than 1500 slices from normal CT and MRI covering all over the human body.

The image series combined with textual information, 3D imaging and anatomical drawings.

There is a possibility to write remarks and comments regarding specific sections or organs.

As I observed it its looks highly professional. It was also mentioned previousely in "Radiology" journal .

To obsereve and watch the full screen images you need to create a free membership.

PHR buzz

I read yesterday the attached article about the acqusition of the collaborative care management services vendor- MEDecision by Health insurer - Health care srvice corporation for $121M in cash.

It seems from the positive aspect that Google and Microsoft penetration to this market is causing a buzz - creative one.
Potential buyers, developers, IT solution providers companies,Medical professionals and consumers are getting more and more interested about this subject and enjoy the fruits of this prosperity.This growing interesting is having financial influence

From the strategic aspect, as I wrote above, this is a good atmosphere for all the competitors but later on some of them surely will pay the price of the "Big lions penetration/involvement".

Intelligent search engine

Everyone are looking for the killer application that will enable intelligent search platform for health information.

Its mostly needed for consumers who find themselves eager for such information.

The information is already there on the web but its so cahotic and time consuming so we need the right tools to bring us high quality health information.

there's already various SU which are trying to resolve this problem.Its going to be one of the hot subjects in the health 2.0 world.
There will not be only one winner. Probably there will be few ones. The winners will bring huge value to patients/consumers .
To this neighborhood we are expecting to have a new member called Infomedmd.com.
The basic concept of this platform will be a questionnaire form that will enable to understand the right information needs of the consumers.
In their site meanwhile there is only a promo " going to be here soon" - In July. So we are waiting for you, guys.
The people beyond this venture have a mix and rich knowledge concerning :
Medical practice, innovation, web world and applications.

Good Luck