Archive for Online Health Care
November 14, 2007 at 12:07 pm · Filed under Online Health Care + Politics
Interesting completely different approach that this internet mobile based doctor, Jay Parkinson MD, is taking to online healthcare.
Nice site too though a bit too trendy web2.0 looking for my tastes – it would look professional for a techno DJ, but for a doctor it just feels fake. Interestingly, this doctor designed and built the site himself. It’s a fine example of someone with a spot of web design talent and no branding or identity knowhow.
He’s acting as a sole practitioner “country doctor” that doesn’t take insurance. However, he is available 24/7 by email, IM, or phone and makes housecalls but conducts most consults as eVisits. Also, he acts as a middle man of sorts to find the best healthcare specialist deals.
His whole practice is based on the fact that there is a whole swath of uninsured people out there looking for inexpensive healthcare. His practice and his offer to find good health deals brings up a several interesting points about the state of health care in America:
- There are so many uninsured patients that they now constitute a market in themselves.
- This market of uninsured patients is not having it’s needs met, as most health care targets insured patients. (Note they do not target medicare/medicaid since doctors don’t get enough money from those programs to justify the extensive paperwork that comes with treating patients on medicare/medicaid).
- The actual cost of health care is hidden because of the insurance industry and the ubiquitous $15 co-pay
- Competition for services between doctors is stifled because of the fact that costs are hidden and because patients are locked into choosing a preferred provider in a select doctor network
- Jay Parkinson’s entire business strategy would be out the window if universal health care became a reality
It’s funny how much the republicans cry and whine about the horrors of socialized medicine when our own health care industry stifles their beloved “capitalist competition.” If there was truly a open market for health care the needs of the uninsured would be getting met better. I’m not arguing that this is a good idea mind you since a truly open health care market may also lead to hospitals becoming more like car mechanic shops — where 9 out of 10 are trying to rip you off.
Personally, I’m in favor of some form of universal health care for several reasons; however I think Jay Parkinson is doing a good service that is needed right now. Until a universal health care system is created, we need more solutions for uninsured patients rather then just having them go the emergency room for treatment. And if the market can figure out a way to service these people where our government has floundered, that’s great.
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October 16, 2007 at 1:39 pm · Filed under Design & Web Geekery + Online Health Care
In light of the recent Greanpeace health report on the iPhone (view the PDF of Full Report), I’ve taken the proactive stance and created a health warning for use as my iPhone wallpaper.
I am releasing this wallpaper to the world in order to do my part in saving us all from the iPhone health menace! By downloading and installing this image as the wallpaper of your iPhone, you’ll be proactively protecting the health of babies and lab rats everywhere!
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April 28, 2007 at 3:47 pm · Filed under Online Health Care + Life, Meaning, & Selfhood
Along with my various allergies and mild asthma, several years ago, I was fortunate enough to start having hives mysteriously appear over my body. At first, I was kinda scared and then I realized it wasn’t dangerous just annoying and itchy. It took me a long while to figure out what was going on. Most urticaria (aka hives) is idiopathic and doctors tend not to know how to treat it. Mine mostly appeared during exercise and when my body was overworked, but it was kinda hard to really figure out.
At first, I tried limiting various things out of my diet, sugar, milk, etc.. This would seem to work for a bit and then stop working again. I tried candida cleansing treatments as I read on a forum that it helped. This too seemed to work for a while and then it stopped working. The fact that these worked even for a bit proves nothing though since, as I learned, urticaria sensitivity often goes through phases which can be seasonal or random.
I admit I never really bothered seeking a specialist for it because from my research no one seemed to get any real help from doctors. Treatment is basically only antihistamines and figure out your triggers. Well after reading more, I finally figured out my triggers and realized that my own case was mostly cholinergic urticaria. It’s basically a flawed thermoregulatory response — the body heats, initiates the sweat glands to cool the body down, and for some reason my body then freaks out produces histamines.
Nowadays, I know to just keep my body cool as much as possible and dose up antihistamines whenever it goes through a bad phase or when I know I’ll be overheating myself (ie. Burning Man). I also learned to stack Zantac (yeah the anti-acid med) on top of the normal antihistimines cause it has a synergistic effect that can often completely stop outbreaks. Of course, I had to read this online in various out of the reach corners. My life is better due to this knowledge combined with the fact that it seems to be fading away completely with only a bad phase here or there (yeah stupid fickle disease, for most people it just shows up out of the blue and tends to just disappear again several years later for no reason).
So today, I did what I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I compiled all my research into a solid wikipedia article so that the next person who has this happen to them can find info more readily. It probably needs a bit more editing, but that can wait. If you’re interested you can check it out: Cholinergic Urticaria.
Warning: Zantac or Tagamet can reduce the metabolization of alcohol and other products that are processed by the liver, thereby increasing it’s effects. Intermediate use of either of these medications should be fine, but as with any drug there may be additional side effects of long term constant use. Long term use of Zantac or Tagamet should not be done without first discussing with your doctor.
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March 21, 2007 at 2:47 pm · Filed under Online Health Care + Fetal & Pediatric Medicine + Blogging about blogging
Patient blogs are a way for patients to communicate to their friends and family and journaling can help them get through what may be a difficult experience. It can also benefit the hospital by offering self-generating patient stories that potential new patients can be directed towards.
From the Fetal Treatment Center’s website statistics, I know that we already have fetal treatment patients that blog about their experiences using various free blogging resources like blogger (I know because we get links from their blogs).
Caring Bridge - pros and cons
At the NACHRI conference, I talked with some people from Caring Bridge, which is a non-profit that offers blogging services for patients. Caring Bridge is a good service, but they have one fatal flaw: all the patient’s pages are automatically locked private. They can choose to give friends and family a password to see their posts, but they can’t choose to make any of their posts public.
Personally, I’d rather see the service offer the possibility for patients to choose make some of their story public. Without this feature, there is nothing for potential patients to read. Caring Bridge has a sponsorship package so that hospitals can pay to put their logo on their patient sites, but this is useless from a marketing perspective if the pages are all locked private. Supposedly, public post functionality is on the table, but it won’t be ready this year. Frankly, the ability to set a post to private or public is a common feature to most blogging services, so it really makes no sense for me to encourage patients to use Caring Bridge—as much as I’d like to support a non-profit like them.
The problems with hosting our own
I’d like to have a nice single solution to direct patients towards. We could host our own but that would require time and effort. Also, having it hosted here creates a rather strange legal situation. As the patient tells their story, they are also potentially letting out patient data. On any other blogging site this is fine, but if it is under our banner it creates a weird legal gray area in regards to HIPAA Compliance.
I will have to do some additional research to see if what the best solution is: a single interconnected solution that is easy for patients would be ideal. If anyone out there has any ideas let me know.
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March 21, 2007 at 2:11 pm · Filed under Online Health Care + Fetal & Pediatric Medicine + Blogging about blogging
After hearing the session on blogging at the NACHRI conference, I did some research into pediatric blogging. I found that there aren’t nearly the number of pediatric bloggers as there are neuroscience bloggers, but there are still some interesting sites out there:
Blogs targeted at patients
Blogs targeted at pediatricians or anyone who will listen
- Pediatric Grand Rounds - the archive of past editions of the Pediatric Grand Rounds, a bi-weekly collection of the best posts pertaining to the health of children.
- Blog, MD - a blog written by a third year fellow in a combined pediatric hematology/oncology and pediatric neuro-oncology program in the Northeast.
- Consider the Evidence: Med/Peds Journal Roundup - a blog written by a 5th year medical student (aka intern) about recent interesting medical journal articles
It’s a fascinating assortment of blogs, and there are more out there. PediaCast/PediaScribe seems like it is definitely a great resource for parents. I like Dr Raley’s personal touch and how he uses it to reach out directly to the patients he serves. For doctors, the Pediatric Grand Rounds seems like the best resource for recent news and research related to pediatric care.
It would be an interesting endeavor to have a blog written by a member of our staff at the Fetal Treatment Center or the Bay Area Pediatric Surgeons. However, that requires a measure of focus and time in their already busy schedules, so I don’t know how realistic that is. As a result, my main interest here at UCSF is working to facilitate patient blogging. I have a lot of thoughts surrounding that topic, which I will leave for my next post.
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March 21, 2007 at 2:04 pm · Filed under Online Health Care + Fetal & Pediatric Medicine + Blogging about blogging
As a medium, blogging lays somewhere between a newspaper article and Hamlet’s egocentric soliloquy. Over the past year or two, the wild interwebtube has become overrun blogs like some sort of bunny warren with burrows reaching to infinity. The variety of topics range from politics to cute puppys & kittens to science to “oh my gawd, you wouldn’t believe who I saw sally holding hands with!”
With the popular explosion of blogging, it’s not surprising that corporations and institutions have began to take interest in the phenomenon. Everyone wants to get on the bandwagon, but few know how to use this new medium, which is why most corporate blogs are just thinly disguised press releases.
Akron Children’s Foray Into Blogging
The medical industry has only just begun to experiment with blogging. At the NACHRI Conference, the Akron Children’s Hospital presented their two blogging experiments. Their first foray into blogging followed Ellen Kempf, M.D., director of the Oak Adoptive Health Center, on her educational journey to a Chinese orphanage. Their second blogging project followed 11 year old Meghan Frantz as she traveled to Washington, D.C. to talk with members of Congress about the challenges imposed on her younger brother Zack because he has cerebral palsy.
These projects were crafted to gain media attention for Akron Children’s and support political health advocacy efforts. Meghan’s blog was the most interesting, as it was a younger blogger and it was so targeted. It wasn’t an easy project: while Meghan wrote all the content she needed a lot of hand-holding for uploading the content and photos; also, the family required a lot of help traveling with Zack.
Blogging doesn’t always have to require so much extra support. In fact, the medium usually prides itself for being something anyone can do with a minimum of fuss. I still think their approach was good, but I was curious as to what else was out there. I did some research into other examples of pediatric blogging which I will detail in my next post.
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