Warfarin, also known under the brand names of Coumadin, Jantoven, Marevan and Waran, is an oral anticoagulant used worldwide for the treatment and prevention of thromboembolic disease. However, warfarin therapy can be difficult to manage because there is a wide variability in patient response and the drug has a narrow therapeutic index. Taking too small a dose can lead to a blood clot while too much can cause life-threatening bleeding.
Medicine 2.0 #27 – Communication is Key
June 29, 2008 | by
Welcome to the twenty-seventh edition of Medicine 2.0, the bi-weekly blog carnival of the best posts pertaining to web 2.0 and medicine.
Medicine 2.0 is the science of maintaining and/or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis and treatment of patients utilizing web 2.0 internet-based services, including web-based community sites, blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, folksonomies (tagging) and Really Simple Syndication (RSS), to collaborate, exchange information and share knowledge. Physicians, nurses, medical students and health researchers who consume web media can actively participate in the creation and distribution of content, helping to customize information and technology for their own purposes.
Communication amongst and between healthcare professionals and healthcare consumers is a necessary element to improve health and is critical for the delivery of optimal medical outcomes.
This edition of Medicine 2.0 covers a wide array of posts with one thing in common — Communication.
Web 2.0 Tools and Slideshows
Gunther Eysenbach’s Random Research Rants
Dr. Gunther Eysenbach presents an archiving system for Citing Blogs, Preserving Cited Webpages etc with WebCite.
Clinical Cases and Images
Do you Twitter? Dr. Ves Dimov offers A Doctor’s Opinion: Why I Started Microblogging on Twitter.
Scienceroll
23andMe presented a slideshow recently in Second Life in the latest session of the Scifoo Lives On series. Dr. Bertalan Mesko covers 23andMe in Second Life: LIVE.
Jay Parkinson+ MD + MPH
Dr. Jay Parkinson asks us to Look, posting a presentation from George Halvorson, CEO of Kaiser Permanente, about health reform.
Pharma 2.0
Bunny Ellerin writes about Within3 and the results of a survey at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference. There’s no doubt that social media is Changing Physician Behavior.
Online Video
Gene Sherpas: Personalized Medicine and You
Dr. Steve Murphy writes about the upcoming second Helix Health CliniCast on genetic testing, genomic medicine and the science of accurate warfarin dosing, asking How’s that for Genomic Medicine by Press Release?
Digital Pathology Blog
The Digital Pathology Blog reports that Mayo Launches YouTube Channel with videos highlighting the latest research and treatment advances at Mayo Clinic.
WSJ Health Blog
The Wall Street Journal Health Blog discusses online doctor consults, announcing that The Doctor Will See You on the Webcam Now.
Information Tools and Tests
College@Home
Many of us might forget there’s other search tools out there besides Google. Laura Milligan provides a comprehensive list of 100 Useful Niche Search Engines You’ve Never Heard Of.
davidrothman.net
David Rothman posts An Evaluation of the Five Most Used Evidence Based Bedside Information Tools in Canadian Health Libraries, a recent study published in the journal Evidence Based Library and Information Practice.
Medgadget
Personalized Medical Search Engine: With Medgadget describes the inclusion of Medgadget in Scienceroll Search, a personalized medical search engine powered by Polymeta.com.
NursingDegree.Net
Jessica Merritt highlights a number of ways to use Google’s Personal Health Record (PHR), offering The Ultimate Guide to Google Health: 60+ Tips and Resources.
Canadian EMR
Digital records and privacy can be a mixed bag. Alan Brookstone reposts the media report UK Health Agency Loses 31,000 Patients Records.
Sharp Brains
Alvaro Fernandez writes about the Brain Age, Posit Science, and Brain Training Topics, reporting both good and bad news regarding the assessment and training of cognitive skills.
Microarray Blog
Albin Paul discusses the options for a Semantic Search Engine for PubMed — Microsoft Vs Yahoo Vs Google Vs Oracle in Semantic Web Search.
Tomographyblog
András Székely discusses TomographyBlogSearch in the Making, describing the SeekRadiology Project, a search engine for diagnostic imaging.
Doctor-patient Communication
Canadian Medicine
Graham Lanktree reviews a study of prepared patients and internet information, which finds that the Web Buoys Doctor-patient Communication.
Medical Economics
Gail Garfinkel Weiss writes how the shift from authority-based medicine to one of shared responsibility is playing out in the exam room in The New Doctor-patient Paradigm.
The iPhone
Dr Penna
Dr. Sreeram Penna provides a list of health care applications currently available for the iPhone in Mobile Medical Software for the Iphone 3g.
Efficient MD
Dr. Joshua Schwimmer also writes about potential applications on the iPhone for doctors in The New 3G iPhone, the App Store, and Doctors.
Conclusion
That concludes the 27th edition of Medicine 2.0. My thanks to everyone who submitted an article. You can find more information about the carnival as well as the hosting schedule and past editions at the Medicine 2.0 Website.
Have you written a blog post about web 2.0 and medicine? Submit it to the next edition of Medicine 2.0 using the carnival submission form.
Genomic Medicine: An Educational Resource from Helix Health
May 19, 2008 | by
The Human Genome Project has heralded a new era in our understanding of the molecular basis of disease. Genome-based medicine or personalized medicine is believed to be the future of healthcare. Indeed, genomic medicine is poised to improve disease diagnosis, therapy and prevention.
Although genomics is related to genetics, there is a difference between the two terms. Genetics is the study of single genes and their effects. In contrast, genomics is the study of all the genes in the genome and the interactions among them and their environment. Genetics uses the information from one or two genes to describe a disease state, whereas genomics examines all genetic information to determine biological markers predisposing a person to disease. Genomics is especially relevant for complex or multifactoral disorders such as cancer, Parkinson’s disease, heart disease and diabetes, which are due to the interaction of multiple genes and environmental factors [1].
Personalized Patient-driven Drug Safety Monitoring Program
October 1, 2007 | by
iGuard is one of the first web-based services that allows you to get free personalized safety alerts and updates about your medications. The company claims that [1]:
… patients can feel safer because they will be sent the drug safety information they need, when they need it.
After enrollment, patients who regularly take medications can choose to receive patient-specific updates regarding the safety of their medications. Participants in iGuard will receive these updates whenever new information is learned about their medicines, allowing them to make the most informed decisions about their healthcare.
