Helping Your Patients Make Sense of the mHealth Marketplace
One of my favorite developments within the Florida Society of Health-System Pharmacists (FSHP) has been membership’s growing interest in informatics. Of course, there are FSHP members who have been active in informatics for 20+ years, but the increased focus on it in the last 5 or so has been particularly encouraging.
To that end, I was asked to present this year at FSHP Annual on one of my favorite topics – patients’ use of mobile health (mHealth) apps to enhance their self-management. The expanded slide deck from my FSHP presentation is below.
@kevinclauson
Consumer Health Informatics Elective: Expertsourcing
The Consumer Health Informatics & Web 2.0 in Healthcare elective I coordinate for the college of pharmacy wrapped up in December and the ‘votes’ are in about the course. I felt the course went more smoothly this semester and was thrilled to again be able to expertsource several topics by benefiting from guest lecturers. However, the final decision (as always) rests with the students, whose opinions were solicited in the quest to improve the course.
The final exam is an all essay affair (which is not exactly universally popular) and at the end prompted the students to share their opinions on the most and least useful/interesting lectures of the semester along with other feedback.
Based on the comments they wrote, the topics that generated the most traction among students were mHealth and eProfessionalism. Students conveyed they were most intrigued about the potential of mHealth and felt like the issues within eProfessionalism were most personally relevant in their lives. Contributing guest lectures on these topics were leading social media & pharmacy thinker and University of Kentucky professor Jeff Cain (@DrJeffCain) and pediatric endocrinologist-turned-entrepreneur Jen Dyer (@EndoGoddess), who has created an eponymous app. Dr. Cain’s contribution, in particular, may end up having the most longevity of all topics within the course.
However, the most polarizing topic (and lively discussion) was spurred by the guest lecture “Spread the Love, Nothing Else” by Ramin Bastani (@RaminB) of Qpid.me. I first met Ramin at @BJFogg’s excellent Mobile Health @ Stanford. While I wasn’t entirely sure what I thought of the STD-notification idea initially, I certainly believed it would be a great tool to engage students about issues surrounding mHealth, the changing nature of communication via social media, and public health. It was. They were.
A sneak peek of data and a physician perspective on use of social media caught the attention of a group of our students as well. Stanford Medicine X creator and AIM Lab Director Larry Chu (@LarryChu) provided an interesting look via his analysis of 4999 online physician ratings.
The most pharmacy informatics-centric and global perspectives that resonated with students were provided by Jerry Fahrni (@JFahrni) of Talyst and Brent Fox (@Brent_Fox) of Auburn University, respectively. The course (unsurprisingly) is focused on the consumer health subspecialty of informatics, but those students who already are planning a path in pharmacy informatics clearly took to Dr. Fahrni’s lecture.
One of the new topics this semester was #SocialGood where we talked a bit about efforts like Free Rice and Kiva. It was really inspired by The Dragonfly Effect lecture from the 2011 Medicine 2.0 Congress. It was pretty primer-y and could likely benefit from a guest lecturer (suggestions?).
All-in-all, the course had some great moments, I think the students took away some useful tools and ideas, and I definitely learned an enormous amount from them and the guest lecturers!
@kevinclauson
Launching a Center for Consumer Health Informatics Research
We are very excited that the Nova Southeastern University College of Pharmacy has officially launched our Center for Consumer Health Informatics Research (CCHIR)! Like all undertakings of this magnitude, it has been in the works for some time and has benefited from tremendous support from many corners – in particular the Chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice and the Dean of the College of Pharmacy. Below is a presentation outlining some basics about the Center. I look forward to working with its faculty and collaborators and steering the CCHIR toward many great developments in the future.
@kevinclauson
UPDATE: The dedicated site is up at www.CCHIR.com
Pharmacy: Is there an app for you
The 45th Annual Meeting of the Florida Society of Health-System Pharmacists (FSHP) was held in Orlando during the weekend. Since it is a state organization conference, it is much smaller than gatherings like the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting. This allowed for a streamlined set of programming tracks and a more relaxed atmosphere. There were also some interesting individual sessions (and necessities) on medication errors, pain management, etc. I particularly liked the presentation on “Cyberhealth”, which focused on issues with Internet Pharmacy. Additionally, I had the opportunity to present “Pharmacy: Is there an app for you” at the meeting.
@kevinclauson
Mobile Health 2011: A Look Back at What Really Worked
Stanford Guest House
Mobile Health 2011: What Really Works at Stanford University (#mh11) is over, so it’s time for a quick look back at the conference. To borrow (steal?) from conference organizer, Stanford Persuasion Technology Lab director, and quick-change artist @BJFogg – I am going to take a retrospective look at my experiences there through the device of ‘home runs’. For full speaker slide decks, you can click here.
Conference Atmosphere Home Run
I have been to a lot of conferences…pharmacy conferences, medical conferences, informatics conferences, and social media conferences. However, I have never been to a conference that seemed more along the lines of an ‘event that happens to be interspersed with speakers’. This is not an indictment of the quantity or quality of the speakers; somehow there were >50 of them smoothly shoehorned into two days. The comment is more about the carnival-like atmosphere surrounding the conference that made it fun and exciting, and contributed to a very collegial vibe. One of the best aspects of Mobile Health was the extended breaks. They were just plentiful enough and twice as long as an average conference. If you think about the old chestnut ‘the best value at a conference is the hallway conversations’…voila! Those breaks doubled the value of the conference. Also helpful was Fogg’s “giving permission” to all attendees to go up to anyone there and say hello, reinforced by the speakers largely making themselves available after panels concluded. I’m still undecided about a few things (e.g., the birds and the bees); however, balancing all the West Coast wackiness was the fact that the conference was timed and chimed down to the minute. Seriously.
Lodging Home Run
It’s almost like this place is a secret or something. I stayed at the Stanford Guest House for their conference rate of $109. You can barely stay at a Roof Rouge near a major city for that. The rooms and hotel were basic and a little Spartan, but the beds were comfortable, the place was immaculately maintained, and the staff was gracious and knowledgeable. The deal-maker was that the Stanford Shuttle (Marguerite) had pick-ups ~ every 20 minutes to take you all over the campus. There was also a Guest House shuttle that could be reserved (e.g., to take you to the Alumni Center‘s conference venue). The only drawback was that there were no dining options in-house or within easy walking distance. Definitely will stay here again next time I’m at Stanford.
Almost Made Me Apply for a Job in Public Health Home Run
Sharon Bogan. You just have to love somebody with that kind of spirit, fighting the good fight, excerpting Monsters, Inc., innovating in resource-limited settings, and inviting litigation (for others). Everyone I’ve met from King County Public Health going back to the mhealth Summit has been a gem.
Goosebump Home Run [tie]
Green Goose and Proteus ingestible event markers. Check them out. Seriously. They *literally* gave me goose bumps in thinking of potential applications of their technologies during their presentations.
Honorable mention: Google Cow presented by Google’s Chief Health Strategist (@rzeiger). Technically he was focusing on Google Body, but since I had already seen Body I was pretty happy to see the bovine version.
Reunion Home Run
It was great to see @chiah @EndoGoddess @JenSMcCabe KarenCoppock @LarryChu @SFCarrie @SusannahFox and loads of others again!
New Peeps Home Run [misc]
If you are worried about our future, know that we are in good hands with people like @hcolelewis coming on the scene
Most likely to isosceles with regarding mHealth, PAHO, & Uruguay @JuanMZorrilla
Most likely to invite for Skype in guest lecture in my Consumer Health Informatics course @QpidMe
Most likely to explore the mHealth studies based out of our campus in Puerto Rico with @MarcosPolanco
Most surprised to find in my back yard Vic Shroff
Note: any conversations that included words like NDA, lawyer, or launch are not listed here for obvious reasons.
Failed to Connect at All Strikeout
I would have liked to have spoken with @enochchoi
Conversationus Interruptus Strikeout
The Keck and and PHI guys
Best Laid Plans Strikeout
Climate control and the janky A/C resulted in groups of attendees going to the outer hall and watching panels on a screen and/or going outside to cool off.
(Dis)honorable mention: minimal power outlets/juice available was surprising. This problem was offset somewhat by the length of the breaks which allowed for both networking and recharging.
Least Favorite Panel
The Partnerships panel was my least favorite. It definitely had eye-opening moments for some attendees and there were interesting discussions and placements (e.g., possibly the least and most idealistic two people at the entire conference were seated next to each other). However, most of the discussions were pretty familiar to me from having gone through many of the processes described. So my bias/preference would have been to have instead heard more specifics about MedPedia from James, Medic Mobile or Social from Josh, etc.
Overall Favorite Panel
Very tough decision as there were several really outstanding ones. I considered a tie here but was able to pull the trigger and name “Methods and Measures for Research and Evaluation” as my favorite overall panel. The moderator and panelists all had great content to share and illuminated a lot of the challenges in conducting research in this space. Plus the Open mHealth initiative is so encouraging! I think this panel is a ‘must view’ for everyone as it can help in introducing a common language that could lead to better coordination and scaling of efforts as well as providing guidance for individuals. Overall, the quality and detail of this panel was exemplary. I ended up choosing it in part based on the criteria of ‘if I could only have the full video of one panel’ because of its high utility for me and in sharing with multiple audiences. Many of the slide decks from this panel are here.
Final Verdict
I am definitely happy I attended both the pre-conference workshop by @BjFogg (although it mostly served to whet my appetite for the full Boot Camp) as well as the conference proper. I have been to some good conferences that were one-offs, but will absolutely figure out a way to make it back to Mobile Health next year. My two most substantial takeaways were that the construct of this conference was singular in nature and that it was probably easier to connect with potential collaborators here than at any other conference I’ve attended.
@kevinclauson
Update: other perspectives on the conference have previously been posted here by @thulcandrian of AIDS.gov and a take on mHealth by @geoffclapp here.
Update 2. Here is a new conference highlights post by Craig Lefebvre (who I wish I had realized was @chiefmaven when I met him there)
Update 3: ‘Text in the City’ founder Katie Malbon has written the most ambitious mh#11 wrap-up to date
Update 4: If @TextInTheCityNY had the most ambitious/complete post, @geoffclapp has added the most thoughtful and thought-provoking review to date
Update 5: From the ‘people I wish I had a chat with’ file at #mh11, @AndrewPWilson has now provided his main takeaways from Stanford
Update 6: Patient-centric thought bubbles and more from e-Patients.net rep @msaxolotl at #mh11
Update 7: Jeff Kellem (@slantedhall) provided a tech-focused list of quick hits from the conference
Update 8: David Doherty (@3GDoctor) has added the most contrarian view of the conference to the conversation here
Consumer Health Informatics Course – TYVM Guest Lecturers
Last semester I taught Consumer Health Informatics and Web 2.0 in Healthcare in the College of Pharmacy (COP) after having coordinated several iterations of it in the MS in Biomedical Informatics Program. At the end of the COP course, I asked the students for their opinions about the most useful and least useful lectures of the semester (with an eye towards improving future offerings). Many of the students mentioned topics that were discussed by one of the six excellent guest lecturers. While I sincerely appreciate each guest lecturer’s contribution, I thought it would be even more meaningful to share a student response about each guest lecturer/topic.
I’ll use the format below to do so (lecturers appear in the order they taught during the semester):
Student quote
Guest Lecturer
Affiliation
“Lecture Topic”
The course’s most useful lecture was Dr. Kang’s since it focused on policy and the big picture instead of just one or two tools.
Jeah-Ah Kang, PharmD
Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising, and Communications (DDMAC)
“Promotion of FDA-Regulated Medical Products Using the Internet and Social Media Tools”
Most useful was Dr. Gualtieri’s because it may be the only one that really looked at things from the patient’s side.
Lisa Gualtieri, PhD, ScM
Tufts University School of Medicine
“Blogging for Health: Communicating the Experience of Illness”
Most useful lecture was Dr. Dyer’s lecture. It was very cool seeing how healthcare was using this new tech and getting positive results. Very. Cool.
Jennifer Dyer, MD, MPH
Ohio State University, College of Medicine
“RU TAKING UR MEDS? (DR. SEZ TEXTING TEENZ HELPS!)”
I would like to see more experts like Dr. Fahrni. His lecture was most useful. It provided insight on what this breed of pharmacist does on a daily basis.
Jerry Fahrni, PharmD
Kaweah Delta District Hospital (now Talyst)
“Pharmacy Informatics – One Pharmacist’s Perspective”
The most useful topic was Dr. Mesko’s on virtual worlds because it was most forward looking. I wish we would use it more and create our own avatars.
Bertalan Mesko, MD
University of Debrecen Medical School
“Medicine in Second Life, the virtual world”
The most useful lecture topic would have to be the final lecture from Dr. Fox, it was extremely informative and I enjoyed it a lot. I’d like to see an additional lecture from him.
Brent Fox, PharmD, PhD
University of Auburn, College of Pharmacy
“The Pharmacist’s Role in Health 2.0”
Social media presence for the course contributors can be found here:
Lisa Gualtieri, PhD, ScM (@lisagualtieri)
Jennifer Dyer, MD, MPH (@EndoGoddess)
Jerry Fahrni, PharmD (@JFahrni)
Bertalan Mesko, MD (@Berci)
Brent Fox, PharmD, PhD (@Brent_Fox)
@kevinclauson
Pharmacist use of social media
The most recent hat tip for alerting me that one of my articles was published goes to @redheadedpharm, who also has one of the most thoughtful pharmacist authored blogs out there IMHO. I should note that by drawing my attention to the article, TRP does not endorse the contents nor see eye-to-eye with me regarding pharmacists, pharmacy, or social media. And that’s ok. I have to think no rational person just wants an echo chamber. In fact, I may revisit the whole ‘landscape of pharmacist blogs’ in a future post if I can figure out a way to do so that doesn’t involve generating the hate e-mail and widespread snark that the AJHP article did.*
In any event, I did want to share that the article I assisted Drs. Alkhateeb and Latif with is titled Pharmacist use of social media and was published in the International Journal of Pharmacy Practice. As you can see to the left, this is a Short Communication and essentially provides a snapshot of social media use by pharmacists in West Virginia. The most frequently used applications in this group of surveyed pharmacists included: YouTube (74%), Wikipedia (72%), Facebook (50%), and blogs (26%). Twitter (12%) and LinkedIn (12%) were also used by the respondents. In a sense, it was a confirmatory study in that it verified some things we thought we knew about pharmacists and social media. Some of the findings (e.g., 50% use of Facebook) were a little surprising. Use of Facebook, in particular was examined a little more in-depth; only 15.8% indicated they used it for any professional purpose. Usage patterns largely reflected those of non-healthcare professionals…these pharmacists used Facebook to keep in touch with colleagues, chat, upload pictures, etc.
@kevinclauson
*It’s interesting how ‘hate e-mail’ can be a touchstone for publication topics. The pharmacists blog study generated a dubious top 5 level volume of hate e-mail. It was among the best written hate e-mail (which was oddly encouraging), but didn’t come close to the level produced after our Wikipedia paper came out. To be fair, the sheer number of Wikipedia users and the widespread coverage** it received probably contributed to its you-are-as-bad-as-the-scientists-doing-research-on-puppies outrage.
**Curious fact, of all the interviews I’ve done about our research over the years (e.g., New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, BBC, NPR, New Scientist, etc.) the most hardcore fact-checkers were from Good Housekeeping and Fitness Magazine. Seriously.
Intersection of social media and research
There are a number of initiatives, sites, and platforms trying to capitalize on the power of social media and social networking to enhance research efforts. A few of them are ResearchGate, Health InnoVation Exchange (HIVE), and VIVO. Each offers something a bit different; for a full list of ‘biomedical communities’ check out this excellent resource by @Berci Mesko.
Aside from those ‘communities’, can social media enhance research? For me, the answer is a resounding yes. I have both observed and directly benefitted via plenty of resources. Here is a random sample: a source of support for grad students that hosts data sets, actual datasets made freely available for conducting research, a how-to for using Facebook to recruit survey participants, and a prelim study on use of Facebook for health education.
However, for me, the clearest benefit has been from social networking tools; chief among those is Twitter. It has helped my research by: 1) connecting me to people with complementary expertise for collaborating on research projects, 2) exposing me to different types of expertise and ways to approach problem solving for research, and 3) creating a filtered source of relevant information about research.
It’s that last item that I want to focus on. A little over six months ago, I saw a tweet from @mindofandre (who has the excellent Pulse+Signal) announcing a RFP for the Mobilizing for Health grant by the McKesson Foundation. For some reason, I did not see that RFP on my Community of Science alerts, or any of the other resources I use to stay informed on grant opportunities. Thankfully, I did see it on Twitter. It looked like a great match for a study our mHealth group wanted to conduct. Fast-forward 6 months and past lots of heavy lifting by my colleagues, and we are very happy we’ll be able to conduct that study as ours was one of the proposals funded! Now that I think of it, Andre was the person who put us into touch with several other mHealth researchers about 10 months prior to that as well – quite the Gladwellian Connector, that one. In any event, this is just one example of the intersection of social media and research. The tools are there, you just have to use them.
Oh, and in the best pay-it-forward tradition, here are two outstanding mHealth research-related opportunities:
- NIH/OBSSR mHealth Summer Institute where early career investigators will get an intensive weeklong experience to learn about mHealth research. (Deadline extended until March 10)
- The new cycle for the McKesson Foundation Mobilizing for Health grant has begun and Letters of Intent are due on April 1, 2011.
I’d love to hear any examples of how social media has impacted your research – by creating opportunities, informing you, using it as a tool to collect data, connecting you with potential collaborators, etc.
@kevinclauson
Analysis of pharmacist generated Twitter content
Click image to enlarge
A tweet by Katherine Chretien (@MotherinMed) that her new article on physicians & Twitter has been published in JAMA served to remind me that I forgot to blog the poster presentation of our project, “Analysis of a national sample of pharmacist generated Twitter content” that was presented at the 45th Annual ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting in December in Anaheim. I did remember to send a tweet with a link to the image at the time (#ashpmidyear), but the rest escaped me. The poster is the PharmTwitter project that @markhawker and I and a couple NSU students worked on and represents an earlier stage with preliminary results. As an aside, we prepared a ‘conventional’ version of this poster for the meeting as well and then put it to a vote among the project team members as to which one to use at the conference. The vote ended up being a tie, so we had to use a tiebreaker.
Hopefully the full results will be coming soon via a journal near you (hint: it’s won’t be JAMA). All comments, as always, are welcome.
@kevinclauson
