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
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
mHealth Summit 2010 ATF Part 1
I already miss the sound of the techno music from the Walter E. Washington Convention Center at the 2010 mHealth Summit. Because I’ve seen a number of questions about what mHealth is, here is my preferred definition from lecture courtesy of @mHealthAlliance: “the use of mobile devices and global networks to deliver health services and information”. One reason I like this definition is its emphasis on the ‘network’ piece. It allows for a much broader application. I understand the desire by some for the term uHealth (u=ubiquitous) and others, like one presenter at AMIA 2-3 years ago from Rockefeller, who yearn for everything to eventually just be ‘health’. While recognizing that the types of labels like mHealth can definitely be problematic in the long-run, they also can be really useful in the short term for conveying a basic context, getting people to the table, and creating rallying points…which brings me to my next point. One of the oft-parroted comments of the Summit was that there was too much hype about mHealth. Unfortunately the word ‘hype’ was being used interchangeably with ‘excitement’ in many cases. Of course mHealth isn’t a panacea and there are serious obstacles to navigate. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that it is really hard to motivate people, to excite people, and to generate momentum…and mHealth is accomplishing those things. So please let’s not be so terrified about overpromising and under-delivering that we squash genuine enthusiasm. Of course there are speed bumps and as @joncamfield noted, there are definitely some mobile parlor tricks to be wary of out there (he also had the fantastic idea of an implementer track for next year). In the interest of being fair and balanced, here is an example of a public health/mHealth app featuring augmented reality that may mean well but has questionable execution [EDIT: yes, the video below is for an actual app].
Onto the conference proper…David Aylward, Executive Director of the mHealth Alliance, began with a pseudo-demo of wearable body area networking for basic vitals. Side note: Aylward closed the conference while wearing a Bugs Bunny tie that I speculated was an ode to Ted Turner and his Cartoon Network. This remains unconfirmed. Slightly more relevant, the conference was livestreamed and h/t to @planetrussell who noted that videos from the stream are starting to appear in various YouTube channels.
The first two WOW moments of #mhs10 for me included the announcement of the 2011 NIH Summer Institute on mHealth Research, which will provide specialized training opportunities for 25 researchers.
The second was during a panel presentation by @JoshNesbit in which he shared a word cloud of the tweets from Haiti following the earthquake. The wow moment was when he pointed out that the second most tweeted word was ‘please’. That revelation definitely gave me pause.
End ATF: Part 1
@kevinclauson
Part 2 may or may not highlight snarky entrepreneurs, bedsore-preventing robots, keynote Star Wars quotes, and actual data.
Two Billionaires, The White House, The Rockefeller President and mHealth
The title of this post is shorthand for four of the keynote presenters at next week’s mHealth Summit (follow at #mhs10) in Washington DC. In addition to these four keynotes by Bill Gates (@BillGates), Ted Turner, Aneesh Chopra, and Judith Rodin, there is a great lineup of speakers and moderators. There is a dizzying array of tracks and talks to choose from, but for me there are a handful that are particularly relevant. These include Najeeb Al-Shorbaji, who directs KMS at the World Health Organization, @SusannahFox of Pew Internet & American Life and e-patients.net, who is asking the right questions and always has cool new data right around the corner, Matthew Holt (@boltyboy), who is behind THCB and Health 2.0 [and who will hopefully be bemoaning Chelsea dropping points the Sunday prior], @JoshNesbit whose video about Frontline SMS I regularly use in my informatics course and who presents one of the most compelling cases for mHealth [seriously, you may be dead inside if it doesn't speak to you on some level].
I am also really eager to hear from @HajovanBeijma from Text to Change and Susan Dentzer, who has been very forward thinking as EIC at Health Affairs, as well as to meet Walter Curioso, whose work I have long admired. Since some of the biggest issues facing mHealth deal with scalability, policy, and interoperability, the mHealth Summit promises to be particularly useful as this conference brings together most of the stakeholders necessary to enact change. I am looking forward to it. I plan to be livetweeting and possibly liveblogging some, but I may very well get caught up in the presentations and discussions so I can’t make any guarantees.
@kevinclauson
Stargazing at Digital Pharma East
I am really looking forward to the 4th Annual Digital Pharma East coming up on October 18th in Philadelphia. In addition to presenting, I plan to do some major stargazing while I am there. I don’t mean ‘star’ in the manner of the cult of celebrity. I am defining stars as people who have something really valuable and/or interesting to say. It feels a little mercenary to go with the express intent of cherry picking knowledge from experts given the themes around sharing – but I guess that’s just part of the allure.
I’m also very much looking forward to reconnecting with Berci Mesko (@Berci) who I have not seen in a couple years, talking shop with social media flag bearer Bryan Vartabedian (@Doctor_V) who will likely be pressed for time from Co-chairing the event, having a face-to-face chat with Phil Baumann (@PhilBaumann) whose mind works unlike any other I’ve encountered in this space, meeting Gilles Frydman (@gfry) who is the final piece of the ePatient trinity, as well as Shwen Gwee (@shwen) who has both tweet cred and does great work.
In addition to those folks, I may be most eager to see presentations by representatives from Comscore and Within3, along with Cluetrain Manifesto author Doc Searls and futurist Ian Morrison. Needless to say, I am planning to see every single presentation on the final day, which is dedicated to mobile/mHealth. The rest of the time, it’s just a question of which Stream. Finally, I am curious to see how the unconference activities and #SocPharm sessions play out relative to previous HealthCamp events I’ve seen.
As for me, I’ll be presenting “Social Media Research: Partnering with Academia”. The link to the slides on the Digital Pharma conference site will be provided here after the presentation and will be available beyond that at SlideShare as per. I’m curious to see the reception given that the composition of the audience is pretty different than who I have been interacting with recently. I definitely have a (relatively) longstanding interest in the subject as one of the first articles we published on the topic was “Legal and regulatory risk associated with Web 2.0 adoption by pharmaceutical companies” in the Journal of Medical Marketing. We’ve also published several other studies on interactions between different healthcare professionals and representatives from Pharma. Ultimately, I am banking on the fact that I actually do what I will be talking about and have some concrete takeaways for those interested in the topic. I’m also optimistic that using an audience response system and building in time for discussion will help make it legitimately interactive. We shall see.
Overall, I am looking forward to reconnecting and making new connections, planting the seeds for future research collaborations, and learning from area experts that are rarely available in this concentration. I hope to see you there, hear your thoughts, or cross paths via #DigPharm (or whatever the hashtag ends up being)!
@kevinclauson
Driving Change with mHealth
Click image to view slides
This should be a really interesting semester since it is first time I will be teaching “Consumer Health Informatics and Web 2.0 in Healthcare” in the College of Medicine – Biomedical Informatics Program and in the College of Pharmacy (COP). This is the third time I have taught this elective in the Masters of Biomedical Informatics (MSBI) Program, but it is the first for Pharmacy (and obviously the first time concurrently).
The COP elective is more traditional as it primarily meets in a classroom; however, it does have some hybrid aspects in that some of the lectures will be asynchronous Tegrity sessions. The plan is for the students to view those on their own and then have discussion-driven classes following those. I am also using an audience response system during the COP course to try and promote student engagement. It is a course delivered via live, interactive video to two of our sites this semester (i.e. Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach). One of the most exciting aspects of the COP course is the calibre of the guest lectures who have agreed to participate this semester. It is a bit experimental as the guest presenters will be contributing lectures via asynchronous recorded lectures, live via videoconference (e.g. Skype) so that we can also have live Q&A, and live in-classroom.
For the MSBI offering, it is built to accomodate students in a much wider geographic distribution. Most of the students this semester are in Florida, but there are also students spending much of their time in places as far as Saudi Arabia. Regardless, South Florida lends itself to a very diverse population and so there is a strong international presence in most programs anyway. Because of this distribution, the course is basically delivered online through the use of asynchronous sessions and Live Sessions. This is a really interesting course due, in part, to the heterogenous nature of the students. Even though the program is housed in the COM, it allows for varying types of students seeking their Masters. So far I have had students with backgrounds including practicing pharmacists, physicians, nurses, and scientists along with teachers, businesspeople and computer science experts. It makes for some pretty lively discussions as the range of experience and expertise among the students can be eye-opening!
So that is a pretty long preface to say that I have posted the slides from one of my favorite lectures of the semester – mHealth. I think there is enormous potential for mHealth. I am also happy to be involved in a panel on this topic at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists Midyear Clinical Meeting in December of this year. Please feel free to share any feedback you have about the scope, contents, or emphasis of this slide deck. Every semester in this course I add and delete lecture topics and then tweak and update the existing ones – so your opinions are all welcome.
@kevinclauson
