U.S. Hospitals: Using Facebook, YouTube and Twitter

Great post listing the U.S. Hospitals using social networking tools like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Check out the complete list of 150 hospitals and a related FAQ about the Hospital Social Networking List at Found In Cache: Notes from a Hospital Web Manager authored by Ed Bennett.

Thanks to @schwen for pointing out the list.

Medical Uses of Twitter: Twitter Consult

Two case studies pointing out additional medical uses for Twitter from Jennifer Texada at How to Go Web 2.0.

Her post, Health 2.0 Makes it to Twitter, discusses two separate cases. The first involved the use of Twitter by medical professionals seeking real time advice with a diagnosis. Call it a "Twitter Consult." The second involved a researcher looking for exercise study participants who were endometrial cancer survivors.

West Virginia: The Roadmap to Health Project

Last week Kenneth E. Thorpe, PhD of Emory University released the Roadmap to Health Project report to the West Virginia Legislature's Select Committee D on Health. The Roadmap to Health Project is an initiative by Select Committee D. The full report is titled, "West Virginia Health Care Reform - Roadmap to Health Project: Final Recocommendations to Select Committee D."

Lessons For PowerPoint Users

Yesterday I did a presentation for the West Virginia Healthcare Financial Management Association on Social Media, Consumer Driven Health Care, Health 2.0 and the Legal Implications. Today I see friend and creative guru, Jeff James' post on Begin With PowerPoint in Mind which highlights how NOT to use PowerPoint and links to a Top 10 Best Presentations Ever.

The how NOT to use PowerPoint is a must see for anyone who uses PowerPoint. I have yet to watch the Top 10 but plan to go back and check them out to see how I can improve my skills. Thought others might be interested in checking out this top 10 list.

American Well: e-House Calls by the Hawaiian Doctor

Today Hawaii Medical Service Association along with American Well roll out American Well's technology that redesigns the house call -- call it "e-House Call." More about the joint effort and how to log in can be found at HMSA's Online Care For Consumers.

American Well's technology allows live, face-to-face consultations between physicians and patients. The technology matches up the patient with the physician. Hawaii hope that the project will provide convenient, affordable and better access to health care in a state (not unlike West Virginia) that has remote areas/islands.

I plan to invite American Well to West Virginia to see whether we might roll out a similar effort in conjunction with the West Virginia Health Information Network or as a part of the innovation community under the Medicaid Transformation Grant program that I am working on through the West Virginia Health Improvement Institute.

More background information in the AP News article, "The Hawaii doctor is in - online." Also, David Harlow over at HealthBlawg recently examined whether American Well might be the disruptive innovation to unseat retail based health clinics.

Tip to @jenmccabegorman.

WVHFMA: Consumer Driven Health Care

Tomorrow I will be speaking on consumer driven health care at the West Virginia Chapter Healthcare Financial Management Association's Winter Education Conference in Charleston, West Virginia.

I thought I would post my slides for the presentation titled, Consumer Driven Health Care: The Impact of Social Media and Health 2.0. The presentation is an introduction to the concepts of social media, health 2.0, consumer driven health care and some of the legal implications.

This past week I ask my social media network on Facebook and Twitter to help develop a list of words and phrases that represent Consumer Driven Health Care. The results are included in the presentation.

WVHFMA CDHC And Health 2.0 (1 15 09)

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: driven consumer)

My Family Health Portrait: A Family PHR

The Surgeon General has launched a new online tool allowing a user to create an electronic family health tree to track your family health history. The site is called "My Family Health Portrait." The Surgeon General press release.

The tool draws on the value of creating a family health genealogy and marries it with the concepts of PHRs. The tool states, "using My Family Health Portrait you can:

• Enter your family health history.
• Create drawings of your family health history to share with family or health care worker.
• Use the health history of your family to create your own.

The new site lets users create and download their health information into their own computers and e-mail a tree-in-progress to family members to fill in missing health history information. The site also allows a user to "reindex" the tree to include any person in the tree as the center of information. For example I can create a health tree for my family but by sending it to one of my sisters or cousins who adds to the health information tree that person can then reindex the site to look at their health history and potential health risks.

According to the details on the website the tool will be interoperable and EHR-ready (i.e., developed using HL7 Family History Model, LOINC, SNOMED-CT and HL7 Vocabulary) . Information included in the My Family Health Portrait can then be transferred and embedded in EHRs or PHRs. The details on the website indicate that the tool is open source, free and can by "adopted" by other organizations.

Coinciding with the release of My Family Health Portrait, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has published new HIPAA Privacy Rule FAQs related to family medical history. The new FAQs support the roll out of the Surgeon General's family health history portal.

The FAQs address the following questions:

1. Does the HIPAA Privacy Rule limit an individual’s ability to gather and share family medical history information?

2. Does the HIPAA Privacy Rule limit what a doctor can do with a family medical history?

3. Under the HIPAA Privacy Rule, may a health care provider disclose protected health information about an individual to another provider, when such information is requested for the treatment of a family member of the individual?

More from the Washington Post. Tip from iHealthBeat.

Wordle: Health Care Law Blog

I noticed recent tweets about Wordle, an ultra cool "word count" generator. Here is an example pulled from the text of my Health Care Law Blog. Give it a try for your blog, tweets or next presentation.

Lifeline Television Program: Health Information Exchange and Health 2.0

Last month I had the opportunity to tape a television segment on Health Information Exchange and Health 2.0 for Lifeline, a weekly 30 minute public television program focusing on health and Medicare information for West Virginians. The segment started running this week and should run through the month of January. 

The show is produced by West Virginia Medical Institute to help educate West Virginians on a variety of health, Medicare and healthy living topics. Marc McCombs, WVMI's Director of Corporate Communications hosts the weekly shows. Many of Lifeline's topics are also covered in WVMI's companion print newsletter, also called Lifeline.

Lifeline airs on the West Virginia Library Television Network in over 200,000 households throughout the state. Lifeline airs every week in the Charleston area on Suddenlink Channel 17 at the following times:

• 11:00 AM Tuesday
• 5:00 PM Tuesday
• 11:00 PM Tuesday
• 5:00 AM Wednesday
• 2:00 PM Saturday 

You can find the channels for other cable systems airing the program around West Virginia by going to the Lifeline webpage. Also, the Lifeline page lists some of the archive shows. Below is a teaser clip from the show.