Twitter....To Use or Not To Use??

Hey everyone,
So in class this week the subject was microblogging, AKA twitter. One of the first things our professor asked was our exposure with twitter and our thoughts about its usefulness. I was first to say that I thought it was not useful and I would never have even opened a twitter account if it wasn't part of my grade in that class. As the lecture went on, the professor was eager to show me how wrong I was. By the end of the lecture, and with a little research of my own, my quick response has changed. I do see the benefits of twitter in the health care industry. It is the quickest way to get information out to such a large population or funds to support a natural disaster fund. The key, I'm seeing, is the people you choose to follow. See I heard about twitter when it first came out from the celebrities on tv...."follow me on twitter to know what I'm wearing, or see who my latest crush is"...and so on and so forth. Thus I always associated twitter as a useless site solely devoted to the minute by minute thoughts of people who don't matter. However, twitter is and can be used for much more than that. There was an article mentioned in class, that I posted below, about how surgeons are now tweeting play by play of operations so that colleagues and students can learn from live surgical procedures. Twitter can also be used when a physician can not figure out a diagnosis or a proper treatment plan. The doctor can tweet the patient case and get help from other physicians who may be more experienced. Of course there are negatives that come from using twitter like this, wrong diagnosis, drug dose, sensitive information leakage, the list could go on and on. I guess my point is that there is a use for twitter in the health care industry, however I still can't see myself taking part of it once this course is over...
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-02-17/tech/twitter.surgery_1_twitter-and-facebook-social-networking-site-twitter-tweeted?_s=PM:TECH

Mobile Health in the Middle East

Hey all,
I came across an interesting article that talked about the growing use and benefits of mHealth in the Middle East. According to a UAE report in the article, "93% of them believe that the mobile health industry can improve the quality and availability of health care in the Middle East." It talked about different apps such as "faselty, an app which aims to make it easy to connect blood donors with people in need, on the go. Another example available in Egypt is Es3efny, providing a means of communication between ambulances and hospitals, using the Android platform." Also in Egypt, they are launching an app called mobile baby which allows doctors to send ultrasound images and results directly to their phones from the machine. With the ever growing population of smart phone users, and the new technologies they will be able to provide the whole as a whole, not just the middle east, will benefit tremendously. I posted the full article below...
http://thenextweb.com/me/2011/10/31/mobile-health-has-huge-potential-in-the-middle-east-industry-study-says/

Robots in the hospital....

Hello all,So my first day of rotations at columbia hospital was new and exciting for many reasons, but most of all I was pleasantly surprised that I would be working hand in hand with a robot named Roxane. She wasn't a dispensing robot like I had seen before, she was a delivery robot. We would make the meds and when we were all done Roxane would come pick them up and deliver them to the floors of our choosing. I know it may seems naive or child-like, but there is nothing more entertaining to me than walking into an elevator that Roxane is riding along with me....Healthcare technology is advancing everyday, there are robots that operate complex surgeries, dispense and deliver medications, among many other things. Most people would be scared that the advances in technology might replace their jobs, but I think it has just made our world that much easier. I no longer will have to run around columbia delivering all the medications to the different floors, Roxane has now taken that burden away. I came across an article that talks about the advances in technology within the medical arena. Its interesting and relevant so I posted the link. Check it out if that's your cup of tea...
http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.ezproxylocal.library.nova.edu/hww/results/results_single_fulltext.jhtml;hwwilsonid=H11GF3KO4VIU1QA3DKDSFGOADUNGIIV0