Just added the PharmLib Wiki to the List of Medical Wikis. That’s 51 wikis to date.
Administered by bioinformatics and pharmacy librarian KT Vaughan, this nifty wiki is off to a good start. I wonder if perhaps this content and that at PubDrug might be best paired at the same online location. Because PubDrug’s Stew Brower is listed as an editor at PharmLib, I’m guessing this idea must already have been considered.
The article from the New York Times and leaked screen captures of Google Health were just the start of what is certain to be a huge ongoing discussion of internet personal health records maintained by patients. Adding to the conversation is this recent article:
Benjamin Fry, Jim Warren. Navigation in internet-based personal healthcare records: for consumers who think. electronic Journal of Health Informatics, 2007; 2(2): e7.
Full text PDF (requires free registration)
Abstract
Internet-based personal healthcare records (PHRs) are designed to be created and maintained by individual healthcare consumers, based on their own understanding of their health conditions. Based on historical hypertext systems and working from a series of consumer use cases, we examine the options for end-user navigation in PHR systems. A prototype Internet-based system to support four paradigms of navigation – document-centred, node-centred, path-centred and graph-based – has been implemented. The system supports PHR organisation and annotation, as well as discussion of contents among stakeholders (e.g., doctor and patient). The architecture demonstrates the integration of existing packages on the client and server ends, including use of the widely-installed Adobe Acrobat. The system is intended to provide some of the appropriate tools for the upand-coming variety of health consumer who wishes to be an active participant in their own healthcare, who wishes to understand and contemplate their health record. Both user interface and architectural design aspects are offered as concept templates for PHR system implementation.
The UCSD Biomedical Library has a nice little introduction video on YouTube:
Above: Embedded video
My favorite moment: Seconds after the narration says “the biomedical library is known on campus as a quiet place for serious study,” we see someone using the library as a quiet place for serious napping. 
The EBM and Clinical Support Librarians@UCHC Blog points to a nifty resource from the Hirsh Health Sciences Library at Tufts University: Useful MeSH for Evidence-Based Medicine
I’ve mentioned previously that Mayo Libraries are doing a Learning 2.0 program. One of the participants, Mark Wentz, recently wrote The Ballad of Mayo Libraries 2.0 and has kindly allowed me to post it here. Love it!
(To the melody of Paul Henning’s “The Ballad of Jed Clampett.”)
Come learn about Libraries 2.0
Chock full of things a person oughta’ know
Learn about things you thought could never be
Then use ‘em as you advance technologically
(Web, that is. Google. Internet.)Next thing you know well you’re building up a blog
RSS so your time doesn’t get a clog
Sharing information for ev’ryone to see
Adding a link to a rockin’ new wiki
(Easy, it is. Collaborate. Info share!)We’ve just started and the fun has just begun
We’ll learn much more before this project’s done
When we’re finished our tracking log we’ll send
And hope to win the techie prize they promised at the end
( Y’all IM back now, ya hear?)
Thanks, Mark!
CiteMD is a community-based popularity website with an emphasis on science articles. It combines social medical bookmarking, blogging, and medical reference management with a form of non-hierarchical, democratic editorial control. News stories and websites are submitted by users, and then promoted to the front page through a user-based ranking system.
The features above aren’t anything new to anyone familiar with the seven similar tools that have previously been mentioned on this blog (see Related Posts below).
What sets CiteMD apart (for me, anyway) is that it will allow the user to “create a document from scratch, insert references and generate the footnotes automatically.” This sounds great as an idea, but when I created an account, logged in, ran a MEDLINE search and selected references to import, it didn’t import the references, telling me I was “not logged in” (when I clearly was)- so it appears to still be working out the kinks.
Also interesting: CiteMD appears to have been built on the Drupal open source CMS.
ScienceRoll’s Bertalan Meskó is posting a series of email interviews with healthcare bloggers and asked me to participate. You can see my interview (accompanied by Berci’s gift for the hyperbolic superlative) here.
If you don’t subscribe to ScienceRoll, consider doing so. Berci catches a lot of interesting stuff that I’d otherwise miss.
Curbside.MD invites the clinician user ask it questions in natural language, as if texting a question to a colleague.
Some questions are answered much better than others, but the About page notes:
“Right now, Curbside.MD revolves primarily around neurologic diseases and drugs. But there is lots of content loaded from many other specialties in medicine – and it’s growing daily. We plan to have all of medicine ready and available for searching by the end of 2007.”
It looks like this will be a resource to keep an eye on as it develops.
Hard to tell a whole lot from these little snippets…but it looks and sounds kinda’ cool, doesn’ t it?
Wow, this looks like a great public health informatics resource!
MI-INFO (Michigan Informatics) is a series of online tutorials on health information and computer skills designed to support academic public health informatics programs and public health outreach training initiatives. The nine tutorials are competency-based and feature learning objectives, key concepts, exercises, and case studies. The tutorials will enable public health audiences to better access, evaluate, manage, and apply information needed to respond to public health issues and problems.
Tutorials include:
Evidence Based Public Health
Finding Health Statistics Online
Searching the Internet
Searching the Public Health Literature
Staying Informed
Health Education Resources
PowerPoint Basics
Access Basics
Excel Basics
This nine-minute video introduction to the University of Bristol Medical Library starts out a bit humorous, then becomes a fairly standard orientation film with oddly anachronistic music.
Is anyone else a little uncomfortable with the use of the word “idiot” in referring to patrons? I mean…if the whole video continued the joke (following Alan Moron around as he makes foolish-but-instructional mistakes) it might work. Because the joke is so brief, the video just seems to suggest (to me, anyway) that a person who confused by the library’s labeling system or who is simply unfamiliar with how the library does things must be an idiot.
What do you think?
I know it’s goofy, but I was tickled to see that LibWorm has been bookmarked just over 500 times in del.icio.us since the end of November 2006.
This makes me smile.
It occurred to me recently that I haven’t written a how-to post in a good while.
The primary reason for this is that I don’t have a good idea what sorts of how-to posts would be most welcome or useful to readers. If you have a technology question or a how-to you’d like to see, please leave a comment (anonymous is okay, if you prefer) or drop me an email and let me know?
I love seeing medical librarians/libraries mentioned in medical journals- I love seeing MedLib bloggers mentioned perhaps even more. How nice that in an article about “Web 2.0″ and medicine, three MedLib bloggers are mentioned!
The effect of Web 2.0 on the future of medical practice and education: Darwikinian evolution or folksonomic revolution?
Rick McLean, Brian H Richards and Janet I Wardman
MJA 2007; 187 (3): 174-177
Medical blogs include discussions about clinical cases, images and special clinical interest topics. Examples include Clinical Cases and Images — Blog (http://casesblog.blogspot.com), Dean Guistini’s UBC Academic Search — Google Scholar Blog (http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/googlescholar), David Rothman (http://davidrothman.net) (lists of medical wikis)[1], and Science Roll (http://scienceroll.com).
Note that, of the four blogs mentioned, two (mine1 and Dean Giustini’s) are MedLib blogs and the article’s references show three articles by MedLib blogger Eugene Barsky!
Good showing for MedLib bloggers!
1
Articles on my “to read” list:
Who borrows laptop computers in an academic health sciences library? Why do they choose to check out laptops? In a survey, laptop computer users responded that the laptops were used most frequently to do class-related work. Laptops were most often checked out because they could be taken to a quiet area of the library or to where the user had more room to work. The majority of such borrowers were satisfied or very satisfied with the laptops and the service from the library. The majority of those completing the survey were medical school students and graduate students. The circulation of laptop computers at this academic health sciences library is a very successful and popular program.
A usability study was conducted at a medium-sized academic health sciences library with the goal of providing data to inform the future redesign of the library’s Web page. A two-stage approach was used: (1) A preliminary survey designed to identify common tasks and issues on which to focus, and (2) usability testing. Responses to the survey indicated general satisfaction with the site and suggested areas for testing. Usability testing participants were asked to perform scripted tasks. The results indicate that users do have considerable difficulty navigating the site and recommendations are presented. This method of testing is recommended for health sciences libraries.
Samuel T.C. Thompson
Reference Librarian
Collier County Public Library
Naples, Florida
Rachel P. Thompson
MLS Student
Texas Woman’s University
Denton, Texas
With the popularization of the Internet, there has been a vast proliferation of consumer health material available to the public. Unfortunately, this has only accelerated a pre-existing trend- the fact that much of the material made available is unproven, unreliable, or outright fraud. This requires librarians to make a choice: are they passive and uncritical dispensers of information or are they critical educators who help patrons choose the best information available? In this article we examine the issues facing librarians in this matter and presents skeptical materials that may help librarians to answer critical health questions.
What is Web 2.0 and what preferences are U.S. physicians demonstrating today?
Read the new white paper analysis from Manhattan Research “Physicians and Web 2.0″ and learn about the evolving online landscape as shown through data derived from our recent study Taking the Pulse®.
“Physicians and Web 2.0″ is derived from Taking the Pulse®, a syndicated multi-client physician research study and advisory service focused on understanding technology adoption and integration trends among practicing U.S. physicians.
Now in its seventh year, the primary objective of the research study is to track which technologies physicians adopt, how they currently use them, and how they plan to use them. Taking the Pulse® v7.0 was fielded in 2007 among 1,353 practicing physicians.
Lee and Sachi LeFever have done it again. Great video introduction to social bookmarking generally and del.icio.us specifically.
Their video on RSS was also exceptionally good.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the possible ways of rating, ranking or scoring blogs.
As I mentioned when speaking to Mayo Clinic librarians a few weeks ago, I grow increasingly annoyed with the way Technorati uses the word “Authority.”
It annoys me because although the Technorati rankings are interesting and useful, they do not actually measure authority (as libraryfolk understand the term). As the Technorati FAQ explains:
Technorati Authority is the number of blogs linking to a website in the last six months. The higher the number, the more Technorati Authority the blog has.
So this score doesn’t indicate authority, quality or trustworthiness. At best, it could be said to measure popularity. (It could also be argued that the Technorati rank is to blogs what Impact Factor is to journals…but I’m not going to make that argument here.)
Other ranking sites do something similar, ranking blogs based on metrics that measure popularity.
For instance, I’ve previously mentioned the Healthcare 100 ranking of medical blogs at eDrugSearch. Its scores for medical blogs are calculated using these elements:
Google PageRank (0 to 10) – Google PageRank is a link analysis algorithm that interprets Web links and assigns a numerical weighting (0 to 10) to each site. High-quality sites receive a higher PageRank.
Bloglines Subscribers (1 to 20) – Bloglines displays the number of subscribers for each blog’s feed. Each blog is assigned a Bloglines value from 1 to 20 based on subscriber ranges – e.g., more than 20, more than 30, etc. The more subscribers, the higher the Bloglines value.Technorati Authority Ranking (1 to 30) – Technorati’s authority ranking shows the number of unique blogs that have linked to a particular blog over the past six months. The more link sources referencing your blog, the higher the Technorati ranking. Similar to a blog’s Bloglines value, a blog’s Technorati value is determined based on ranges (e.g., top 10,000, top 20,000, etc.), and each range is assigned a number (1 to 30) that is part of the algorithm.
eDrugSearch.com Points (1 to 10) – To add a little spice to the Healthcare 100 rankings, we add our own subjective ranking of each blog based on the quality of content and frequency of updates.
So with the exception of the eDrugSearch.com Points, these measures are generally objective and, like Technorati, measure only popularity.
So what’s wrong with attempting to measure blog popularity? Nothing at all- I just want us to remember that popularity does not equal quality. As an illustration of this I’d like to point out that the New Kids on the Block had TWO #1 records in both the U.S. and the U.K..
Of course, the newest attempt to rank medical blogs is at MedGadget.nl, and this has gotten a good bit of attention from medical bloggers.
Berci Meskó summarizes the four elements that are used to calculate rank in MedGadget.nl’s system:
- the number of published articles
- the number of comments
- the mean Google pagerank of the homepage
- the mean Technorati-rank, -inblog and inlink numbers
- the mean number of subscription to Feedburner (the circulation) and the mean hits of Feedburner.
Berci continues:
In my opinion, this list is more accurate and comprehensive than that of eDrugSearch. And the reason I think so is not Scienceroll’s 22nd rank, but the objective parameters. Let us know if you know more lists about medical blogs.
I can’t agree with Berci. First, because the word “accuracy” has absolutely no place here. Neither list is “accurate” in the sense that neither list is “salty” or “orange”. Second, because I see these other problems with the metrics that MedGadget.nl uses:
Technorati and the Healthcare 100 are imperfect, but the rankings at MedGadget.nl are significantly less meaningful.
So how do you find out what the best blogs are? Heck, check out the most popular ones written on topics that interest you. They’re probably popular because they have some sort of broad appeal that you might also experience. More importantly, read and read critically. Take seriously the reading recommendations of the blog authors you most enjoy/trust. Read the “about” page of each blog carefully to check the author’s credentials and experience. (Hint: A blog without a detailed “About” page is like a “fact” without a citation.)
What do you think?
Do you have a favorite rating system for blogs? How do you go about evaluating a medical blog (or a biblioblog)?
http://spineconnect.syndicom.com/
Syndicom SpineConnect is the leading collaborative knowledge network for spine surgeons to collaborate on difficult and unusual cases.
Everyday, over 800 spine surgeons from around the world log-on to SpineConnect to share knowledge, develop novel approaches to treatment, address the top challenges in spine healthcare, and create technological solutions that address voids in the current marketplace with the underlying goal of improving patient outcomes.
With a growing case knowledgebase of over 700 cases and 3200 reviews, SpineConnect is quickly becoming the place where spine surgeons look for insights into complicated cases, information on new technologies, and as a venue for conducting case-based research.
Thanks to Colin for the heads-up!
[soapbox]
On 7/21/2007, a Harris Poll was released which stated that in the last two years, the percentage of people who “have used the Internet to search for health-related information” has gone from 53% to 71%. This was based on a telephone poll of 1,010 adults between 7/10/07 and 7/16/07. The Harris report refers to these people as “cyberchondriacs.”
The media seems to love this story. BusinessWeek, ars technica and a ton of others have offered articles on it.
I think the study matters and merits coverage, but I object to the term “cyberchondriac.”
Managed care has resulted in physicians not being able to spend as much time educating patients at the same time patients are taking more responsibility for their healthcare decisions. The healthcare consumer who decides to do some research using the most powerful research tool the world has ever seen isn’t a hypochondriac. That consumer is taking responsibility for her healthcare and becoming informed.
Let us say that a patient is told that she had a kind of hypothyroidism. That patient goes to the bookstore and buys a book published under the name of Mayo (or Johns Hopkins or some other very reputable authority) on thyroid disorders. The patient reads the book and makes notes on questions she wants to ask her doctor when she goes in for her next office visit. This isn’t hypochondriasis. This is the sort of patient clinicians should treasure. A patient who self-educates and asks informed questions saves the time of clinicians.
Now let’s imagine that the same patient skips the book and instead searches Medline Plus for information about hypothyroidism, printing some pages out and making notes on questions she wants to ask her doctor when she goes in for her next office visit. This isn’t hypochondria either. This is the exact same behavior in a patient that clinicians should celebrate and encourage.
Hypochondriasis is a very real disorder. The hypochondriac doesn’t need an Internet connection to experience its awful symptoms.
If clinicians want to complain about patients who look up health information online with no regard to the authority of the information or the information provider, that’s fine. Those clinicians would do well to volunteer and donate to help improve outreach and information literacy programs in medical libraries. When the clinician encounters a patient who habitually looks for health information from poor sources, the clinician should refer the patient to the nearest medical library or at least point the patient towards Medline Plus.
I won’t be using the word “cyberchondriac” to describe people who seek health information online.
I won’t use it to describe hypochondriacs who look for health information online, either. It has a glib feel to it that doesn’t sit well with me when describing someone dealing with a disorder as awful as hypochondriasis.
[/soapbox]
Incoming Links
