davidrothman.net » Consumer Health Info http://davidrothman.net Exploring Medical Librarianship and Web Geekery Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:31:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Ben Goldacre Explains the Placebo Effect http://davidrothman.net/2010/02/12/ben-goldacre-explains-the-placebo-effect/ http://davidrothman.net/2010/02/12/ben-goldacre-explains-the-placebo-effect/#comments Fri, 12 Feb 2010 05:01:21 +0000 David Rothman http://davidrothman.net/?p=2968 [EDIT]

I did NOT mean to post the same video with the same post title a day after Nikki did.

[/EDIT]

Ever have a hard time explaining the placebo effect? Let Dr. Ben Goldacre do it for you in this video from the NHS:

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I still think it is a huge waste of resources for a library to invest any time or money in a Second Life presence.

]]> http://davidrothman.net/2010/02/12/ben-goldacre-explains-the-placebo-effect/feed/ 0 ‘Qualities’ not ‘Quality’ – Text Analysis Methods to Classify Consumer Health Websites http://davidrothman.net/2009/09/10/%e2%80%98qualities%e2%80%99-not-%e2%80%98quality%e2%80%99-%e2%80%93-text-analysis-methods-to-classify-consumer-health-websites/ http://davidrothman.net/2009/09/10/%e2%80%98qualities%e2%80%99-not-%e2%80%98quality%e2%80%99-%e2%80%93-text-analysis-methods-to-classify-consumer-health-websites/#comments Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:00:09 +0000 David Rothman http://davidrothman.net/?p=2769 Guocai Chen, Jim Warren, Joanne Evans. ‘Qualities’ not ‘Quality’ – Text Analysis Methods to Classify Consumer Health Websites. electronic Journal of Health Informatics, 2009; 4(1): e5.

Abstract

There is an increasing need to help health consumers to achieve timely, differentiated access to quality online healthcare resources. This paper describes and evaluates methods for automated classification of consumer health Web content with respect to qualitative attributes relevant to the preferences of individual health consumers. This is illustrated in the context of identifying breast cancer consumer web pages that are ‘supportive’ versus ‘medical’ perspective, as compared to an existing manual classification employed by a breast cancer portal with personalised search preference options. Classification is performed based on analysis of word co-occurrences and an enhanced decision tree classifier (a decision forest). Current classification test results for ‘medical’ versus ‘supportive’ type resources are 90% accurate (95% confidence interval, 86-94%) using this decision forest classifier. These early results are indicating that language use patterns can be used to automate such classification with acceptable accuracy; however, a wider range of websites and metadata attributes needs to be assessed and compared to end-user feedback. Future application may be either in a tool to facilitate metadata coders in populating the databases of domain-specific portals such as BCKOnline, or in providing tagging or sorting on content type on live search results from health consumers.

Full Text: PDF (Free, registration required)

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]]> http://davidrothman.net/2009/09/10/%e2%80%98qualities%e2%80%99-not-%e2%80%98quality%e2%80%99-%e2%80%93-text-analysis-methods-to-classify-consumer-health-websites/feed/ 0 Physician Rating Sites: Pew-pew-pew! http://davidrothman.net/2009/09/03/physician-rating-sites-pew-pew-pew/ http://davidrothman.net/2009/09/03/physician-rating-sites-pew-pew-pew/#comments Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:52:38 +0000 David Rothman http://davidrothman.net/?p=2731 Bleah. Yet another article about Web sites for rating doctors.

Is anyone else really tired of seeing these articles and pretending these sites matter? They might one day, but they don’t now.

pew-pew-pew-small Anyway, the Pew Internet and American Life Project (Please tell me I’m not the only one who quietly thinks “pew-pew-pew!” to himself every time Pew is mentioned?) says:

Nearly half (47%) of internet users, or 35% of adults, have turned to the internet for information about doctors or other health professionals.”

Nothing surprising there.

“These health information seekers, however, are not likely to post their own reviews of doctors: just 7% of those who looked for information about doctors online (and 4% of all internet users) report posting a review of a doctor online.”

Well, nothing surprising there, either. The vast majority of Wikipedia’s users (or Digg’s) are there to read, not to contribute. Isn’t this the overwhelming trend in most “social media”? (And wouldn’t noting this context be important? What does this item from Pew mean without such context?)

I’ll state again that I think every physician rating site I’ve seen is useless. When patrons (or friends) ask me how to find a good specialist, I recommend avoiding these sites. The advice I gave one family member was to get in touch with local, regional, and national patient support groups for the diagnosed (or suspected) condition necessitating a visit to a specialist. If you want the opinion of informed patients, that’s where you’ll find it.

Just for good measure:

I like lolcats. Sue me.

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]]> http://davidrothman.net/2009/09/03/physician-rating-sites-pew-pew-pew/feed/ 5 Sites for Flu-Tracking http://davidrothman.net/2009/08/31/sites-for-flu-tracking/ http://davidrothman.net/2009/08/31/sites-for-flu-tracking/#comments Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:30:48 +0000 David Rothman http://davidrothman.net/?p=2709 MakeUseOf features five sites for tracking Flu online:

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Other posts on this site about ‘Flu

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]]> http://davidrothman.net/2009/08/31/sites-for-flu-tracking/feed/ 1 e-Patients Video http://davidrothman.net/2009/08/21/e-patients-video/ http://davidrothman.net/2009/08/21/e-patients-video/#comments Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:00:12 +0000 David Rothman http://davidrothman.net/?p=2662

Some interesting numbers. Not sure about the rest.

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]]> http://davidrothman.net/2009/08/21/e-patients-video/feed/ 1 Family Practice POC Web Geekery http://davidrothman.net/2009/07/30/family-practice-poc-web-geekery/ http://davidrothman.net/2009/07/30/family-practice-poc-web-geekery/#comments Thu, 30 Jul 2009 10:59:35 +0000 David Rothman http://davidrothman.net/?p=2594

University of Wisconsin Department of Family Medicine physician Derek Hubbard, MD instructs family doctors on how to find clinical information [on the Web] at the point of care.

There are definitely some good tips for clinicians here, but a couple that make me a little uneasy (like using info from About.com as a patient handout).

Dr. Hubbard might also be interested in using the Consumer Health and Patient Education Search Engine.

[Hattip: Ratcatcher]

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]]> http://davidrothman.net/2009/07/30/family-practice-poc-web-geekery/feed/ 2 Watching Swine Flu on the Web http://davidrothman.net/2009/04/27/watching-swine-flu-on-the-web/ http://davidrothman.net/2009/04/27/watching-swine-flu-on-the-web/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 05:34:21 +0000 David Rothman http://davidrothman.net/?p=2518 Holy cow! Holy pig!

Watching misinformation spread is sort of entertaining. Check out all the people who talk about not eating pork on Twitter. (The flu is not spread by eating pork.)

Hah! As I was writing this post, the latest xkcd appeared!

The CDC’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Twitter feed seems to be a frequently-updated source of sanity:

http://twitter.com/cdcemergency

RSS Feed for CDC’s Swine Flu site

Maps
Google Map 1 (H1N1 Swine Flu)
Google Map 2 (”Swine Flu 2009″)
Google Map 3 (”HPAI H5N1 30-Day Outbreak Map”)

HealthMap (previously mentioned here) might be the most complete map visualization. HealthMap’s twitter feed is also interesting, but gives a more panicked impression than that of the CDC (see above)

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]]> http://davidrothman.net/2009/04/27/watching-swine-flu-on-the-web/feed/ 4 *Really* Stupid Social Health Site http://davidrothman.net/2009/04/25/really-stupid-social-health-site/ http://davidrothman.net/2009/04/25/really-stupid-social-health-site/#comments Sun, 26 Apr 2009 01:32:31 +0000 David Rothman http://davidrothman.net/?p=2510 The idea behind rateadrug.com is for users to rate drugs.

rateadruglogo

Our goal is to provide unique user-generated data on side effects and subtle side effects of medications. We want to know how these prescription drugs make you feel.

I’ve seen stupid applications of social media in healthcare, but this may take the cake as the dumbest I’ve seen in a good while.

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]]> http://davidrothman.net/2009/04/25/really-stupid-social-health-site/feed/ 15 HAVIDOL (avafyneyme HCI) http://davidrothman.net/2009/02/08/havidol-avafyneyme-hci/ http://davidrothman.net/2009/02/08/havidol-avafyneyme-hci/#comments Sun, 08 Feb 2009 16:02:03 +0000 David Rothman http://davidrothman.net/?p=2393 Dated 2007 but new to me:

Havidol is clearly an amazing new drug. Thank goodness there’s such a wonderfully detailed site to tell us all about Havidol and how it can treat Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder (DSACDAD).

Click to visit the site

Click to visit the site

Great parody of direct-to-consumer advertising.

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]]> http://davidrothman.net/2009/02/08/havidol-avafyneyme-hci/feed/ 0 HHS/FDA/CDC Social Media Tools for Consumers and Partners http://davidrothman.net/2009/02/05/hhsfdacdc-social-media-tools-for-consumers-and-partners/ http://davidrothman.net/2009/02/05/hhsfdacdc-social-media-tools-for-consumers-and-partners/#comments Thu, 05 Feb 2009 21:00:08 +0000 David Rothman http://davidrothman.net/?p=2365 New to me- and a good idea to put all of this on one page.

http://www.cdc.gov/socialmedia/

I didn’t know the CDC was on MySpace or that the FDA had a recall Twitter feed.

I decided I should definitely follow the CDC’s Twitter feed for Health Professionals, which is for “…Health Professionals interested in staying up-to-date with CDC’s interactive media activities…”

They’ve also got a widget to help consumers search for products impacted by the Peanut-Containing Product Recall (embedded below).

FDA Salmonella Typhimurium Outbreak 2009. Flash Player 9 is required.

Includes:

  • Blogs
  • eMail Subscriptions
  • Health-e-Cards
  • Mobile Information
  • Online Video
  • Phone/Email
  • Podcasts
  • RSS Feeds
  • Social Networks
  • Badges for Social Networks
  • Twitter
  • Virtual Worlds
  • Web Sites
  • Widgets

Go check it out.

Hat tip: Maura Sostack

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