How to purchase Glucoboy

Ever since the article on Glucoboy surfaced on our website, we have been receiving several e-mails on how to purchase the Glucoboy. Questions from healthcare professionals and patients from all over the world: United States, Dubai, Israel etc.

Information on purchasing GlucoBoy can be found here.

Thank you for the 200+ inquiries on the purchase procedures for Glucoboy but because of time restraints, we feel that this is the best way to notify everyone.

Just a note: we are not affiliated with Nintendo nor endorse any products

Doctors offer online consultation

American Well offers physicians the flexibility of providing online consultation and get paid for it. Why explain when I can just have you “see” how it works:

A glimpse into the surgery room online

Who hasn’t watched the latest Grey’s Anatomy as medical residents fight tooth and nail to have a glimpse of cardiovascular surgeon Erica Hahn performing a double valve replacement on the father of medicine, Wiiliam Tapley? So little space in the operating room, so little opportunity for future surgeons to improve their cutting operating skills.

SurgyTec is an initiative develped by plastic surgeon Stevens MD, PhD to solve that. The site’s goal is to improve and share surgery techniques in order to improve one another’s skills. Physicians can now watch videos from ACL reconstruction to performing a midface lift.

So if you need a last minute refresher course on the use of robotic total mesorectal excision for the treatment of rectal cancer, SurgyTec is the place to visit!

Health Game Break: Nutrition Sleuth

Lets take a break from all the Health 2.0 web goodies and play a health game! Nutrition Sleuth is a game that provides kids and adults with an introduction to the essential vitamins and minerals important in keeping the body working as it should be.

Participants role-play as the famous nutritionist inspector Smarfengood whose goal is to figure out what essential nutrient is missing from each of his victims. Think of the game as “hang-man” with the category as vitamins and nutrients.

RealSelf: Cosmetic Surgery Community Online

According to The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS) Cosmetic Surgery Statistics:

• Nearly 11.7 million surgical and non-surgical cosmetic procedures performed in the United States in 2007
• Top five non-surgical cosmetic procedures in 2007: Botox Injection (2,775,176 procedures); hyaluronic acid (1,448,716 procedures); laser hair removal (1,412,657 procedures); microdermabrasion (829,658 procedures); and IPL laser treatment (647,707 procedures)
• Top five surgical procedures for women: breast augmentation, liposuction, eyelid surgery, abdominoplasty and breast reduction
• Top five surgical procedures for men: liposuction, eyelid, surgery, rhinoplasty, breast reduction to treat enlarged male breasts, and hair transplantation

With Americans spending just under 13.2 billion on cosmetic procedures last year (ASPS), it was inevitable that a health-community site would sprout up centered around beauty through cosmetic enhancement.

RealSelf was developed by Tom Seery (who used to work at Expedia) in 2006 after his wife complained that it was easier to find reviews on hotels than laser surgery. Backed by investors with impressive backgrounds: Rich Barton (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Zillow), Nick Hanauer, and Bill Gossman, the site is making a splash in the cosmetic industry.

RealSelf contains reviews by patients who has undergone cosmetic surgery. What makes the site so addictive are the stories told by patients complete with extremely vivid pictures. Besides patients’ contribution, the site has board-certified cosmetic surgeons answering questions, which further adds to the site’s credibility. This is a great site for those considering an enhancement to their beauty and need information from people who have gone through the surgery.

MedHelp: Advice on the web from actual physicians

Is your doctor not listening to you? Do the words coming out of his mouth make you feel like he’s from another planet? Have no fear, MedHelp is here.

MedHelp is an online community dedicated to answering health questions from patients. Questions are answered by board certified physicians. The founders, simply known as Phil and Cindy, developed the site in 1994 after surviving through traumatic medical events involving their mother and daughter.

The site has had a major face-lift since last being introduced to me by Enoch Choi, MD. Besides the improved anesthetics, MedHelp has broadened its expansion into developing a stronger community complete with journal entries, groups to join, treatment reviews and even the ability to add friends.

What makes this site appealing is that answers are delivered by board certified physicians as opposed to a non-medically trained stranger. However, the site is not totally free. Some physicians charge to answer your questions.

MedHelp definitely has an edge over its other competitors such as DailyStrength thanks to its support by physicians and partnerships with major clinics.

Work, Health, and getting together to sue using the web

We’re exposed to environmental hazards every waking hour of the day. Most of our waking hours are spent at work whether 300 feet off the ground as a construction worker or avoiding blood splatter as a practicing medical resident. So what happens when you get injured on the job?

The Injuries is a website aimed at helping those injured on work to connect, share experience, and most importantly take action. The injury list ranges from Mesothelioma to Silicosis, each with an explanation of the injury. While the idea is interesting, the discussion board is filled not with discussions related to injuries but rather spam.

Nonetheless, the idea of creating a way for those injured to connect is an intriguing idea but needs better execution. One could not help but wonder if the site was developed by someone who was injured or by an lawyer who has taken ambulance chasing to the web.

Pet Pals: Animal Doctor

After reading e-mails from some of my pals at  Cornell College of Veterinary School, it has come to my attention that I have been neglecting a vital part of the practice of medicine…animals. With that being said, I’d like to introduce Pet Pals: Animal Doctor, a game developed by Legacy Interactive / Frontline Studios.

The game was originally developed for Nintendo DS but is apparently available for the PC (free to try) as well. In Pet Pals, players diagnose and treat 30 different medical cases that are created by real-life veterinarians. There are 23 different pets to treat from dogs to even the hamster. Medical cases range from broken bones to even hairballs.

A great game for future and current veterinarians as well as current physicians who would like to give veterinary medicine a shot.

Battle of EMRs

I’ve been asked for opinions on what the best EMR system would be for a hospital. While I can’t provide the answer due to a conflict of interest, I will list the most popular systems currently used in the United States (in no particular order):

• Cerner
• McKesson
• CPSI
• Epic Systems
• GE Healthcare
• MEDITECH
• QuadraMed
• Siemens
• Eclipsys
• MEDPLUS

Some of the problems I’ve noticed with hospitals during their implementation phase and selection of an appropriate EMR is the lack of research in the area of implementation ease. While extensive research is put into cost and how well the system handles hospital’s needs, there are areas in which hospital administrators fail to ask themselves:

• How are the online tutorials for the EMRs?
• What is the support structure i.e. would the hospital be able to find enough consultants who have used the system to help them when they “go live?”
• Can the EMR handle a large-scale hospital?
• Diverse Team: You need a diverse team consisting of physicians, medical residents, nurses, pharmacist, technicians etc who need to be “Lead Coordinator” i.e. the go-to person or persons. A physician will not know the needs of the pharmacy, the pharmacist will not know the needs of a nurse, etc. Different roles, different work flow, different needs…

The most important advice, create a diverse team of healthcare professionals who are technologically savvy to begin with. The implementation of EMR requires speed and most importantly, efficacy. It is better to work with someone who has some sort of technical background either playing with websites, programming, or what Silicon Valley-ers like to refer to as ‘hackers’ (someone who knows or dips their hands in technology during spare time, and can make the computer do what they want, whether or not it wants to) than someone who doesn’t even know how to install a program in Windows.

Because when problems arise, you will need someone who isn’t afraid to act or at least is tech-savvy enough to search for the answer on forums instead of waiting for customer service in the morning. After all, in hospitals, time is life.

Games for Health Fourth Annual Conference 2008

Games for Health Fourth Annual Conference 2008 will be held from May 8 – May 9 in Baltimore MD. The Serious Games Initiative, a Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, is the force behind this project. The goal is to spark the impact of games and game technologies on healthcare and policy.

There’s always buzz about Health 2.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 etc, but in my opinion, the next big thing will be Medutainment. Can you see a bunch of healthcare professionals discussing during lunch, the latest clinical trials for a drug x or rather that “cool medical game” they just played or the new XBOX game that is helping pediatric patients with disorders cope with their condition?