Driving In Traffic

Well, this may not be the last installment of “NAFN”, but after reading this helpful post… at this point in time there is not really much else to say.

TechCrunch has just done a wonderful summary of the functionalities of various online news aggregator services.

I personally like online feed aggregators. I like being able to access my blogs from anywhere. Is that a sign of addiction….. well, at least I don’t own a “crackberry”! ————— yet?!?!?!

Technorati tags: Blogging, news aggregators

Today, was a busy day at the office. Lots of comings and goings. My Blogging Doc was in today and it is his custom to walk patients out and bid them good day or give them some parting bit of advice or reassurance.

It was interesting hear the conversations between patient and doctor as they passed my door. One conversation consisted of a patient asking for clarification of what she could/should do to improve certain symptoms. The Blogging Doc quickly, but politely asked the patient to drop by his blog. He had a whole article there that would explain two or three things she could do. It was then the LIGHTBULB went off!

Just yesterday I was reading the travails of NHS Doc who constantly is having to weigh the patient’s needs for education and requirements jam packed schedule. The post mostly focuses on how media coverage of healthcare “advances” and direct to consumer marketing are impacting his practice– but that is a discussion for another day.

Then thinking back to my previous post on the obstacles that keep healthcare blogs from being more popular and a post I read at Future HIT about the resistance IT people see when trying to implement new technologies for clinicans… all of a sudden, it hit me!

Surgeons will invest time in learning how to implant a new device or a new procedure that will produce better outcomes. Nurses will learn to use a new piece of equipment, electronic medical records or use a computerized medication dispensing system if it is clear that it will help the patient or make their job easier. Granted… I realize this is not a new idea.

When we are talking about blogs, busy, stressed and overworked clinicians want a clear articulation of how blogs can help them before investing time into it.

Well here it is… medical blogs can be an efficient way of conveying a clinicians thoughts and instructions designed to help patients take a more active role in their health. I think they could be especially helpful in:

The list could go on and on….

In the new healthcare industry, with shorter visits with the doctor and difficulty getting appointments, I truly believe that medical blogs might be worth the investment of time.

I think the greatest promise for medical blogs is the idea that they could actually enhance the provider-patient relationship. Educational efforts play a big role in this aspect of the art of medicine.

Dare I dream… but in the ideal world, a good medical blog could make a patient feel like he or she has had their 10-12 minute appointment extended to include some genuine collaboration between clinician and patient to improving one’s health.

Everybody chime in here…. I enjoy the debate and conversation.

Technorati tags: medical blogs, healthcare, patient education, patient physician relationship

What do bloggers do when they get together?

Have a glass of wine and talk about everything from potato chips to Disney to sleestacks to blogging.

Last night I attended the first Atlanta Blogger Dinner at The Grape at the Forum that was organized by Teresa Caro, Toby Bloomberg and Josh Hallett. Other attendees included Dave (whose musing on how today’s kids would view Sleestacks made me giggle), Polly, Abigail, (whose blog is delight to read and will soon be elevated to Potato Chip Diva) There were also two Justins (Justin H & Justin E), a Julie, and a Scott who I did not get to talk to much, as I was sitting against the wall and in the middle with no escape avaliable for mingling.

Over wine and yummy treats we had a lively “real life” conversation on blogging. It mostly centered around using blogging as a tool for business. I came away with several thoughts:

1. Good bloggers are helpful to others, considerate, open, humorous, and creative.
2. Good blogs are by nature personal learning endeavors. Good bloggers really want people to leave comments, ask questions and facilitate the conversation.
3. Good citizen bloggers give full disclosure and do their best to give credit where credit is due.
4. Comments are hard to come by , so don’t expect them to come without working for them. Good bloggers actively participate in the blogosphere. They read a lot and leave thoughtful comments as appropriate.
5. When compared to other business blogs, the position and goals of healthcare business blogs in the blogosphere are still not well understood.

I’m delighted to have met some new friends. I look forward to seeing them again soon and learning even more!

Thanks Josh, Toby and Teresa for setting this up!!!!

PS: If you go to the Grape: Ask for Ali as a server— she was patient with our rowdy crowd and did a great job.

Technorati tags: blogging, Atlanta Bloggers, business blogging

In catching up on my blog reading, I found a couple of posts that really made me think about some of the obstacles that can impact the uptake of medical blogging. The first post from Toby at Diva Marketing Blog where she describes a discussion she had with a doubting doctor about the values of blogging.

It’s funny… I work with two physicians. Their views of blogs are worlds apart.

One doctor sounds exactly like the doctor that Toby met on the plane. For some reason (probably because of the overabundance of blogs that are merely public diarys or a series of antiestablishment, profoundly pessimistic rants on the ills of everthing from wasabi to the war in Iraq), this doctor has generalized his thinking to be that blogs are of no value to him. Another factor that contributes to this is lack of time. Because of the state of healthcare today, this physician has very little time to “waste.” Rounds begin at 6:00 am. Office hours begin at 8:30 am with patients every 15 minutes and evening rounds at the hospital after that. Then he has a wife and family with which he wants to spend time. That leaves very little time to kiss enough blogging toads to find a prince or two.

So what would change the mind of this doctor? Well, that’s hard to say. In a general sense, blogs that help him to conserve time and effort during his work day would surely have value. What would those look like? I’m not really sure. However, I feel certain that his wife and children would welcome anything that eases the work load and allows him to come home in a good mood and with a little energy in reserve.

Just so I don’t get tagged as the harbinger of doom and gloom for medical blogs. Let me share with you the view of the other physician I work with who loves blogs and blogging. With a little effort, he has been able to find a number of colleagues (Blogging princes) who have enriched or shared his understanding of some finer points of medicine and psychiatry. To him, these blogs and bloggers provide a sort of a cyber journal club, akin to the ones he participated in during his training. They help him quickly find key research and discoverys. He also uses them as an time-saving way of consulting with colleagues to understand others’ interpretation of significant findings and how they can be used in actual clinical practice.

The second post that I found while catching up was by NHS Blog Doctor where he bid a fond adieu to GeekNurse. In this specific posts, NHS laments that Rich at GeekNurse was asked by his employer to take down his blog. His last post simply reads:

“Owing to concerns raised by staff and management, GN’s archive has been removed from public display. Thank you to all those that took part.”

This is rather disconcerting not just to me but to the 12 people to date who have left comments. Interestingly, the comments reflect what some of the big thinkers in blogging have had to say about good blogs vs. bad blogs. Geek Nurse had readers because he conveyed important information to his readers in a personal way.

I think this example teaches us a few things about medical blogging. First, unlike the Microsoft example provided by Scoble and Israel in the first few chapters of Naked Conversations, some healthcare organizations do not value employee blogs as providing a personal face to their facility.

Interestingly, GN did not proclaim to be the official or even a representative blog of his organization. Nonetheless, no one can deny that healthcare organizations feel the pressure to be concerned with risk management. Especially in the areas of:

It is important to note that I had not read (and others seem to support me on this) anything on GeekNurse that was crazy medicine, unethical or breached the confidentiality of patients. So it would seem our litigious society combined with rising risk of malrpactice suits and malpractice insurance premiums may be other formidable obstacles to the success of medical blogs.

Technorati tags: medical blogs, healthcare communication, malpractice

I work in the Mental Health Industry and it is Friday! Need I say more…

It has been quite a stressful week and I was happy to find this delightful page that gave a humorous take on the Top 10 Signs of Burnout for Psychologists and Mental Health Workers.

On a more serious note, caregiver and clinician burnout is underrecognized and underdiscussed! In some circles, especially in the healthcare arena, it is almost taboo to even mention that you may be approaching the end of your “care rope”. Prolonged periods of giving of yourself can be exhausting and can leave one feeling empty and resentful.

I think a healthier way to look at burnout is to accept it and not negatively judge people because they find themselves in that spot. I recently posted a good post on clinician burnout on the company blog written by Dr. Richard G. Petty.

It is important to always remember that people who are burned out don’t do their best job. While I agree that healthcare workers should take special precautions to make sure they keep burnout at bay, I also believe that the healthcare industry also has a responsiblity to their workers. Utlimately it is the patient’s lives and health that hang in the balance.

Technorati tags: burnout, healthcare, stress

Topic for today: Bloglines.com

Upon the urging of a friend, I decided to try Bloglines for a month to sample their service. Bloglines is a web-based service that allows you to view all of your favorite blogs through their online portal. It is not a desktop download.

Overall, I found the service SUPER easy to set up. One thing that I loved was that it was easy to set up some of the pre-programmed feeds for news services, such as the BBC, Fodor’s Travel, and Reuters (just to name a few). Adding custom feeds of favorite blogs of the month was quite simple as well.

I also loved the formatting of the posts. I found them easy to read and the layout of the webpage pleasant and not overwhelming. It was easy to navigate from one blog to the next and the feed folder format is fairly intuitive.

The one feature that I did not care for was the fact that once I opened a feed folder, Bloglines automatically considered all the posts read. While I could retrieve them at a later date using a special function, I found that it was easier to mark each post I wanted to save as I went through the list. I suppose this would not be a problem for people who check their aggregators several times a day. This is significantly different than Newsgator which will keep each post until you mark it as read.

Bloglines has a number of other features as a part of their service, such as a free blog, package tracking and blogroll wizard. I did not use any of these services during the past month. I may try them out to see how they work. My focus was really on the news aggregator function.

Summary: The major advantage of Bloglines is the incredibly easy set up. I would suggest this for those who are new to the blogosphere.

Technorati tags: Bloglines, news aggregators,