Plugged in...

A few weeks ago I went off for a weekend and totally disconnected from social networks and the Internet for four days. Normally when I go off to the mountains or the coast I bring along my laptop, or at the least my Blackberry is never far from my hip. This time I decided to unplug from the Matrix of the web and spend some time reading actual printed books, and writing with a pen and paper while enjoying nature and doing some very serious relaxing. It was interesting because for the first 24 hours I kind of had a feeling of withdrawal symptoms and experienced cravings to read tweets, posts, blogs and updates. I reflected on exactly what I was missing and it was more being able to see what everyone was saying than trying to say something myself. Then I went through a phase for a few hours where I had the desire to publish my thoughts... I found myself thinking, "Oh, this would be a good tweet."

After the second day I started to actually forget about Twitter, Facebook and even my email! By that evening I was having a grand time and even though I occasionally imagined what might be happening in cyberspace, I was no longer obsessing about it. The rest of my trip was amazing. I'm sure I would have enjoyed myself with my Blackberry and staying on top of my inbox with an occasional tweet, but it was refreshing to let it all go and just live in the moment. My mind seemed scraped clean and I think it was helpful to retreat from the writhing stream of data flowing through my various networks and clear my head for a bit.

When I got back it took me quite some time to get back into the swing and deal with the ebb and flow of the firehose of data that I had become accustomed to sipping from. I had literally thousands of emails backed up in my inbox and lots of tweet streams to review (my lists were very helpful to find some jewels I had missed). I had to resist the temptation to retweet everything I had been missing while I was gone :-) I also took some time to type up all the notes I had written over the long weekend and try to organize my thinking. Now I seemed to have returned to normal, whatever that is if I ever was. I've been making some new connections and doing more writing and have some big plans that will unfold as the year moves on.

I highly recommend that everyone take an opportunity to spend a little time unplugged ~ when you return you just might be a little sharper.

Facebook, Twitter and Your Mind

The article Are Social Networks Messing With Your Head? from the January / February 2010 issue of Scientific American Mind by David DiSalvo is pretty fascinating. You can click the cover image to purchase the issue online. One of the theses of the article is that as social networks continue to grow, people are changing the way they think about the Internet as something that now touches on questions about human nature and identity. The millions and millions of social-network users are part of the largest experiment in social interaction ever conducted.

Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and their cousins have evolved from college fad to global ubiquity in seven short years. Whether they are good for our mental health is another matter.

Some key concepts of the article:

• As social networks proliferate, they are changing the way people think about the Internet, from a tool used in solitary anonymity to an ubiquitous medium.
• Nielsen Online reports that social networking (and associated blogging) is now the fourth most popular online activity.
• Social networks can lessen loneliness and boost self-esteem. But they can also have the opposite effect, depending on who you are and how you use these forums.

FACING IT: Humans' experiment with social networks is fairly new, but wildly popular. Researchers are trying to get a handle on the impact of these new social tools on our minds.

David uses the three-part definition of social-networking sites from the paper by social media researchers Danah Boyd of Microsoft Research New England in Cambridge, Mass., and Nicole B. Ellison of Michigan State University:

• they must provide a forum where users can construct a public or semipublic profile;
• create a list of other users with whom they share a connection;
• and view and move around their list of connections and those made by others.

He then walks through some very interesting data on sites like Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Bebo, Qzone (a massive Chinese site targeted to teens) and of course Facebook. He says:

If Facebook itself were a country, it would be the fourth most populous in the world, just behind the U.S. Almost half its users visit the site every day. Other social-networking sites are also booming. LinkedIn, a site geared for professional networkers, has more than 40 million users and adds one member every second. MySpace, the largest social network until Facebook overtook it last year, has 125 million users, and seven million Twitter users broadcast more than 18 million snippets a day to anyone who will listen... Time spent using social-networking sites is growing at three times the rate of overall Internet usage, accounting for almost 10 percent of total time spent online.

Obviously this is having a huge impact and helping to create a generational digital divide. David makes the case that Facebook use can boost self-esteem in adolescents, stimulating disclosure and self-presentation and giving them a greater sense of self-confidence when interacting in person. But some neuroscientists such as Gary Small of the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Human Mind believe that social-networks can stoke the fires of compulsive behavior leading to an addiction of sorts.

He closes the article with a very though-provoking statement:

Beyond dessert recipes, funny pet stories and tales of what the baby did for the first time this morning, a transformational current is surging. What once seemed a faddish online application is on its way to global ubiquity. Before long, social networking may be part of every communication tool we use—changing how we interact with one another and, in the process, changing us.

It is a brave new world indeed...

Value of Electronic Health Records

Vantage Point is a monthly publication of HIMSS, which surveys healthcare IT professionals on current industry trends. The data below is from the recent publication which shows mixed results from implementation.


Summary

A number of recent articles have addressed the challenges that exist with implementing electronic medical records (EMRs). This research suggests about half of survey respondents identify either the installation process or the complexities of the EMR technology as the top challenge. Presently about one-quarter of respondent noted that their EMR implementation has exceeded or vastly exceeded expectations. However, at present, not all respondents are doing an assessment of the cost savings that can be generated from an EMR; one-quarter of respondents reported that they don’t measure the cost savings associated with their EMR system. Among the respondents who measure their cost savings, only six percent reported that the cost savings have exceeded expectations. Finally, nearly 40 percent reported that the organization they work for has experienced a patient safety or healthcare quality issue that can be directly tied to their electronic system (if they work for a vendor organization, they’ve had a client report this to be the case).

Primary Challenge in EMR Environment

One-third of respondents noted that the primary challenge associated with their EMR environment is focused on the implementation process, not the technology itself. Another 19 percent suggested that their primary challenge is a result of the complexities of the EMR technology. Only one percent stated that there are no challenges with the EMR environment.

Characterize Success of EMR Implementation

Slightly more than one-quarter of respondent (29 percent) noted that their EMR implementation has exceeded or vastly exceeded expectations. A similar percent (22 percent) noted that their implementation has not met their expectations.


Cost Savings From EMR Implementation

One-quarter of respondents reported that they don’t measure the cost savings associated with their EMR system. Among the respondents who measure their cost savings, only six percent reported that the cost savings have exceeded expectations. In comparison, 18 percent of respondents noted that they have not recouped costs.



Has Your Organization Had a Patient Safety Issue With
Direct Results of Electronic System

Approximately 40 percent of respondents indicated either that they have had a patient safety or healthcare quality issue at their organization that could be classified as being a direct result of having an electronic system or that a client had reported this type of issue.

Note: Percents may not equal 100 due to rounding. Respondents had the opportunity to take the survey in January of 2010. Number of Respondents = 217

Via HIMSS.com

TED ~ David Agus: A new strategy in the war on cancer

Although a highly-accomplished conventional doctor, David Agus has embraced the future of medicine and is constantly exploring ways that new technologies can help in the fight against cancer. Traditionally, David Agus explains, cancer treatments have had a short-sighted focus on the offending individual cells. He suggests a new, cross-disciplinary approach, using atypical drugs, computer modeling and protein analysis to treat and analyze the whole body.



David Agus is a medical doctor and a Professor of Medicine at the University of Southern California. However, he is also the founder of a couple of game-changing medical initiatives. In 2006, he co-founded Navigenics with Dietrich Stephan, Ph.D., to form a company that would provide people with their individual genetic information, allowing them to act on any predispositions to disease that they might have and prevent onset. He also founded Oncology.com which was the largest cancer Internet resource and community.

Dr. Agus’ research is focused on the application of proteomics and genomics in the study of cancer, as well as developing new therapeutic treatments for cancer. He serves as Director of the USC Center for Applied Molecular Medicine and the USC Westside Prostate Cancer Center. Agus is also the recipient of several honors and awards, including the American Cancer Society Physician Research Award, a Clinical Scholar Award from the Sloan-Kettering Institute and the International Myeloma Foundation Visionary Science Award.

"I believe in educating the next generation about science and medicine. We need new human capital to fight disease."
Dr. David Agus

Via TEDMED.com