Medicine 2.0

BACKGROUND: The gradual but steady shift toward telemedicine during the past decades is a clear response to important health problems that most industrialized countries have been facing. The growing elderly population and changing dietary habits have led to an increase in people with chronic diseases and overall health care expenditures. As more consumers use their mobile device as their preferred information and communication technology (ICT) device, mobile health monitoring has been receiving increasing attention in recent years...

BACKGROUND: The demand for care is increasing, whereas in the near future the number of people working in professional care will not match with the demand for care. eHealth technology can help to meet the growing demand for care. Despite the apparent positive effects of eHealth technology, there are still barriers to technology adoption related to the absence of a composite set of knowledge and skills among health care professionals regarding the use of eHealth technology. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this paper is to discuss the competencies required by health care professionals working in home care, with eHealth technologies such as remote telecare and ambient assisted living (AAL), mobile health, and fall detection systems...

BACKGROUND: Asthma is the most common chronic disease in childhood, disproportionately affecting urban, minority, and disadvantaged children. Individualized care plans supported by daily lung-function monitoring can reduce morbidity and mortality. However, despite 20 years of interventions to increase adherence, only 50% of US youth accurately follow their care plans, which leads to millions of preventable hospitalizations, emergency room visits, and sick days every year. We present a feasibility study of a novel, user-centered approach to increasing young people's lung-function monitoring and asthma self-care...

The potential advantages of using the Internet to deliver self-care and behavior-change programs are well recognized. An aging population combined with the increasing prevalence of long-term conditions and more effective medical interventions place financial strain on all health care systems. Web-based interventions have the potential to combine the tailored approach of face-to-face interventions with the scalability of public health interventions that have low marginal costs per additional user. From a patient perspective, Web-based interventions can be highly attractive because they are convenient, easily accessible, and can maintain anonymity/privacy...

BACKGROUND: Physicians have differing motives for using the Internet and Internet-related services in their professional work. These motives may affect their evaluation of patients who bring with them health-related information from the Internet. Differing motives may also affect physician-patient communication and subsequent prescribing behavior. OBJECTIVES: to segment physicians into types based on their motives for using the internet in connection with professional activities and to analyze how those segments differ in their attitudes in three areas: toward patients who bring along Internet-sourced information; in their own subsequent prescribing behavior; and in their attitudes toward using the Internet to communicate with patients in future...

BACKGROUND: Many patients share their personal experiences and opinions using online video platforms. These videos are watched by millions of health consumers and health care professionals. Although it has become a popular phenomenon, little is known about patients who share videos online and why they do so. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to explore the motivations and challenges faced by patients who share videos about their health and experiences on YouTube. As part of a conference discussion, we asked several patients actively engaged on YouTube to make a video explaining their motivations...