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Mother-Power Online

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By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn

4 in 5 moms go online at least once a month, according to My Mommy’s Online. The report is based on 2007 data from Simmons Consumer Research Survey published by eMarketer.

"Being a parent makes going online almost a necessity," according to eMarketer.

40% of all women who go online in the US are mothers with kids under 18. There are 35 million of them (including me).

Intriguingly, virtually all women who are pregnant (94%) use the Internet, and half of the mothers surveyed use the Internet more since having a child.

What do Moms do online?

94% visit portals
88% visit retailers
74% go for news and information
70% go for conversation.

BabyCenter found that 68% of moms regularly make purchases online. This makes sense: moms are busy people, shopping online is convenient and substitutes trips to the store.

Speaking of BabyCenter, it was arguably the most heavily shopped site in 2007 according to comScore (even though it is categorized the site as a media site).

In any case, BabyCenter reaches 78% of pregnant women and mothers of kids up to 24 months in the U.S.

The site also maintains a 60,000-mom panel for market research which is a rich mine for finding out What Moms Want. Since mothers are primary caregivers in the household, this is an important site for health.

Continue reading…

Lessons From a Sad Error

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By Paul Levy

I think many people have seen this sad story of a wrong-sided kidney removal in Minnesota. We all feel the pain for this poor patient. It is difficult for us non-physicians to understand how this happens, for the pathway to the error seems remarkably clear after the fact. But, we have to understand that the actual delivery of medical care contains multiple opportunities for mistakes, and even extremely competent and well meaning doctors and nurses can find themselves in shock afterwards when this kind of thing occurs.

Here are two emails I have received on the topic which both offer useful perspectives on the matter.

First, my buddy E-patient Dave writes:

I’ve caught a couple of errors on my radiology reports, and have had them corrected. Both VERY minor compared to this. Can there be any doubt that patients need to have access to their records, as PatientSite allows, and need to be aware of their need (and ability) to read them?

Second, from one of our senior surgeons to his colleagues:

As copied below, another high profile event, to remind us how easily error can occur. In this case the consent was wrong when done in the office, and it was the only document used to confirm sidedness at the time out. As you read the article, you will note this tragedy extends not only to the patient but to the entire team, as well as the institution.

I would remind you that we had our own "near miss" here at BIDMC, which was caught by the attending surgeon, and confirmed on reviewing the images. In our case, the patient had confirmed the wrong site to the nurses, residents and fellows involved, so patients are not infallible. To best avoid this we (multiple providers) must use multiple sources of information (including the patient, exam, imaging and documentation), and we must have all OR participants agree actively that the patient ID, procedure, side and site are correct. Also as highlighted by this case, the episode of surgical care and opportunity to err starts the first time we see the patient.

Nobody Told Me There Would Be Days Like This

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Shiri Sandler was diagnosed with RSD, (Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy or Complex Regional Pain Syndrome), after surgery on a broken bone in her foot at the age of 20. Years later she faces severe chronic pain that has spread throughout her body and requires regular treatment with powerful painkilling drugs to control.

In this segment, she discusses the challenge of coping and how she use uses ReliefInsite, an online pain diary, to help manage her condition. She also talks about the stigma those with chronic pain can face when they seek treatment.

“I went to a GP in my neighborhood. And I said I have RSD. And he said. ‘Well, what does that mean?’ Well I have a lot of burning pain in my foot. And he looked down at my foot and said. You wear the wrong shoes. You’re making this up. And He kept going. You’re too young for this. You’re a hypochondriac. These drugs are going to kill you. That was my personal favorite. And he yelled at me for an hour and a half. And I sat there crying. Because you never feel you have to yell back at a doctor. Being told that what you’re feeling is in your head is terrible … ”

A Second Life on Second Life

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In real life Alice Kreuger has severe multiple sclerosis and is unable to walk without the use of crutches. She rarely leaves her home except for trips to see her doctor. In the virtual world of Second Life she leads a radically different existence. Here, she is the avatar Gentle Heron, the co-founder of the Heron Sanctuary – a self-described “support community” for others facing similar situations. In this clip she takes us on an eye opening and moving tour of her world. The clip was among the most popular at Health 2.0.

Produced by our friends at Scribe

Loving Our Children

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By Brian Klepper

Among its many less-noticed accomplishments, this Administration has strangled funding for comprehensive sex education. Instead, it has thrown the immense weight of the US government behind abstinence-based education, an impractical ideological approach rooted in religious zealotry and a romantic notion of social mores that no longer exists for most young Americans. In 2005 and 2006, the Bush Administration spent $170 and $178 million, respectively, more than double the 2004 expenditure, much of it allocated to mostly conservative Christian organizations, to encourage children to refrain from sex without explaining the fundamentals of contraception and sexually-transmitted disease (STD). In 2004, a Minority Staff Special Investigations report prepared at the request of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) found that more than 80 percent of federally funded abstinence programs contain false
or misleading information about sex and reproductive health.

Continue reading…

An overdue change….THCB goes group

I’ve been writing THCB since 2003 and those first few years were great fun, if a little lonely. Back then I was a dotcom refugee getting to grips with the American health care experience after a year or so away. Those (few!) of you reading back then have noticed quite some changes over the years. Now we’re reaching over 40,000 visits a month and I don’t have to explain what a blog is every time I meet with a health care group.

One major change has been the growing visibility of THCB to advertisers/sponsors and also other authors. All credit for that goes to THCB’s web guru and editor, John Pluenneke who has nurtured THCB as if it was his own–which in a way it is. Thanks John.

Another change has been the growth of the Health 2.0 Conference that I co-founded with Indu Subaiya last year. And of course on a personal note, I’ve gone from being the fun loving swinging single guy to happily married man.

This has all meant that there’s been less of me and much more of many great authors on the site especially over the last year or so. I’d like to thank everyone who’s written specially for THCB or asked us to co-post their work here. It’s been an honor and a privilege.

So as I break to take an extended vacation (on honeymoon at long last!), even though I’m going away for a few weeks, THCB is most definitely not. So it seems like now is a good time to formalize what’s already been a fait accompli for the last several months.

From now on THCB is officially a group blog.

I’ll start using my byline, and we’ll be adding bios and information about our regular contributors. And we’ll continue to welcome other contributors from across health care so long as their writing is opinionated, punchy and fun.

And also we’re going to be announcing plans soon to really turbo-charge our content and push the envelope further. I won’t spoil the surprise, other than to say that we hope soon to be giving Lisa Girion, Barbara Martinez, Shannon Brownlee, Maggie Mahar and my other favorites a run for their money!

It’s been a great ride and it’s going to get even better!  Thanks for being with us and we’re looking forward to the next adventure.

The Myth of Health Care Consumerism

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By Brian Klepper

Last weekend I heard several great presentations at a meeting convened by Jeff Goldsmith, but one contained a point I hadn’t heard nailed down before. Kaveh Safavi MD JD, from Thomson Healthcare’s Center for Healthcare Improvement, detailed the results of several large sample surveys on consumers’ attitudes toward web-based health care information.

One of Dr. Safavi’s opening slides came from Solucient’s HealthView Plus 2006 data, and was focused on "Quality-Driven Consumers," people who are "likely to research ratings information on hospitals or doctors," and likely to change providers if the one they originally preferred received a low rating. Strikingly contrary to the conventional wisdom, this group makes up only 19%, or one-fifth, of American adults.

Qualitydriven_consumers

Continue reading…

HEALTH 2.0/CONSUMERS: Susannah Fox on e-Patients and Health 2.0

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Two fantastic video clips from a fantastic researcher. (Susannah runs the health research program at the Pew Internet and American Life program.

Susannah’s (brief) keynote including the seven word meme that dominated the day!

Her interview afterwards:

TECH: Scott & me on Google and Microsoft

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Scott Shreeve is blogging up a storm these days. Where he finds the time I don’t know. Today he has an excellent piece called Getting Giga Over Google (Again) which compares the Silicon Valley giant’s strategy with that of its northern competitor. Yesterday I put one up on the Health 2.0 Blog on the same topic but from a different angle. Both well worth a read. I absolutely welcome the market entrants

However, Scott says “enough” with the privacy debate. But somehow I can’t quite get there yet. Every single journalist who ever writes about this leads and ends with privacy—and appears to have no other lens through which to view this issue.

I really have something to get off my chest about that. So stay tuned.

HEALTH 2.0: Indu Subaiya’s take

Thanks to Michael for his article and thanks to everyone for participating in such a fantastic day and a half. We’re just getting the first round up of coverage (here’s the San Diego Union-Tribune’s piece which was on the Front Page! (The O’Reilly conference down the street was only in the business section!!). And here’s my Health 2.0 Co-Founder Indu Subaiya telling icyou about the conference:

The rest of the many icyou videos are here. Many thanks to Nina and the gang from icyou! (We’ll be posting the "star wars" video they made for parent company Benefitfocus soon too!)

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