Posted in Digital HealthCare – biotech & internet joint ventures on February 23, 2015| Leave a Comment »
How Wearable Startups Can Win Big In The Medical Industry
Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN
As attention shines down on fitness trackers and smart watches, one of the biggest opportunities for wearable devices remains shadowed in the corner –..
Source: techcrunch.com
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Posted in Academic Publishing, Clinical Diagnostics, Computational Biology/Systems and Bioinformatics, Conference Coverage with Social Media, Curation, Curation methodology, Digital HealthCare – biotech & internet joint ventures, Drug Toxicity, Evolutionary cognition, FDA, FDA Regulatory Affairs, Global Partnering & Biotech Investment, Health Economics and Outcomes Research, HealthCare IT, Interviews with Scientific Leaders, Investment in Technological Breakthrough, Personal Health Applications: Tech Innovations serves HealhCare, Pharmaceutical Analytics, Pharmaceutical Discovery, Pharmacologic toxicities, Regulated Clinical Trials: Design, Methods, Components and IRB related issues, Scientific & Biotech Conferences: Press Coverage, tagged #mobilehealth, #science2_0, @science 2_0, Adverse event, Aviva Lev-Ari, Cancer - General, cancer patient management, Clinical trial, Conditions and Diseases, Conference Coverage with Social Media, Content Curation, Curation methodology, Food and Drug Administration, health, https://twitter.com/#!/pharma_BI, medical devices and digital health, medicine, mobile applications, patient outcomes, patient-interaction, Pharmacovigilance, research, science, Social media, Social network, Twitter on November 6, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Curator: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.
Article ID #159: Twitter is Becoming a Powerful Tool in Science and Medicine. Published on 11/6/2014
WordCloud Image Produced by Adam Tubman
Updated 4/2016
A recent Science article (Who are the science stars of Twitter?; Sept. 19, 2014) reported the top 50 scientists followed on Twitter. However, the article tended to focus on the use of Twitter as a means to develop popularity, a sort of “Science Kardashian” as they coined it. So the writers at Science developed a “Kardashian Index (K-Index) to determine scientists following and popularity on Twitter.
Now as much buzz Kim Kardashian or a Perez Hilton get on social media, their purpose is solely for entertainment and publicity purposes, the Science sort of fell flat in that it focused mainly on the use of Twitter as a metric for either promotional or public outreach purposes. A notable scientist was mentioned in the article, using Twitter feed to gauge the receptiveness of his presentation. In addition, relying on Twitter for effective public discourse of science is problematic as:
However, as highlighted below, Twitter, and other social media platforms are being used in creative ways to enhance the research, medical, and bio investment collaborative, beyond a simple news-feed. And the power of Twitter can be attributed to two simple features
Please read the following articles on CURATION
Multiple analytic software packages have been made available to analyze information surrounding Twitter feeds, including Twitter feeds from #chat channels one can set up to cover a meeting, product launch etc.. Some of these tools include:
In a paper entitled Twitter Use at a Family Medicine Conference: Analyzing #STFM13 authors Ranit Mishori, MD, Frendan Levy, MD, and Benjamin Donvan analyzed the public tweets from the 2013 Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) conference bearing the meeting-specific hashtag #STFM13. Thirteen percent of conference attendees (181 users) used the #STFM13 to share their thoughts on the meeting (1,818 total tweets) showing a desire for social media interaction at conferences but suggesting growth potential in this area. As we have also seen, the heaviest volume of conference-tweets originated from a small number of Twitter users however most tweets were related to session content.
However, as the authors note, although it is easy to measure common metrics such as number of tweets and retweets, determining quality of engagement from tweets would be important for gauging the value of Twitter-based social-media coverage of medical conferences.
Thea authors compared their results with similar analytics generated by the HealthCare Hashtag Project, a project and database of medically-related hashtag use, coordinated and maintained by the company Symplur. Symplur’s database includes medical and scientific conference Twitter coverage but also Twitter usuage related to patient care. In this case the database was used to compare meeting tweets and hashtag use with the 2012 STFM conference.
These are some of the published journal articles that have employed Symplur (www.symplur.com) data in their research of Twitter usage in medical conferences.
Although the desire of patients to use and interact with their physicians over social media is increasing, along with increasing health-related social media platforms and applications, there are certain obstacles to patient-health provider social media interaction, including lack of regulatory framework as well as database and security issues. Some of the successes and issues of social media and healthcare are discussed in the post Can Mobile Health Apps Improve Oral-Chemotherapy Adherence? The Benefit of Gamification.
However there is also a concern if social media truly engages the patient and improves patient education. In a study of Twitter communications by breast cancer patients Tweeting about breast cancer, authors noticed Tweeting was a singular event. The majority of tweets did not promote any specific preventive behavior. The authors concluded “Twitter is being used mostly as a one-way communication tool.” (Using Twitter for breast cancer prevention: an analysis of breast cancer awareness month. Thackeray R1, Burton SH, Giraud-Carrier C, Rollins S, Draper CR. BMC Cancer. 2013;13:508).
In addition a new poll by Harris Interactive and HealthDay shows one third of patients want some mobile interaction with their physicians.
Some papers cited in Symplur’s HealthCare Hashtag Project database on patient use of Twitter include:
Pharmacovigilance is the systematic detection, reporting, collecting, and monitoring of adverse events pre- and post-market of a therapeutic intervention (drug, device, modality e.g.). In a Cutting Edge Information Study, 56% of pharma companies databases are an adverse event channel and more companies are turning to social media to track adverse events (in Pharmacovigilance Teams Turn to Technology for Adverse Event Reporting Needs). In addition there have been many reports (see Digital Drug Safety Surveillance: Monitoring Pharmaceutical Products in Twitter) that show patients are frequently tweeting about their adverse events.
There have been concerns with using Twitter and social media to monitor for adverse events. For example FDA funded a study where a team of researchers from Harvard Medical School and other academic centers examined more than 60,000 tweets, of which 4,401 were manually categorized as resembling adverse events and compared with the FDA pharmacovigilance databases. Problems associated with such social media strategy were inability to obtain extra, needed information from patients and difficulty in separating the relevant Tweets from irrelevant chatter. The UK has launched a similar program called WEB-RADR to determine if monitoring #drug_reaction could be useful for monitoring adverse events. Many researchers have found the adverse-event related tweets “noisy” due to varied language but had noticed many people do understand some principles of causation including when adverse event subsides after discontinuing the drug.
However Dr. Clark Freifeld, Ph.D., from Boston University and founder of the startup Epidemico, feels his company has the algorithms that can separate out the true adverse events from the junk. According to their web site, their algorithm has high accuracy when compared to the FDA database. Dr. Freifeld admits that Twitter use for pharmacovigilance purposes is probably a starting point for further follow-up, as each patient needs to fill out the four-page forms required for data entry into the FDA database.
http://blogs.ischool.berkeley.edu/i29…
Course: Information 290. Analyzing Big Data with Twitter
School of Information
UC Berkeley
Lecture 1: August 23, 2012
Course description:
How to store, process, analyze and make sense of Big Data is of increasing interest and importance to technology companies, a wide range of industries, and academic institutions. In this course, UC Berkeley professors and Twitter engineers will lecture on the most cutting-edge algorithms and software tools for data analytics as applied to Twitter microblog data. Topics will include applied natural language processing algorithms such as sentiment analysis, large scale anomaly detection, real-time search, information diffusion and outbreak detection, trend detection in social streams, recommendation algorithms, and advanced frameworks for distributed computing. Social science perspectives on analyzing social media will also be covered.
This is a hands-on project course in which students are expected to form teams to complete intensive programming and analytics projects using the real-world example of Twitter data and code bases. Engineers from Twitter will help advise student projects, and students will have the option of presenting their final project presentations to an audience of engineers at the headquarters of Twitter in San Francisco (in addition to on campus). Project topics include building on existing infrastructure tools, building Twitter apps, and analyzing Twitter data. Access to data will be provided.
Other posts on this site on USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND TWITTER IN HEALTHCARE and Conference Coverage include:
Posted in Digital HealthCare – biotech & internet joint ventures on September 11, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN
9/11/2014 6:36:45 AM
September 11, 2014
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Google Inc. (GOOGL) announced Wednesday that it has acquired San Francisco-based Lift Labs for an undisclosed amount as it doubles down on biotech.
Lift Labs is a medical technology and device company that manufactures a vibrating spoon and fork that makes it easier for individuals with tremors, like those seen in Parkinson’s disease, easier to eat.
The Lift Labs products, Liftware, retails for $295. It was developed with assistance from an NIH grant.
This follows recent news that a Google startup, Calico, had signed a collaboration agreement with pharmaceutical company AbbVie (ABBV). Calico is a biopharmaceutical company that focuses on drug development to deal with age-related illnesses, including neurodegeneration and cancer. The Lift Labs acquisition is an expansion into medical hardware, as opposed to drug R&D, but does emphasize Google’s continued expansion into the healthcare arena.
Lift Labs will join Google X’s Life Sciences team. Other health technology-related investments included sensor-enhanced contact lenses to help diabetic patients monitor their glucose levels.
“We’re also going to explore how their technology could be used in other ways to improve the understanding and management of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor,” said Google in a statement.
The Liftware device utilizes a small onboard computer that detects and counteracts hand tremors. A spoon or other utensil attaches to one end. The company plans to develop other attachments, such as a key holder.
Lift Lab’s founder Anupam Pathak noted that they can envision a wide assortment of hand-held devices, including makeup applicators and handheld tools. “Once you start to lose the ability to function independently, there’s a huge emotional toll,” he said.
University of Michigan neurology professor Kelvin Chou, who has worked with Lift Labs on their technology, noted in a New York Times blog that the uses for assistance technology are varied and helpful.
“A lot of social interaction revolves around eating,” said Chou. “It’s embarrassing for them, and they feel like people are watching them all the time. I’ve had patients say ‘Someone came up to me and said I should stop drinking.’ Things like that.”
In the United States, there are between 50,000 and 60,000 new cases of Parkinson’s disease (PD) diagnosed each year. It is the 14th leading cause of death in the U.S., and afflicts approximately four to six million people worldwide. PD is a neurodegenerative brain disorders that progresses slowly and affects the brain cells that produce dopamine.
Essential Tremor (ET) is a separate disorder and typically presents as a bilateral tremor of hand and forearm. It can occur at any age, though it usually shows up in the mid-teens or between the ages of 50 and 65. Approximately half of ET patients have a family history of the condition. Treatments for Parkinson’s tremors are not effective for ET.
SOURCE
Posted in Digital HealthCare – biotech & internet joint ventures on December 22, 2013| Leave a Comment »
SensiCardiac for iPhone Supercharges Electronic Stethoscopes (w/video)
Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN
See on Scoop.it – Cardiovascular and vascular imaging
SensiCardiac out of Stellenbosch, South Africa has released a free iPhone app that turns your now old and boring electronic stethoscope into a powerful au
See on www.medgadget.com
Posted in Digital HealthCare – biotech & internet joint ventures on November 30, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Reported: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN
See on Scoop.it – Cardiovascular Disease: PHARMACO-THERAPY
There’s no shortage of smartphone appsto help people track their health. And in recent months, medical apps have started growing up, leaving behind the novelty of attaching probes to a smartphone to offer, they hope, serious clinical tools.
Last month in a Ted Talk, Shiv Gaglani showed that a standard physical exam can now be done using only smartphone apps and attachments. From blood pressure cuff to stethoscope and otoscope — the thing the doctor uses to look in your ears — all of the doctor’s basic instruments are now available in “smart” format.
See on singularityhub.com
Posted in Digital HealthCare – biotech & internet joint ventures on May 16, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN
See on Scoop.it – Cardiovascular Disease: PHARMACO-THERAPY
This year IBM dedicated its Five in Five series (an annual list of five technologies that are likely to advance dramatically) solely to sensors.
Digital sensors of the touch, sight,hearing, taste and smell kind along with their potential are all profiled by IBM Sensor technology is going through a renaissance as companies develop smart and innovative new ways to track data using them.
Sensor innovation is in-part driving the Digital Health Revolution as digital health companies find ingenius ways to integrate them in to apps, devices and other peripherals. The smartphone will play an increasing important role in all of this as they go from having six built-in sensors currently to having sixteen in the next five years.
If these predictions are correct then the next five years will be half-a-decade of sensor proliferation meaning the Digital Health Ecosystem will grow exponentially. In the meantime though there are already a plethora of digital health sensors in use or in the pipeline that are helping people improve and, in some instances, save lives.
See on bionic.ly
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