Visiting some health care blogs you might not know
FierceHealthcare, a site that says it’s geared toward health executives, spotlighted nine health care bloggers and, once they realized all nine were male, five female health bloggers. We thought we’d point out some blogs that our readers might not have on their radar.
Tip: To navigate those slide shows, just click on the tiny mug shot hiding in the bottom right corner well beyond the point where you assume the post has already ended.
Worth a visit
Health Populi: Jane Sarasohn-Kahn’s strategy seems to be to take something interesting and current, illustrate it with a chart or graphic and then riff on that idea, bringing in other sources as needed. The upshot is that her site’s updated almost daily with something you usually haven’t already heard somewhere else.
Dr. Greiver’s EMR: While the list included a number of wonky HIT blogs, I found that I learned the most from Canadian physician Michelle Greiver’s running updates on her transition to electronic medical records. I recommend taking a few minutes to start from the beginning and scan Greiver’s journey. You’re sure to come across a heap of fascinating anecdotes, from how EMRs make flu shot clinics more efficient to how much she dislikes insurance companies.
HealthBlawg: Health attorney and consultant David Harlow’s Blawg (shorthand for Law-Blog) often touches on topics of interest to health journalists, including electronic medical records, privacy and, of course, HIPAA.
Politifact, AP fact check health care claims
Angie Drobnic Holan, writing on the St. Petersburg Times‘ Politifact site, has composed a point-by-point debunking of a lengthy anti-reform chain e-mail that’s been circulating in recent days. Among the e-mail’s claims about the bill: self-insuring employers will all be audited, health care will be rationed, the “Health Choices Commissioner” will make all decisions for you, leaving you with no input, illegal immigrants will get free health care, union retirees and community organizers will get subsidized health care and eligible folks will be automatically enrolled in Medicaid whether they like it or not.
Politifact also rates a few of the e-mail’s claims as “barely true” or “half true,” including the conversion of the general recommendations of the government’s health advisory committee to “a government committee will decide what treatments and benefits you get” and the repackaging of electronic medical records-related goals as “Every person will be issued a National ID Healthcard.” Many of the assertions made in the e-mail were based on blogger and tweeter Peter Fleckenstien, who posted his rebuttal here.
In another Truth-o-meter post, Politifact reports that U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan (Mo.-D) misquoted the Congressional Budget Office about cost of health care reform plan during a recent town hall meeting.
Charles Babington of The Associated Press also is debunking confusing claims and distortions about the health care reform bill. Among the claims he focuses on:
- House Republican Leader John Boehner’s claim that it will lead to government-encouraged euthanasia
- Reform will lead to government-funded abortions.
- Americans won’t have to change doctors or insurance companies.
- Reform will lead to rationing, or the government determining which medical procedures a patient can have.
- Overhauling health care will not expand the federal deficit over the long term.
Trib’s Triage blog ends, Graham goes investigative
Filed under: Health journalism, Hot Health Headline
The Chicago Tribune’s Triage blog has closed its doors and Judy Graham – the face of the blog for the past year – has moved on to the paper’s investigative and watchdog team.
Graham will still find time twice a month to write the sort of stories Triage writers have come to know; fans will be able to find them in the pages of the Chicago Tribune’s Sunday section and in other Tribune papers.
Hospitals harness social media
Jackie Fox writes in the Omaha World-Herald about local institutions’ use of social media to reach out to consumers and to provide information in the formats and locations in which consumers are likely to look.
One institution views social media as a customer service, providing patients with blogs they can use to share health updates with family and friends. Some find and reply to relevant blog posts or tweets.
Others, such as the Nebraska Medical Center, post videos on YouTube of treatments or procedures.
“It’s a good educational tool for procedures people may not be familiar with. People may decide this is someone they’d like an appointment with, or doctors in other parts of the state learn they can send patients to a specialist closer to home,” [media relations lead Paul ]Baltes said.
Medicine 3.0 lists 25 top health policy blogs
Filed under: Health journalism, Hot Health Headline
The list specialists over at Medicine 3.0, a blog hosted by Nursingassistantguides.com, have provided a quick rundown of 25 top health policy blogs, written by a healthy mix of “doctors, attorneys, journalists and politicians” and covering everything from the ethics to economics of health care policy.
The list does a decent job of providing a cheat sheet for those hoping to catch all sides of the reform debate, and notes familiar names like Health Affairs Blog, Medical Ethics Blog and The Health Care Blog while also spotlighting a few lesser-known outlets.
Researchers study health bloggers, form community
Last fall, a trio of researchers from the Rijeka School of Medicine in Croatia published a paper examining that peculiar class of people who may be loosely described as health bloggers. Their survey queried 197 English-language medical blogs and they included questions designed to evaluate bloggers’ Internet and blogging habits, blog characteristics, blogging motivations, and, finally, their demographics.
“Medical blogs are frequently picked up by mainstream media; thus, blogs are an important vehicle to influence medical and health policy.”
The results were published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research and found that “medical bloggers are highly educated and devoted blog writers, faithful to their sources and readers. Sharing practical knowledge and skills, as well as influencing the way other people think, were major motivations for blogging among our medical bloggers. Medical blogs are frequently picked up by mainstream media; thus, blogs are an important vehicle to influence medical and health policy.”
Two of the researchers also formed the Health Blogs Observatory, which they call an online community, and published a directory. Ed Silverman reached out to Ivor Kovic, an emergency physician, about the survey and their hopes for their observatory. Find out more about the project.
Prevention vs. treatment in global health
AHCJ members Christine Gorman and Maryn McKenna participated in a blog experiment, in which a group of people decide to blog about the same topic at the same time - similar to a blog carnival. The experiment, focused on global health and “prevention vs. treatment,” generated posts from a variety of viewpoints:
- Prevention vs. Treatment: A False Choice
- The gradual abandonment of anti-tobacco/anti-smoking programs in the U.S.
- Why we tend to value current health more than future health“
- The need for a vaccine against methicillin resistant staph aureus
- Why prevention vs. treatment is the wrong way to think about drug resistance to malaria
- Proving prevention works is a lot harder than you might think
- HIV Information for Myanmar offers a few words on the greater good from the late Bogyoke (General) Aung San, who led the fight for Burmese independence after World War II.
- Whether concerns over health reform in the U.S. will crowd out discussion of global health
- On why good decisions in public health “are about balance, and looking for long-term systemic solutions instead of the quick fix“
- And, from a public relations perspective: differences between ’selling-in’ stories that have a prevention angle over those that emphasise treatment“
AHCJers write ‘blogs that will open your eyes’
USPharmD+ announced a list of “100 Global Health Blogs That Will Open Your Eyes” and it includes blogs written by several AHCJ members:
- Global Health Report: Journalist Christine Gorman covers what’s up and coming in health care, what needs to change and what actually works in keeping people well. Another blog from Gorman is on the list: The Health Media Watch.
- Pharmalot: Ed Silverman (who also contributes to Covering Health) writes about drug development, marketing and the companies involved from this blog.
- Superbug: Maryn McKenna’s blog about methicillin-resistant Staph aureus (MRSA)
- Health Affairs: Written by a number of journalists, including Susan Dentzer, this blog focuses mostly on U.S. health care policy.
- WSJ Health Blog: Scott Hensley contributes to and edits this Wall Street Journal blog.
Did I miss any AHCJ members who were on USPharmD+’s list? Let us know in the comments or send an e-mail to pia@healthjournalism.org.
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