The purpose of this Activity is to demonstrate your understanding of the concepts learned in this week’s readings/ educational videos.
Action Items
Describe what is virtual tele-medicine?
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J Telemed Telecare. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2014 June 02.
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Published in final edited form as:
J Telemed Telecare. 2013 June ; 19(4): 231–232. doi:10.1258/jtt.2012.120902.
The future of healthcare communication and promotion
Chin-Chi Kuo and Poojitha Balakrishnan
Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore,
Maryland, USA
Rossotti et al. have constructed a Facebook-based HIV education and counselling system
which represents a new approach to the practice of clinical medicine and public health.[1]
This scheme facilitates disease prevention and provides a platform for the evaluation of
medical quality which will greatly assist in evidence-based healthcare policy making.
Harnessing the internet and social networking offers a new approach to health promotion.
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The problems confronting health systems worldwide, which include rapid aging of the
population, overweight and obesity, chronic disorders, infectious diseases and health
inequalities, are expected to remain challenges throughout this century. Cloud computing
may enable more cost-effective applications by facilitating communication, information
sharing, and record-keeping regarding health and medicine. It allows the dissemination of
information from one point to many, as does Facebook, which is currently the largest online
social network. Specifically, combining cloud computing and social networking could allow
the creation of a “Health Social Networking System” employing a human-oriented,
interactive medical web. This would improve the establishment and maintenance of
databases and the quality of participants’ health information.
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A powerful public health system is one that promotes effective disease prevention via an
epidemiology-based policy-making framework and knowledge of the political framework. A
Health Social Networking System could fulfil these requirements by facilitating access to
and transmission of medical data and formulation of prevention strategies. First, in the
primary prevention of common diseases and conditions such as obesity and in the advocacy
of important public health measures such as smoking cessation, weight control and alcohol
abstinence, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter could be used to propagate
health information. This could take place on an unprecedented scale and would also provide
support for those facing these problems by enabling the formation of mutual friend groups.
Although the use of Facebook in this way seems unlikely because of authorization, validity,
confidentiality, cost-effectiveness and compliance problems, further investigation of this
novel approach is justified.
Second, adding an option to indicate health status on social media sites would assist in the
development of individualized therapy by analysing adherence to medications and a healthy
lifestyle. For example, a person’s vital data could be updated regularly from wireless homebased medical devices recording heart rate, blood pressure, serum glucose level, diet diaries
Correspondence: Dr. Chin-Chi Kuo, Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore,
Maryland, USA, Fax: +1 886 6236 0556; chinchik@gmail.com.
Kuo and Balakrishnan
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and even daily step counts. The monitoring of these data by specialized management
organizations that communicate any abnormalities to users and their physicians would
further enable the development of population-based secondary prevention strategies. Third,
tertiary prevention in dementia care could be revolutionized by incorporating social media
into web mapping systems such as Google maps combined with the location data from GPS
trackers carried by the patients. Enabling continuous data collection by social media could
also facilitate epidemiological research, allowing the identification of the risk factors in
common disorders and the development of the clinical profiles of rare diseases.
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The development of a Health Social Networking System recognizes that accurate diagnosis
and effective management is the cornerstone of contemporary medicine. By facilitating the
transmission of electronic information regarding patient’s medical, family and occupational
history and its integration with electronic datasets such as geographical and atmospheric
information systems, the use of a Health Social Networking System at the individual patient
level would provide a better estimation of environmental exposure to risk factors. Moreover
access to precise, relevant clinical information would foster diagnosis. Following diagnosis,
access to evidence-based medical databases and real-time expert counselling would facilitate
the formulation of an individualized therapeutic strategy. By such means, access to a Health
Social Networking System would provide communication among healthcare providers and
between patients and their healthcare providers in new ways.
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The benefits of adopting a Health Social Networking System also come with privacy and
security concerns. However, the intensity of public concern may be no different to that
expressed about information exchange via electronic medical records (EMR). From the
technical viewpoint, it is essential that social networking services must provide secure
storage of health relevant data and must assure adequate control of access. On the other
hand, participants in a Health Social Networking System have the responsibility to learn
how to use social networking services safely and decide on appropriate privacy levels. For
instance, participants could simply disclose their GPS locations to close family members or
care providers that they trust. From the perspective of management and policy making,
establishing effective legislation is the cornerstone of privacy protection and regulation.[2]
Obviously, integrating social media with current health information networks would
challenge existing privacy rules. It is therefore urgent that governments and policy makers
should review potential deficits in the privacy laws and prepare for information exchange
through social networking services.[3]
It is now the right time for the development of information communication strategies that
bridge the divide between medicine and public health in a manner that facilitates large-scale
healthcare intervention and management. Healthcare providers and stakeholders must seize
the opportunity to utilize social networking and other web services to construct reliable
databases that will assist policy decision-making and health promotion. Also, governments
and policy-makers should reconsider the legal consequences surrounding the rapid
development of health information technology. By doing so, the promise of providing
patient-centered, individualized healthcare can be fulfilled.
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Kuo and Balakrishnan
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References
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1. Rossotti R, Gabrielli E, Gervasoni C, et al. HIV education and counselling using Facebook: a
possible new approach. J Telemed Telecare. 2012; 18:239–40. [PubMed: 22604274]
2. Hodge JG, Gostin LO, Jacobson PD. Legal issues concerning electronic health information: privacy,
quality, and liability. JAMA. 1999; 282:1466–71. [PubMed: 10535438]
3. Greenberg MD, Ridgely MS, Hillestad RJ. Crossed wires: how yesterday’s privacy rules might
undercut tomorrow’s nationwide health information network. Health Aff (Millwood). 2009;
28:450–2. [PubMed: 19276003]
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