Last Saturday I posted a round-up of what caught my eye during the week and my friend Andre Blackman (@mindofandre) created this awesome graphic:
Thus encouraged, here’s another round of what I favorited on Twitter this week:
Nancy Stein (@SeniorityMatter) shared an opinion piece by Rob Lowe about long-term care planning. He’s promoting his partnership with a financial services company, but it’s a good article. I wonder what effect a celebrity can have on this topic. For some, the financial frame might be a good hook. For others, an appeal to intergenerational responsibility might focus the mind: “Take care of Mom the way she took care of you.” We sure need something to break through the denial wall.
Janice Lynn Schuster (@jlschuster827) shared a link to Top 10 most popular Health Affairs articles, which includes her excellent piece on living with chronic pain. Blink and you’ll miss it, though: the articles are open-access only until the end of January. Half credit, Health Affairs. Why not celebrate your and your writers’ impact by leaving them open?
Which leads me to the article shared by Joyce Lee (@joyclee): Steal This Research Paper! (You Already Paid for It.)
Moving on: Ernesto Ramirez (@eramirez) created a handy list of every piece of research related to “wearables” — the self-tracking devices people use to track physical activity. As usual, he was too kind to me, but I’ll still link to it. We need more guides like Ernesto — people so obsessed with the truth that you know you can trust them to have surveyed and mapped their segment of the health-tech industry.
Journalists can play this role. Julia Belluz (@juliaoftoronto) calls herself an “evidence enthusiast” (swoon!) and you can catch up on her Vox articles here. My pick for the week is this chart:
If only other journalists would follow her lead. Until then, arm yourself with skepticism.
I spent much of my week being inspired, once again, by people living with rare disease. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation hosted 40 patients, parents, researchers, clinicians, and designers working toward a new vision for CF care. Catch up on the pre-party conversation and my attempt to capture what happened at the meeting.
For more rare-disease goodness, see Karolyn Gehrig’s #HospitalGlam photos, as featured on Buzzfeed and shared with me by Sarah Kucharski (aka @AfternoonNapper). And this ray of hope via @SavingCase: Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug could get OK for U.S. sales in 2016. I’ll end with this quote from Pat Furlong, who I had the honor of sharing a mic with in 2011.
“What would I pay to have my son here for 15 more minutes? Probably my soul.”
Wow Susannah, two weeks in a row you have hit it out-of-the-park! I gleaned so much from your “weekend update” and have shared these resources with my research colleagues all over the nation. I really appreciate these little gems.
Thank you!! I’d be psyched to host conversations about any of the links if they spark ideas.
Okay since you offered, I was recently asked the best method for wading through and evaluating the thousands of mHealth apps. I kind of think we need some kind of clearing house. Are you or your readers aware of anything like this or of any tools to help us sort out the best apps for people with chronic illness?
In 2012, the Baltimore Sun wrote up a new initiative led by Alain Labrique at Johns Hopkins Global mHealth Initiative:
Hopkins researchers aim to uncover which mobile health applications work
But I don’t know how far they’ve gotten. Here’s a link to their publications page in case someone has the time & inclination to review it.
Anyone else know of any initiatives? Segment evaluations might be a good start, such as what we see happening in the fitness or diet or specific chronic condition communities.
Thanks for the great resources. This one popped up on my radar today: http://www.mhealthnews.com/news/top-mhealth-apps-rated-doctors?single-page=true
Alain Labrique of Johns Hopkins replied to my Bat signal on Twitter overnight:
“Sorry, was in a rural village in #Bangladesh working on deploying new mHealth projects for frontline maternal health workers!”
I’d say that’s a good reason to be offline and unable to respond to inquiries.
He then wrote: ” @JHU now has >135 #mHealth projects around the world: http://jhumhealth.org — its amazing to see!”
And he shared this video:
What is mpossible?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpkAvhd0mUg&feature=youtu.be
Addendum:
Twitter is my first love. I slight all other social platforms in favor of it. But I should give Facebook a chance every once in a while because it’s where Sara Riggare shared this amazing article with me this week:
Man Saves Wife’s Sight by 3D Printing Her Tumor
When his wife was misdiagnosed, Michael Balzer used 3D printing and imaging to get her well
Wowza. Thanks, Sara!!
Any chance Susannah Fox’s Weekend Update could become a radio show and podcast? Consider me pre-subscribed to that!
Can we make it a call-in show? That’s my dream. I linked to one of my favorite media appearances of all time, above, when Talk of the Nation hosted a show about peer-to-peer healthcare and we took calls from all around the country. It was incredible. Of course the callers told the story better than anything Pat or I could have said. That’s the magic, when the audience becomes the star of the show.
So glad to see this! Exactly what I need to kick off my Sunday afternoon. Thanks Susannah and glad the graphic was helpful 😀