Author: Editor

James Marcus – social media and digital content specialist at the NHS Leadership Academy
@JamesMarcus_

Last year, I was proud (and relieved) to obtain my post graduate certificate from the Academy’s Mary Seacole programme. The programme was really hard work and it certainly wasn’t without its challenges for me.

In all honesty, I did struggle during the early stages of the programme because I was having a difficult time relating the course content to my non-clinical area of work. I felt out of my depth attending workshops with clinical staff caring for patient’s day in, day out, struggling with the pressures in their role.

Now over a year on, I could not be happier that I stuck with it, and I appreciated very quickly that it wasn’t about who faced the biggest challenges, but just to be grateful for the rare opportunity to spend time connecting and learning with colleagues…

Social Media and healthcare conversations – it’s personal.

Before Christmas I was sharing my experience of using Social Media with NHS Lay Member colleagues at a network meeting in Manchester.

(a href=”http://www.freepik.com/free-photos-vectors/infographic”>Infographic vector designed by Freepik</a>)

Now I’m no communication expert, just an enthusiastic amateur, but fortunately at the meeting I did have a fellow colleague, George Wright, Digital Communications Manager at North West Commissioning Support Unit (NWCSU) who is, and who set the scene about how the use of Social Media and specifically Twitter has developed in the NHS.

George talked about how the NHS use of Twitter includes campaigns, information and engagement but that there has been a noticeable shift for many in healthcare to move from ‘broadcast to conversation’ and from organisations to individuals. A similar theme echoed in the title of Euan Semple’s book Organisations Don’t Tweet, People do. which makes for some useful reading.

My…

When discussing telehealth, one first needs to refer to definitions. The Health Resources Services Administration defines telehealth as “The use of electronic information and telecommunications technologies to support long-distance clinical health care, patient and professional health-related education, public health and health administration.”  It is differentiated from telemedicine which is focused on remote clinical services. Telehealth today is most commonly associated with video conferencing between a provider and patient. However healthcare encompasses more than the encounter and includes support processes and tools which will hopefully contribute to better outcomes. Electronic health records and interoperability of examination tools with video technology now permit a virtual exam similar to an in-person one. There are now well-defined clinical practice guidelines for telehealth by the American Telehealth Association.  I will discuss ways in which telehealth will provide benefits to both patients and providers.

1. Telehealth will place the patient as the focal point of care. It…

This is the recent (several weeks ago-), four part interview at mHealthNews at the HIMSS Portland, Me office.

I had the privilege to spend some time sharing insights about my experience with GoogleGlass in medicine, the early accomplishments, the first surgery performed using the platform, its current state, advantages and limitations, future changes and, more importantly, why does It  matter for healthcare and medical education.

As the first step for a head mounted computer, with many of the capacities of a smartphone and more, Glass really represents a breakthrough in technology and the expansion of our vision on its use to improve what we do as medical providers and educators. Obviously, it is not a perfect device YET, but a first edition, with several upgrades already, that broke ground in order to place a computing-communication platform and a camera in front of our line of vision, allowing us to get…

It was an extraordinary year for technological improvements in medicine & healthcare. Wearable devices measuring our vital signs at home; the 3D printing revolution producing prosthetics and biomaterials; exoskeletons getting FDA approval; brain-to-brain interfaces; artificial intelligence becoming widely available and many more as described in my book, The Guide to the Future of Medicine.

There are a lot of reasons to look forward to the year 2015, therefore let’s see the top trends and technologies that will shape the year 2015 in medicine and healthcare!

Organ-on-a-chip technique that can mimic the physiology of human organs might be available in the year 2015 which mean that we might soon be able to create the first virtual model of the human body making it possible to run drug tests on billions of patient models in seconds with supercomputers. Keep an eye on: Wyss Institute of Harvard

In the coming year, digital tattoos…