09JulyMEMBER

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TEKTIC Member's Corner

WELCOME NEW MEMBERS:

Elizabeth Stacy, Research Coordinator, Language & Community Engagement Portfolio, eHealth Strategy Office, UBC

HEADLINES in eHEALTH:

June marked the month where the Pew Internet/ California HealthCare foundation released thier report "The Social Life of Health Information." This survey with a sample size of 2,253 participants explores how American use online networks and resources for health purposes. Although it is a study conducted in the US, the results may provide some insight on how Canadians use the internet for health purposes. Here are some notable trends that came out from this study:

-61% of American Adults look online for health information. This number more than doubled since the turn of the new millennium.

-Traditional sources of health information such as doctors, health professionals, friends, and family members are still more popular than the internet. The internet, however, has surpassed books as a source of information.

-Over half of online health inquiries are on behalf of someone else. While two-thirds of e-patients discuss with others about what they find online. This shows that health consumers are often looking for tailored "just-in-time someone-like-me" information with 41% of e-patients reading about someone else’s experience or commentary in a blog, newsgroup, or website. Only a few of these e-patients (60% of the group) actively participate by writing or creating new content.

-Similarily, despite increasing popularity of social network sites and applications such a MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter only a few people are using it to gather and share health information.

Source:

Pew Internet/California Healthcare Foundation: http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/8-The-Social-Life-of-Health-Information.aspx

VIDEO CLIP OF THE MONTH: Virtual Medical Centre at University of Aukland