FEATURED SEARCH: asthma
Because patient use of asthma action plans (AAPs) remains low despite substantial expert involvement in creating and testing them, a team of primary care doctors and a Web developer in Toronto chose AAPs as the test case for a new concept in doctor-patient interaction to improve delivery of care: Creating a special, semi-private Wiki (a website on which many users can contribute). One advantage of the Wiki, they say, was the ability to upload and incorporate visual as well as verbal content. Results exceeded their expectations: Most users came on the Wiki daily for an average of 23 minutes, and more than a third said they made contributions they would never have revealed face-to-face. The team points out that the concept has wide applicability in medicine.
RESULT: WikiBuild: A New Online Collaboration Process For Multistakeholder Tool Development and Consensus Building
Journal of Medical Internet Research | Dec 8, 2011 (FREE FULL TEXT)
Asthma is the "perfect case" for delivery of personalised medicine via the Internet, says an asthma specialist at Sweden's Karolinska Institute. However, he predicts the vision will not be perfected until more sensitive and specific measures of lung function are available and validated.
RESULT: Will recording of lung function fluctuation open the door to internet-guided treatment of asthma?
Thorax | Dec 1, 2011 (Free abstract. Full text $30)
