diabetes
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The Social Media Method for Diabetes Care
Social media in the diabetes sphere is exploding, and patients are actually using online venues as one of their first lines of defense after diagnosis - and even years after their initial diagnosis. Logging online hours is becoming as important as getting in to see your endocrinologist these days.
When I was diagnosed with diabetes, I spent two weeks in the hospital learning how to give injections to defenseless oranges. After those two weeks were up, my parents and I were given prescriptions for insulin, test strips, a glucose meter, and a book about meal planning. And we were then thrust into the world of managing type 1 diabetes all on our own.
Internet of Tattoos
I know what you're thinking. "Man, my tattoo is cooler than an above-ground swimming pool full of Gypsy Jokers." Then, "Yeesh...I feel faint and weirdly thirsty." Too bad you couldn't combine your tattoo and your jabby-pokey machine. (Oh, did I mention you're diabetic? Because you are.)
Well, good news everyone! Soon you may be able to combine that dinner plate-sized tattoo of Bert Convy you're so proud of and your glucose monitor.
LifeCase & LifeApp Solution Wins $10,000 Diabetes Challenge
A prototype for an iPhone app that provides an integrated hardware-software solution for diabetes patients, has won a $10,000 prize in a competition run by DiabetesMine. The competition aimed to find an iPod-like device or web app for diabetes management. The winning concept was designed to solve a problem that all diabetes patients (including this author) are familiar with: carrying around a number of disparate diabetes devices. It's often awkward and inconvenient, for example when you go out for dinner. So the application developers asked: why can't they all be housed in your mobile phone?
Diabetes Device Connects Wirelessly to iPhone
One of the most pleasing Web trends we're seeing in 2009 is the increasing penetration of web apps into the real world. Web applications for healthcare is one example. We wrote about a new Web-based Radiology Theatre built by IBM yesterday and today we discuss an iPhone app that helps people with diabetes. At yesterday's iPhone OS 3.0 announcement, diabetes software company LifeScan (owned by Johnson & Johnson) unveiled an iPhone app that wirelessly connects to a Bluetooth-enabled glucose meter.
Health 2.0 Through the Eyes of a Diabetic - One Year Later
One year ago, I discovered that I had contracted Type 1 Diabetes. I was 36 at that point and it's relatively rare for someone of my age to suddenly get Type 1 Diabetes - indeed they used to call this form of diabetes "juvenile diabetes", because it mostly occurs in children. So it was quite a shock to discover that I had it! Immediately I looked to the Web to find out all I could about this condition. I discovered a thriving community of 'health 2.0' apps and social networks, which I then wrote about in this blog.
As it's now a year later, I thought it'd be good to review health 2.0 - as I did with Semantic Apps last week. What has changed in web-based health services over the past year? And indeed what web tools do I use to help me manage diabetes?
How The Web is Enabling Consumer-Driven Healthcare
One of the most interesting aspects of Web 2.0 these days is how it's beginning to create change in 'the real world'. While geek-friendly apps like FriendFeed, Twitter and Google Reader get a lot of attention in our little world, there is a whole other world out there in which the Web is making a difference. One very important example is healthcare. Check out the video below. It's about diabetes in the Internet age, but its message is relevant to the entire healthcare industry.
A Health 2.0 Overview, Through the Eyes of a New Diabetic
Last Monday I found out from my doctor that I have Diabetes (probably Type 1; I need more tests to confirm), which basically means high blood sugar. It was quite a surprise, as I have no family history of diabetes and it is relatively uncommon to get Type 1 diabetes in your 30's. However, I soon discovered that diabetes affects more than 240 million people worldwide. So it is something a lot of people have. Indeed, chances are you know of someone with it or you may even have it yourself. Because it is so widespread, there is a lot of web data, social networking options and even web apps that cater to people with diabetes.
In this post, I'm somewhat selfishly going to review the diabetes sites and apps I found across the Web. But this post also serves, I hope, as an introduction to the more general topic of 'Health 2.0' - a.k.a. healthcare that uses the Internet. Over the weekend, Frank Gruber posted an excellent round-up of health 2.0 resources on the Web. Frank pointed out that the big sites, like Web MD and HealthLine, are the resources most used. But there are a lot of newer sites and apps that offer a more modern, Web 2.0 approach. He also noted that both Microsoft and Google are making moves in health 2.0. For example see our story earlier this year on Microsoft acquiring MedStory.
Defining Health 2.0
As with Web 2.0, there is a lot of debate about the meaning of the term 'health 2.0'. According to the Health 2.0 conference blog, their definition "is currently focusing on user-generated aspects of Web2.0 within health care but not directly interacting with the mainstream health care system." This means things like search, communities, and tools. As yet Health 2.0 user-generated content has not been connnected to the wider health care system - which, according to the Health 2.0 conference organizers, hasn't even adopted Web 1.0 yet!
Search
The first thing you might do if you discover you have diabetes, is do some Web searches on it. In my case my doctor and specialist had already explained the basics of the condition to me: it is fairly easily managed, via testing your blood a few times a day and injecting insulin maybe a couple of times a day (it varies by person). Also you must drastically cut your sugar intake in food and drink, and exercise moderately. There is no cure at this point for diabetes, so this routine must be followed indefinitely. So I was told all that, but still I was curious to find out everything I could... so, to the Web search engines I went!
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