Skip to content

#HealthXPh tweet chat launched!

It was to be my first time to attend a Google Hangout On Air. I had the link to the live stream but had technical difficulties joining Dr. Remo Aguilar who was all by his lonesome on air. Dr. Gia Sison, Dr. Narciso Tapia and myself were standing by on Twitter. Precious minutes passed. Undeterred, Gia messaged me that we will start the tweet chat while waiting for Remo to fix our Google hangout. Similar to the format of #HCLDR tweet chats, Remo had published the questions to be discussed in a blog post. Under Gia’s lead, the tweet chat proceeded. The tweet chat transcript from Symplur can be found here.

healthXph-900x575

Let me document my responses here.

T1. What is #HealhXPh?

I referenced the Doctors 2.0 manifesto which had 85 statements. I found two statements particularly compelling for #HealthXPh. Statement #1 which says “Health is co-creation.” As I told the my collaborators Gia, Remo and Buboy on Google hangout, I would never have gone live on webcam without them. Such a diverse group of people brought together by #HealthXPh. The second is Statement #7 which says “Let’s go from the former Isolation of  Illness to the We of the Wellness thanks to hyper connectivity.” This is my vision for #HealthXPh, that it will be a platform for discussion among healthcare players springing forth from the Philippines then globally.

T2. What emerging technologies do you find important and relevant in healthcare?

I answered use of mobile technology to engage patients since after all, the Philippine is still the texting capital of the world. I provided the link to an article by JM Tuazon – 20 years on, SMS remains king in the “Texting Capital of the World.” I referenced work I did with Dr. Celito Tamban, now published in the Journal of ASEAN Federation of Endocrine Societies (JAFES) – Use of Short Message Service for the Management of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Randomized Controlled Trial. The trial had the following objectives:

  1. To determine if 3 times a week SMS will improve adherence to diet and exercise.
  2. To determine the mean change in body weight, body mass index and glycosylated hemoglobin A1c.
Conclusion: The use of SMS as an adjunct to the standard of DM care improved adherence to diet after 6 months in terms of mean number of meals, improved adherence to exercise after 6 months in terms of mean number of minutes/exercise and significant reduction in HbA1c levels after 3 and 6 months.
Marie Ennis-O’Connor (@JBBC) kindly provided this link – An Open Letter to Mobile Health App Developers and their Funders. Here, Jessie Gruman talks about what patients are really looking for in an app and how there seems to be a gap with what clinicians think patients need. Our paper looked at SMS because very few patients in our government hospital have smartphones, while SMS is a basic phone functionality. Nonetheless, I found Jessie’s three observations very relevant (quoted here) –
1. We will not use mobile apps that add to the time we spend caring for ourselves.
2. We do not respond well to nagging.
3. We favor apps that are linked to (or associated with) our clinicians.
In connection with our SMS study, SMS was sent 3x a week at predetermined times so hopefully that was NOT nagging. And it was one-way. The investigators sent the text but the patients could not reply or even if they did, could not expect an acknowledgement. Something to think about.
See, I learned something new again on Twitter!
T3 What do you think are the obstacles to the use of emerging technologies in healthcare?
I lamented that emerging technology as it relates to social media, internet or mobile technology has little airtime in medical society conventions. Dr. Sidney Manahan said that there is also a steep learning curve for MDs to use social media, like when he was trying to learn how to use Twitter. I hope that #HealthXPh will provide a venue to promote a grassroots movement of MDs in social media as Dr. Wes Fisher calls for here.
Thanks to all those who joined us and see you next week!
#HealthXPh tweet chat and Google hangout is every Saturday 10 am Manila time (UTC +8 hours).

2 thoughts on “#HealthXPh tweet chat launched!”

  1. Hi Iris, this is Trixie Jayme Tiangco. I followed a link in my Society for Participatory Medicine (S4PM) email this morning and on an email thread on Teaching Medicine to Kids (a movement started by Tom Ferguson), I was happy to see a link to your 2011 PCP lecture on Dealing with Patients Who Surf The Net. Too bad I missed that lecture, but the slides, and your posts on this blog, lead me to believe we are kindred spirit. We both enjoy IT, teaching, and advocating for patients. The post at KevinMD below was also mentioned in the email list serve of S4PM when it came out, and it received a lot of feedback, mostly from patients who were not too happy with it. Just goes to show the many points of view even with one patient-doctor interaction.
    Anyway, I wanted reach out to you and give you positive feedback re what you are doing. If ever you (or I) decide to start an (online) course on Participatory Medicine for UP Med students (or why not all Med Students kung online naman) count me (or can I count you) in!? Also, you may want to join S4PM. I agree Participatory Medicine it is the way forward in health, and the Filipino patient (and doctor) can thrive in it.

  2. Hi Ma’am Trixie! Fancy meeting you here 🙂 Thanks for your words of encouragement. Yes, count me in. Maybe we can email?

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.