Health 2.0
Many of the criticisms being launched about everything that surrounds the world of health 2.0, eHealth or as you call it, is the lack of serious research about their effectiveness. In other words, serves as something all this or is simply a new channel of communication and point? For many, the improvement that involves the use of internet as a communication tool is already in itself one element sufficient to continue innovating and discovering new uses. But, besides the obvious improvements in processes (cost savings, greater professional productivity), must be observed if there is some benefit in health for the patient and for the population in general. Today we will not speak of all the studies and existing reviews, but let’s remember some of the most important. Your reading with both the review of the literature House, you can learn much of everything to do with the ehealth and the use of ICTs in health. Oh, and of course we recommend the magnificent site of – Systematic review: impact of health information technology on quality, efficiency, and costs of medical care.
Review published in Annals of Internal Medicine in 2006. His conclusion, that recognizes the existence of several studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of the use of ICT to improve the quality and efficiency, is striking but alerting while no one explains how to achieve such improvements and nor explain the cost of putting up. -A classic article on this topic, published in PLOS in January 2011, is The Impact of eHealth on the Quality and Safety of Health Care: A Systematic Overview. In this case, the conclusion is quite desesperanzadora: little evidence, low robustness of existing studies, etc. are reported from salud.es and a final to finish question: does investigated much in Spain about ehealth? Is the use of internet useful to improve the patient’s health? To respond, we have an anecdote that we have lived in first person: in the call FIS 2011, a research group in which we participate, presented a project on the effect of virtual communities of patients in the State of health of the same. The rejection of the FIS included a paragraph that left us with an open mouth: given the rapid pace that evolving technology and social networks, the results risk be obsolete from the moment of its production, so the risk of the proposal is very high. In short: impossible to investigate on the effect of the internet on health, that this happens very quickly, and measure it is nonsense.
