On March 5, 2009 the Blommenstein Group hosts a meeting between internet entrepreneurs and health managers: Innovation Lab Health 2.0. Amongst others I will attend this meeting and will talk about MediGO.   A lot of other “well-known”  names are also on the list.  Amongst others Martijn Hulst, Jennifer McGabe Gorman and Marco Derksen. 

Het Innovatielab Zorg 2.0 wordt exclusief ontwikkeld voor bestuurders, directeuren en professionals die werkzaam zijn in de CURE: ziekenhuizen en zelfstandige behandelcentra en de direct betrokkenen zoals de overheid, de koepel- kennis en adviesorganen, de verzekeraars, farmacie en nieuwe toetreders die deel (gaan) nemen aan het ‘ nieuwe zorgen’.

Take a look at the program.

As some of you might know I am conducting a historical research about the use of electricity and magnetism in psychiatry. For now I am focussing on Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.  This morning I was looking at some videos on TED. This made me wonder if and what kind of videos are online available about TMS. I was hoping to find an old video no one ever heard that I could use for my reseach but unfortunatelly that did not happen. I tried Youtube with the search “transcranial magnetic stimulation” and only a handful of interesting modern videos were the result. No old videos about guinea pigs in a magnetic stimulator came up. Nevertheless I will present the videos below. So if you might come across interesting videos or other information about TMS please let me know in the comments.

Talking and TMS, what happens?

TMS a possible solution for migraine?

TMS apparatus, what is for sale?

TMS by a Dutch psychologist (thanks to Dr Shock) 

This time the Dutch Grand Rounds are hosted by Health Management Rx.  According to Jennifer it is

Unfortunately for my Dutch friends it’s my turn again to host Dutch Grand Rounds.

She would have forgotten to write the Grands Rounds if not for Laika who reminded Jennifer. Head over to Health Management Rx to read her article. Jennifer ends with.

And finally, a very happy, safe holiday season for all.

May our health, and that of those around us, drive us to productive heights in the new year.

Gelukkige Vakantie!

And I can only agree with it.

Next grand rounds will be hosted by Laika’s MedLibLog. You can submit your articles before december, 28 through Blogcarnival.

At the end of the year a lot of lists are made. In the Netherlands we have for instance the Top 2000 about music. Acumeme, Canada’s E-health | EHR blog comes up with a top 50 of Health 2.0 blogs. This list also contains one dutch blog.

43. Laika’s MedLibLog. Another blog heavy on the medical library end of health 2.0 and written by a Dutch medical information specialist, this blog offers topics such as WikiMindMap, Dutch medical blogs, and more.

In my honest opinion Dr Shock should have been included in the list as well, but Acumeme did not include a specific category for blogging physicians. People who would like to take a look at an extensive list of medical blogs can take a look at the list I created. It has not been updated (August 2008)  in a while, but it still gives a nice overview.

I proudly present the Dutch Grand Rounds. This round will cover two english written articles. The first contribution features on Laika’s MedLibLog. She discusses the Anatomy Lesson she visited. This is a yearly held symposium organized in Amsterdam’s concert hall. She summarized Shalev’s presentation about fear.

Dr Shock writes about health search on the internet. More than 50% of the European population searches the internet for health related information. Dutch people were not investigated during this research, but people from Denmark, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Norway, Poland, and Portugal were.

Update: Marjolein Fermie discusses programs to keep the elderly busy.  How long will they be singing old songs?

Next grand rounds will be hosted by Health Management RX. You can submit your articles before december, 14 through Blogcarnival.

This week’s Dutch Grand Rounds is composed by Marjolein Fermie. Take a look at a collection of articles by dutch bloggers. Next grand rounds will here.

Please submit your articles before November 30.

A sketch (in dutch) from a dutch comedy show displaying a protype surgeon about medical mistakes and complications. What exactly is the difference?

Via: ICT en Zorg

My last post discussed the very interesting weblog Brain Stimulation. This weblog now discusses the weblog Focus on a cure’s deep brain stimulation (DBS) journal. This weblog is created by Ken to 

in the hopes that my experiences will give others inspiration to take a risk and have the courage to face the unknown in order to accomplish the impossible as others have done for me

Ken is daignosed with Parkinson’s disease.

After a relaxing holiday I am back in business again. During my holidays I have been reading the book The State of Africa by Martin Meredith. He investigates the different states of Africa after independence. It gives a decent overview and provides among other things necessary insights in the recent problems in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But now off to business. I want to update you on a weblog I found. The name of this weblog is Brain Stimulant: Stimulation. It reports about all kinds of information about brain stimulation. For instance, it is possible to build your own TMS device. But the site also links to interesting new explanations about the use of ultrasound to modulate neurons. The RSS-feed will definitely be included in my google reader.

Christopher deCharmes talks at TED about visualising brain activity in realtime. Before it took day to compute the result of an fMRI. Nowadays it takes milliseconds.

If an individual can learn to directly control activation of localized regions within the brain, this approach might provide control over the neurophysiological mechanisms that mediate behavior and cognition and could potentially provide a different route for treating disease. Control over the endogenous pain modulatory system is a particularly important target because it could enable a unique mechanism for clinical control over pain. Here, we found that by using real-time functional MRI (rtfMRI) to guide training, subjects were able to learn to control activation in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), a region putatively involved in pain perception and regulation. When subjects deliberately induced increases or decreases in rACC fMRI activation, there was a corresponding change in the perception of pain caused by an applied noxious thermal stimulus. Control experiments demonstrated that this effect was not observed after similar training conducted without rtfMRI information, or using rtfMRI information derived from a different brain region, or sham rtfMRI information derived previously from a different subject. Chronic pain patients were also trained to control activation in rACC and reported decreases in the ongoing level of chronic pain after training. These findings show that individuals can gain voluntary control over activation in a specific brain region given appropriate training, that voluntary control over activation in rACC leads to control over pain perception, and that these effects were powerful enough to impact severe, chronic clinical pain.

At Laika’s MedLibLog a description of the submissions to the Dutch Grand Round and here own choice from blogs form the Dutch medical blogosphere. By the way most Dutch bloggers in the medical blogosphere blog in dutch English, but Laika writes in English.

Next Grand Rounds will be hosted at Dokter Shock on November 4. The deadline will be on November 2. You can submit your articles through Blog Carnival.

I found an interesting article on Reuters about teleradiology and remote medicine. Scans made in the US are sent to radiologists in India. This is a way to reduce costs because hospitals and to overcome the shortage of radiologists in the US.  One of the companies Teleradiology Solutions has a sales office in the Netherlands. I do not know whether a dutch hospital already uses the solution this company offers. 

Telemedicine offers a lot of interesting opportunities. A physician for instance can take a look at a patient using a camera above or near a patients bed. The physician can ask a physician or a nurse to examine the patient while he observes it realtime behind his screen.  This for instance can be very helpful to assess whether a patient really needs to be transfered to a more specialized hospital. This is only one of the interesting opportunities new technology offers. 

But then again, it appears to be very difficult to implement national electronic health records in the Netherlands. So, it will probably take some time before physicians will use the above opportunities.

Berci’s enterprise Webicina is officially launched.  His company offers among other things:

• A Medicine 2.0 package. This is a personalized set of web 2.0 tools designed to solve the problems of physicians, health care workers and patients.
• Building an online reputation. Building an online reputation becomes crucial for medical professionals. A properly written CV or a quality medical blog can establish a successful online presence.
• E-learning tools. Videos, slideshows and online materials with step-by-step tutorials through which you can easily learn to use the web 2.0 tools and methods you need to improve your practice.
• Consulting and workshops. If you would like your collegues or employees to know more about the possible implications of web 2.0 in your field of interest, Webicina can help you through in-person presentations or online webinars and Second Life workshops.

You can read the new Dutch Grand Rounds at Health Management Rx. According to Jen

It’s a privilege to provide inside perspectives from my adopted homeland. This is a rare chance for the American health and medical blogosphere to hear what’s really going on over there in the Netherlands, and how Dutch bloggers view international healthcare fumblings.

Jen gives 5 answers to the question why someone (and especially the Americans) would have to pay attention to us dutch. Go and take a look. 

Next Grand Rounds will be hosted at Laika’s MedLibLog on October 23 21. The deadline will be on October 21 19 You can submit your articles through Blog Carnival.

I have got the honor to present you the third Dutch Grand Rounds 3. This round consists of five dutch contributions. I cheated a little bit and included one foreign contribution and one of my own. Four of the five contributions are in English, so this round is also interesting for non-dutch readers.

Dr Shock refers to research done by Barlett c.s. about cognitive enhancement due to playing computer games. Marjolein Fermi tells us about the fact she is amazed that a newspaper reports that extending the MD consulting-hours is quite a success. Laika mentions a report about the merit of taking temperature after surgery.  The outcome is very interesting, but it is questionable if and when the outcome will be implemented in protocols. RNcentral made a list of top 50 Health 2.0 blogs.  Laika’s blog features on 43. My own contribution is about the fact that a dutch journal mentions the search engine MediGO.

Next grand rounds will be hosted at Health Management RX on October 7. The deadline will be on October 5. You can submit your articles through Blog Carnival.