Medical Blogging: Impact and Ethics

Yesterday, Ivor Kovic and colleagues published the paper "Examining the Medical Blogosphere: An Online Survey of Medical Bloggers" in the Medicine 2.0 Theme Issue of the Journal of Medical Internet Research.
What I found most amazing about the results of his survey among medical bloggers is that a whopping 66% of those bloggers have received media coverage in mainstream media. Clearly, medical blogging is an "important vehicle to influence medical and health policy".


The potential impact of blogs on mainstream media and - eventually - policy has not escaped the attention of Public Relations professionals, who, in many instances, target bloggers as opinion leaders first. Bloggers - and especially medical bloggers - have therefore, in my opinion, a special responsibility for fact-checking and following other journalistic "best practices".


In the light of this I reflected on the presentation of Kevin Clauson (with Joan Dzenowagis from the World Health Organization) on Risk 2.0: The future of connected health at the Medicine 2.0 congress in Toronto, a few weeks ago.


Kevin Clauson at Medicine 2.0, Sept 5th 2008





Participants at Medicine 2.0 voting for questions posed by the speaker




Clauson used an interactive device to poll the congress audience. He asked the audience a few questions, among them whether they thought that it would be ethical for a blogger to post a blog entry that is "influenced by (but omitted mentioning of) a public relations professional". What I found surprising here was that 25% of the participants actually thought that this was not a problem! (I think it is!)


25% of the participants thought a blog "influenced by (but omitted mentioning of) a public relations professional" is ok



Clauson also cited results from the Healthcare blogger survey which say that 29% have been contacted by a PR professional, and 52% of those have posted at least one entry based on the info provided by the PR professional (the degree of disclosure is not known and would make an interesting research project).



Clauson's slide citing the Healthcare blogger survey



Also interesting was the fact that 56% of the Medicine 2.0 audience felt that, when it comes to advertising, blogs should be held to the same (ethical) standard as biomedical journals, and 21% even thought the standard should be higher. On the other hand, 23% thought the standards should be lower.


Voting results on "should blogs be held to the same (ethical) standard as biomedical journals?"



I think these results clearly show that some consensus building towards ethical standards for medical blogs is required, as well as some research on the quality and adherence to best practices.

The paper by Ivor Kovic and colleagues on "Examining the Medical Blogosphere: An Online Survey of Medical Bloggers" is an important first step in that direction.

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Further information
Media Coverage on Kevin Clauson's and Joan Dzenowagis' Risk 2.0 panel at Medicine 2.0:

Digital Healthcare & Productivity (http://www.digitalhcp.com/2008/09/09/health20risk.html)

http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2008/9/15/Health-20-Technology-Brings-New-Risks-to-Health-Care-Facilities.aspx?topicID=55

http://www.markle.org/weekly_digest/weeklydigest_vol.7_issue34.pdf

Patient involvement through YouTube at the Medicine 2.0 conference

One of the most inspiring presentations at the Medicine 2.0'08 conference was a presentation by Luis Fernandez Luque, which included a YouTube video by a patient, Lauren Parrot, specifically recorded for the conference.

I think involving patients via YouTube in this conference was a phantastic idea. The video from laurenvparrot , which was played in the plenary, was very inspiring and touching.

I am wondering how we can harness this idea for Medicine 2.0'09, perhaps in a more systematic way. Perhaps we can pose some specific questions for patients and invite YouTube submissions, which will be presented/exhibited at the conference? This would enable patient-involvement without creating traveling costs etc.

Perhaps we can also find a sponsor for a "Patient 2.0" award...

If somebody has ideas for specific questions / discussion points for patients/consumers, please post them here or on the Medicine 2.0 Social Network discussion board.





Pictures from FlickR showing Luis Fernandez Luque presenting the YouTube video from Lauren Parrot, specifically recorded for the Medicine 2.0 conference.



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Originally uploaded by eysenbach

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Originally uploaded by eysenbach

Date for Medicine 2.0'09 set

After the immensely successful Medicine 2.0'08 conference on Sept 4/5th, 2008, we have now set the date for the next Medicine 2.0'09 conference: Sept 17-18, 2009 (same venue, i.e. the MaRS Centre in Toronto).
Please make a note in your calendar. See also Important Dates (http://www.medicine20congress.com/importantdates.php) for a tentative schedule of submission deadlines etc. for next year. Hope to see you again in Toronto!

Please help us to promote next years' conference. At the bottom of the Sponsors page (and at the bottom of this blog post) there are revised banners for next years' conference. Please post them on your blog, websites, and in your emails, linking back to http://www.medicine20congress.com - thank you!

Medicine 2.0 Photos on Flickr

Just published: Over 800 photos from the first international Medicine 2.0 congress, at http://www.flickr.com/photos/30211781@N04/sets/72157607120617918/


All pictures are (c) G. Eysenbach, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike, so feel free to use them.



Thanks to all participants and especially the speakers for making the congress such a resounding success. With almost 200 participants from 19 countries, the congress was sold out. The feedback from the evaluation forms was overwhelmingly positive and there seems to be a real enthusiasm to do another congress next year (in fact, with the exception of two respondents, who were "unsure", ALL participants answered the question on whether there should be another Medicine 2.0 congress with "yes")... The congress brought together a broad range of innovators, researchers, opinion leaders, bloggers, business leaders, and others.

If you missed Medicine 2.0.08, make sure to join the Medicine 2.0 social network on crowdvine, and preregister here for Medicine 2.0.09 (do not preregister again if you already preregistered for Medicine 2.0.08).

Medicine 2.0 Toronto Day 1

Medicine 2.0 Toronto Day 1
Originally uploaded by eysenbach

The Medicine 2.0 conference is in full swing, and it seems like participants are greatly enjoying the talks and the conference. I just posted a first set of photos to Flickr. Unfortunately, I am too busy to blog about the talks myself, but there are plenty of other bloggers among the participants.