Social networking tools, when paired with the use of personal health records, can be valuable in monitoring chronic diseases, according to a study published in PLoS ONE by researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston, Healthcare IT News reports.
The project used a social website, TuDiabetes.org, to invite users to share their personal data regarding one common diabetes control measure known as hemoglobin A1c status. Data were submitted through an application called TuAnalyze, which is based on the hospital’s personal health record program. Data then were shown on county- or state-level maps in real time (Merrill, Healthcare IT News, 4/26).
Overall, one in five website users signed up for the application, and 81% of those users shared their data, the researchers said (Evans, Modern Physician, 4/29).
According to the study, users who signed on to the system within the first two weeks of its launch and those who shared their A1c data openly reported lower average A1c values than those who began using the program later or shared only their aggregate data (Healthcare IT News, 4/26).
Reaction
Kenneth Mandl — associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Children’s Hospital Informatics Program’s Intelligent Health Laboratory — said, “There is growing recognition that online communities not only provide a place for members to support each other but also contain knowledge that can be mined for public health research, surveillance and other health-related activities” (Modern Physician, 4/29).
Elissa Weitzman — an assistant professor of pediatrics and adolescent medicine at Harvard — said that using population-based reporting systems can help informĀ individuals about health research (Healthcare IT News, 4/26).
Source: iHealthBeat
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