I am joining the QS (Quantified Self) movement!

After attending the Medicine 2.0 conference at Stanford over the weekend, I decided that I needed to join the Quantified Self (QS) movement. First of all, I love gadgets, so I'm excited about the idea that I'll be wearing a gadget(s) on me all the time so that I can track my biometrics over time.

Are you familiar with the Quantified Self movement? If you've ever worn a heart rate monitor at the gym, then you've had a taste. If you're a patient with diabetes using a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), then you probably have a good idea of what QS is all about. Here's a brief description of QS:

Quantified Self is a collaboration of users and tool makers who share an interest in self knowledge through self-tracking.

Simple, right? QS devices can be useful tools that can motivate you to change your behavior. Join a QS community and gather, inspire, and learn from each other as we share and collaborate on self-tracking projects. Over the next several weeks, I'll be getting my hands on several QS devices and I'll be testing some for short-term and potential long-term application. Stay tuned to hear more and to see how I do as I track my own personal activity over the course of time. I'm doing some traveling this fall, so it'll definitely be interesting to see how much activity I get when I travel for business.

Mobile Motivation for Adolescents to Promote Wellness #mHealth

Today is the last day of the 2nd International mHealth Networking Conference. As a physician champion for the HCPLive Network, I'm excited to blog about some of the highlights from this meeting. You can also follow updates about the mHealth Networking Conference on HCPLive.com.

This afternoon, I attended a session titled, "Mobile Motivation for Adolescents to Promote Wellness." The presenters were Tara Cousineau, PhD, Founder of BodiMojo and Carol Torgan PhD. BodiMojo.com a heath community web site for teens created in collaboration with teens and health experts. With initial funding from a National Institutes of Health grant, BodiMojo built a platform that teens believe will work.
 
We know that 25 million teens are unhappy with their bodies. Up to 12 million teens are engaging in problematic weight management behaviors. There are opportunities to focus on prevention when it comes to teens. But, are teens overexposed to technology? 8 to 18 year olds are spending 7.5 hrs/day using entertainment media. When we think about the consequences, we're seeing changes in sleep, academic performance, and possibly health outcomes. The average teen send 100 text messages/day. Given that teens have actively adopted mobile technology, how can we leverage technology to promote wellness?

What's happening at Keas?

Have you heard of Keas? Maybe you've heard of Adam Bosworth. He's a Harvard grad (I think he should have gone to MIT) and he headed Google Health when he was at Google. Now, he's the Founder, President & CEO of Keas.

Keas (www.keas.com) is an interactive service that enables the best medical minds in healthcare to provide individuals with ongoing advice and interpretation about their unique health data—such as lab results and current conditions—and help them take action to achieve their health goals. The mission of Keas™ is simple: To help you understand what your health data means and how you can use it to be as healthy as possible.

So, what's happening at Keas these days? The latest news is a press release from Feb 8: 

Pfizer and Keas Partner to Help Consumers Take a More Active Role in Their Health and Wellness

Pfizer and Keas announced today they have entered into an alliance to collaborate on the Keas platform to enable Health and Wellness experts to author, sell and distribute personalized online Care Plans directly to patients. Pfizer and Keas will collaborate to develop care plans and related capabilities that seek to provide consumers, patients and their providers an intuitive, engaging, easy-to-use, and low-cost way to manage their health & wellness, prevention and care delivery...

Having worked in the personal health record or PHR space in the past, I'm very curious to see what happens with Keas as this company takes a different approach to disease and wellness management through their care plans.

2009 Connected Health Symposium

I really miss Boston. I usually look for any type of excuse I can find to visit because Boston is definitely my favorite city. In a few days, we'll be seeing the 2009 Connected Health Symposium take place in Boston. I wish I could be there, but I've decided to limit my non-essential traveling this month because I just got back from a trip to Baltimore from the AMA - National Task Force on CME Provider/Industry Collaboration.


If you're interested in the latest discussions surrounding health IT, health care reform, and much more, then you should make an effort to attend.

Connected Health Symposium 2009
Up from Crisis: Overhauling Healthcare Information, Payment and Delivery in Extraordinary Times
October 21-22, 2009
Boston Park Plaza Hotel and Towers

Hosted by the Center for Connected Health at Partners HealthCare 

The Connected Health Symposium asks how information technology -- cell phones, computers, the Internet and other tools -- can help people manage chronic conditions, maintain health and wellness, and age with independence.

To learn more about this event, click here.

Shifting health care costs

According to a recent story on BusinessWeek, the heavy costs of health care are shifting more towards employees. Employers will need to pay more to provide health insurance, but the burden will increase significantly more for employees. I suppose it will also really depend on how much your employer currently pays. Will your company start paying a smaller percentage of your health insurance premiums?

According to the story titled, "Health Costs: Steeper Still," we have seen employers' health care costs rise 149% since 2000. 175 million people are covered by private employers.

Perhaps the role of wellness and disease management programs will need to be re-evaluated. If a public option becomes available, I wonder if that will also include some type of wellness program. What percentage of health plans will offer formal wellness and disease management programs in 3 years? What about in 5 years?

Technology is making it more easy for patients to learn ways to improve their health and wellness. There are many personal health record (PHR) services that are freely available. Consumers can get educated about certain diseases by reading articles on reputable websites. There are web-based health programs that can guide patients to live a healthier lifestyle. Advances in mobile technology are also contributing to health and wellness initiatives.

Have you explored the health benefits of soy?

I've recently been doing a fair bit of reading about the health benefits of soy products. Keep in mind, since I'm Korean and my wife is from Taiwan, we naturally eat a high volume of soy products in our regular diet. Tofu is cooked in many different ways and we may have some of it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. You'll also see that we have soy milk in our fridge and there are various soy-based desserts that we often eat as well (not daily, but occasionally). If you find us in a Japanese restaurant, you'll see us munching on some edamame.

So when it comes to soy and health, what does the evidence reveal? One of the difficulties of interpreting the evidence is that some of the studies simply aren't robust like pharmaceutical clinical trials. It's often difficult to quantify soy consumption when you're evaluating it in someone's regular diet. When someone says that they eat 2-3 pieces of tofu each day, what exactly does that mean? What if they're taking some form of soy supplement? Since these supplements aren't regulated by the FDA, it's often very difficult to know how much people are taking. Make sure that your healthcare provider knows about any supplements you may be taking.

I believe that natural soy as part of a regular diet has significant health benefits. I also think that high-dose soy supplements can lead to adverse effects (that's what the evidence reveals). So, you won't find me taking any pills as supplements, but I'll continue with my Asian diet at home.

A cheerful heart is good medicine

I was reminded today that "A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." This comes from Proverbs 17:22 (which is in the Bible).

You may have also heard of it like this: "A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones." or "A glad heart makes a healthy body, but a crushed spirit makes the bones dry." or "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones."

So what's the bottom line here? Do our attitudes really impact our health and well being? Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the placebo effect is so powerful (it may not be ethical, but it is powerful).

Wellness is a Hot Topic (Especially During the Summer)

Wellness is everywhere! We see celebrities promoting different ways of staying healthy and we even see commercials about age-defying products. What do you think about the commercials that you see on television? Are you a skeptic? Each year, consumers spend billions of dollars on nutritional supplements. We see products like Intramax and Poly MVA getting gobbled up by people who believe that these supplements and vitamins are promoting wellness and helping them defy the natural aging process. Patients are bringing all sorts of bottles to their doctors and asking questions like, "What do you think of this supplement?" Or, "Do you think I should continue taking all these supplements?"

As the summer approaches, I think about how many people fail to protect their skin from sun damage. People forget about the long-term consequences of their actions and they often focus too much attention on the immediate. Interestingly, more and more consumers are getting obsessed with organic products and they even choose to wear Natural Sunscreen. Instead of spending billions of dollars on age-defying products, people should spend less time sunbathing and smoking. Sun damage and smoking causes wrinkles that won't go away with age-defying creams, lotions, or potions. So what will you be doing this summer? If I see you at the beach, I'll be under an umbrella.

Are You Sceptical about What Causes or Prevents Cancer

According to the BBC News, people in the UK are "deeply sceptical about scientific claims for what causes or prevents cancer." Hmm, let's see exactly what this poll tried to uncover.

Here's the first snippet: "The YouGov survey of 2,400 people for the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) found more than half thought scientists were always changing their minds."

I admit that we as medical scientists and researchers have made some mistakes in the past. At one time, we physicians made claims about the healthy effects of cigarette smoking. Either we were all being bribed by the tobacco industry or we really had an erroneous knowledge of the carcinogenic effects of smoking. Now, we all know that smoking causes lung cancer. The scientific evidence is very compelling and I doubt that anyone would argue that point.

How about red meat and colon cancer? That seems to be another point where some scientists are going back and forth (regarding whether we have enough evidence to substantiate that eating red meat does or does not increase the risk of colon cancer).

Here's another snippet from the article: "The WCRF says that most scientists agree about the steps people can take to reduce their risk of cancer - and that this advice has largely stayed the same for the last 10 years." The basics have not changed. We should eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly. I don't think any scientist will argue that the evidence has changed on these aspects of healthy living.

Future of CDHP

I was having a discussion the other day about the future of consumer-directed (or driven) health plans (CDHP). We live in a world where managed care dominates the healthcare industry. Under this new administration, many things in the healthcare system will change. Some are talking about universal health coverage. Will that be like the VA (Veterans Affairs) system? Will be turn into Canada? No one seems to know the answers to these questions, but one thing is clear: we need to reduce healthcare costs and also improve disease management.

I personally believe that technology will help patients with disease self-management. If we look at some of the conditions that burden the healthcare system, they would include things such as: diabetes, heart disease, heart failure, COPD, asthma, and many others. Patients who have any of these conditions must be very active in caring for their conditions. They must adhere to their medication regimen. They must follow-up appropriately with their healthcare providers. The use of modern technology is improving the care of some of these conditions. Glucose monitors and insulin pumps are becoming more sophisticated. Cardiac devices are saving lives at home. Home monitoring devices are improving care for millions of patients. Patients are receiving education through the Internet (although they're also getting misinformation).

Well, I've obviously gone on a tangent, but I will return to this topic of CDHP in a later post.

A Look at Natural Health and Wellness

Have you visited Oasis Advanced Wellness? Are you famliar with holistic health and wellness remedies? The word "wellness" is such a buzzword in today's healthcare environment because many people equate wellness to disease prevention and optimal health. In fact, most managed care organizations are looking for ways to promote wellness among their subscribers. This includes a healthy diet, regular exercise, and a relaxed mind. The interest in holistic medicine continues to grow as more people seek after natural remedies, herbs, and alternative forms of medicine.

Many physicians, nurses, and pharmacists have never heard of some of these holistic products. For instance, have you heard of Poly MVA or Intramax? How about Lithium Orotate? These are various compounds that often fall under the category of "supplements" and they are not rigorously tested by the FDA. Hence, it's often difficult to know what you're getting when you shop for these types of supplements because the content is not strictly regulated.

If you have a strong interest in holistic medicine, then I encourage you to join the American Holistic Medicine Association (AHMA) and learn more about alternative medicine. You may also want to check out the American Alternative Medical Association (AAMA)

This blog entry is brought to you by your friends at www.oasisadvancedwellness.com

Oasis Advanced Wellness is a provider of various wellness products and was founded by Dr. Loretta Lanphier.

J&J buys HealthMedia

What is J&J up to? They just acquired HealthMedia, an online consumer health company that offers computer-based wellness programs. How would your health improve if you had an online "virtual" health coach reminding you of important health facts and guiding you through some of your medical decisions?

It's just a matter of time before all the online wellness companies are acquired by either a managed care organization or a pharmaceutical company.