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Steve Jobs’ Cancer Denial

The 60 minutes interview with Steve Jobs’ biographer is an intriguing piece that gives us a few insights into Steve Jobs and his battle with pancreatic cancer. But the most disturbing part of the interview for me was watching Walter Isaacson, a former editor of...

Invitation to Connected Health Attendees, 2011

Please join us for the 2nd Annual Society for Participatory Medicine Cocktail Reception, taking place on Thursday, October 20, 2011 at the Liberty Hotel in Boston (http://www.libertyhotel.com/) from 6:00 – 8:00 pm. If you’re attending the Connected Health...

First Diagnosing Mole iPhone app

Well, it was bound to happen. Skin Scan is a new iPhone app that purports to analyze your moles for evidence of malignancy — all in the application itself through its own proprietary algorithms. Just take a few photos over time, and it will analyze their...

Bye Bye Google Health

Like so many attempts before it — drkoop.com and RevolutionHealth.com to name just two — Google has found that implementing personal health records in a meaningful way is really, really hard. So hard, in fact, that it has given up and is shuttering its...

Rest in Peace: Personal Health Records (PHRs)

While doing some research the other day on personal health records (PHRs), I came across this article, describing Revolution Health’s announcement — without much media attention — about dropping its PHR at the beginning of 2010. (Disclosure: I worked...

Doctors Say One Thing, Patients Hear Another

The Boston Globe has a revealing article about a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine where patients thought that a heart stent would help prevent another heart attack. But doctors had only told patients that it would relieve future chest pain. How can such...

Caremark, Prescriptions and Personal Information

A friend of mine, Ms. S., recently had an unsettling experience with a company called Caremark (the parent company of pharmacy CVS), whom she fills her prescriptions through. She was reordering a prescription refill she buys through the mail, and needed to pay for it....

Woman Loses Health Insurance Due to Facebook

Imagine a world you live in where every insurance offering is accompanied by a creepy set of Big Brother-like ongoing investigations into your life. Everything will be used as evidence against you. Yes, even your Facebook profile. That world is here. Well, not right...

Why Electronic Medical Records Still Leak

I hear it time and time again in the e-health industry: “If only we had everyone on an electronic medical record, all of our security and privacy issues would be solved!” Really? Perhaps I should introduce you to a little something psychologists like to...

How to Rein in Medical Costs

You know you’re going to get a pretty interesting debate about healthcare costs when George Lundberg offers his advice on how to control health care costs right now. A well thought-out piece and one deserving of everyone’s time to read it. Costs can be...

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