• Social Networking For Work Explored : NPR - NPR Tech story on the increasing use of Twitter in the workplace. Nice discussion of how it's replacing e-mail. Worth a listen.

• Snapshot of Presidential Candidate Social Networking Stats: Nov 3, 2008 - Interesting profile of the different leadership approaches of the presidential candidates and what can be derived from their Web2.0 stats.

• Geography of Online Communities - Interesting visualization of the socialmediasphere, from Creative Class blog.

• A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media - Nice summary of the brands that experienced challenges because of social media

I just read this article about a new generation of Twitter-like tools that allow organizations to maintain private Twitter networks. So I got to thinking what it might be like if a clinician and their patients set up one such network. Kind of like a group visit. I created a mockup, using Yammer, one of the products. It’s a dialogue between a few patients, with the doctor (or name your health professional) chiming in.

What do you think? Could this paradigm move patient-physician communication to patient-community-physician communication?

Click on the image to see it larger

• 17 Ways to Visualize the Twitter Universe | FlowingData - A ha - Twitter could be used to map out social networks of influence in organizations (medical groups? health professionals? students?), cheaply….

• Ning - Create your own Social Networks! - As it says, a way to create a social network. What if a physician created one for her patients (who opted in)?
• The Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT) - ALLHAT treatment information
• Prevent and Control High Blood Pressure: Mission Possible - Information from the NHLBI about hypertension control - unfortunately, it looks like the site has been abandoned. Another argument for a Web 2.0, more interactive approach.
• Sixty minutes of health reform education: Frontline is required watching - Overview of international health systems - incentives seem more aligned, and of interest, when reforms are society/community focused, the professions understand their utility.
• NEJM — Characteristics of Patients with Uncontrolled Hypertension in the United States - "Undiagnosed hypertension and treated but uncontrolled hypertension occur largely under the watchful eye of the health care system;"