Content of Weblogs Written by Health Professionals. [J Gen Intern Med. 2008] – PubMed Result

Content of Weblogs Written by Health Professionals. [J Gen Intern Med. 2008] – PubMed Result

This is a timely analysis of the content of blogs written by health professionals, by a fellow in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars program. It is great to see that the RWJ Foundation (indirectly) would be studying the ways that tomorrow’s physicians will communicate. The article indicates that violations of patient privacy are rare, and suggests training of health professionals in this realm.

I agree with both, because health professionals should learn how to blog well, which really means they would learn to communicate well.

This would also mean, by the way, that I disagree with the creation of this headline about the study: Health Care Provider Blogs Do Not Maintain Anonymity, Study Says. My takeaway from this is that there is still a tendency to paint blogs in the negative within the health care press. That will change.

It is also not lost on me that the author has chosen a gmail address to be contacted, maybe blog and Twitter URL’s will follow in the world of PubMed….

3 Comments

Hi Ted,

No doubt that healthcare professionals should blog and communicate well!

As for themedia's "take" on health related stories, HealthNewsReivew.org – funded by the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making, is a website to check out. It's dedicated to:

• Improving the accuracy of news stories about medical treatments, tests, products and procedures.

• Helping consumers evaluate the evidence for and against new ideas in health care.

Health News Revies supports and encourages the ABCs of health journalism.

• Accuracy

• Balance

• Completeness

Ted Eytan, MD