Insights & Trends

Zambia efficiently tracks medical histories and public health. “Why not bring it to the US?” asks Brittany Allgood of Spectrum, GlobalHealthPR partner in the United States.

In a land where health care illiteracy is prevalent and disease outbreaks can spread quickly due to poor environmental and sanitation conditions, how do you efficiently document individual medical histories and monitor public health?

In Zambia, health care institutions are using innovative technology to track and cater to health care needs. SmartCare – conceived in 2003 and developed by Zambia’s Ministry of Health and the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention – is an electronic health record (EHR) system designed with local challenges in mind.

How does it work?

Similar to loading money onto a D.C. Metro SmartTrip card, medical personnel can load a patient’s health care records onto a SmartCare card to be taken home for safe keeping. Records include personal information about illness, prescriptions, lab results and more, and data analysis of records can reveal trends in the spread of disease.

The SmartCare system is designed to function in areas with minimal telecommunication capabilities and frequent power outages. Lending credibility to the system and expanding its reach, the World Health Organization, USAID and UNICEF are among SmartCare partners.

The result?

In addition to aiding doctor efficiency with user-friendly, rapid data-entry capabilities, SmartCare is intended to improve data accuracy and enable cost-effective, confidential, life-long quality health care.

With the benefits to Zambian patients in mind, I wonder how this system can be applied to improve health care in other parts of the world. For example, considering the system’s reliability and ease of use, how could it be used to improve health care in disaster relief situations?

What’s up with electronic medical records in the U.S.?

Even in a community where the average person can complete a medical form unaided, there are benefits to implementing an EHR system. Think about it – how much time have you wasted filling and re-filling out forms at the doctor or dentist office? Are you sure you remembered every detail each time?

We’ve all heard about the Affordable Care Act, which goes into effect on January 1, 2014. We won’t go into the details here, but one program initiative is to advance the transition from paper records to EHRs. According to Medical News Today, many question the ease of use and integration process of this new IT system, and there’s no doubt that others are concerned about privacy issues.

Can we take a lesson from our friends in Africa?

A SmartCare system in the U.S. could address concerns about ease of use and confidentiality of EHRs. Personally, I’d appreciate having a password-protected card or flash drive containing all my medical records and insurance information. If doctors and dentists accepted this form of information transference, it would save a lot of time during visits.

What’s your take on adopting EHRs in the U.S. – an important initiative or expensive waste of time?

 

 

What can culture teach us about nutrition?

Last weekend, while walking down 14th Street Northwest in Washington, DC, I was fascinated by the international flavors that surrounded me. On the left: French, Japanese, Thai and Ghanan restaurants. On the right: American fried chicken, Salvadoran, Mexican, Italian and Ethiopian restaurants. The options are as diverse as DC’s population itself. They are also a reflection of migration flow in an increasingly globalized world. [Read more…] about We Are What We Eat

Guess What PR Scores a Win for Women’s Health in Portugal

It’s a pleasure to announce that our GLOBALHealthPR partner in Portugal, Guess What PR, has won the Merit Award for Excellence in Communication in the category of Communication and Social Responsibility during the Portuguese Association of Corporate Communication (APCE)‘s 2013 Awards event! The annual APCE Gala was held in Lisbon on the evening of Tuesday, 16 July.

In late June, as Singapore’s PSI (Pollutant Standards Index) levels shot up to record-breaking levels on the back of haze originating from forest fires in Indonesia’s Sumatra island, Mileage saw an opportunity to release a campaign about eye health in light of the haze situation. The haze affected many parts of the region, and blanketed Singapore in thick smog for more than a week. High concentration of particulate matter in the air meant a potential increase in the number of people suffering from eye ailments. Hence, the release would prove timely to educate the general public with tips and precautions to take during the haze situation, while increasing the public profile of our client – Shinagawa LASIK & Eye Centre.

[Read more…] about Make Hay (Haze) When the Sun Doesn’t Shine

Last week, Frannie Marmorstein and I were thrilled to head up to New York City to attend the PR News Platinum Awards Luncheon. We attended on behalf of Spectrum and GLOBALHealthPR, our partnership of international health care communications specialists, as a finalist in the “Pro Bono” category for our work on The Progeria Research Foundation’s (PRF) “Find the Other 150 Campaign”. And we won! This recognition, among the best of the best in the industry, was an honor for everyone involved in the campaign, and hopefully it will inspire others in the industry to leverage global collaboration for a cause they are passionate about.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Progeria, it is an extremely rare, rapid aging disease that causes children to age prematurely. Children with Progeria die of heart attacks or strokes at an average age of 13 years, so time is not on our side as we work to identify children around the world.

But this award isn’t the first time an important win has come out of this campaign. Every time a child is identified as a result of the campaign, it’s a win: a win for the child, because he or she will get the unique medical care he or she needs, a win for the child’s family, and a win for PRF, because these children help to advance research toward treatments and the cure for Progeria. We’ve identified 26 to date, a 48% increase in just two years (and 2 more since we submitted our entry for the award)!

We’ve blogged about the “Find the Other 150” campaign before. But the results keep getting better and better. In October 2009, only 54 children living with Progeria had been identified around the world. But experts believed that another 150 children around the world had not yet been identified or diagnosed. GLOBALHealthPR approached PRF about launching a global awareness campaign to search for unidentified children with Progeria. When the campaign began, PRF’s medical director said that if even ONE child was identified, the campaign would be a success. No one expected that we would be so successful so quickly.

So here we are two years and 26 children later (now totaling 80 children around the world with Progeria), and our campaign is going strong. Receiving the PR News Platinum Award at last week’s luncheon was a wonderful reward for our great work. But this campaign is nowhere close to finished. We will continue to work with our GLOBALHealthPR partners until we accomplish what we set out to do – Find the Other 150. And every time a new child is found and gets the support they need, that’s a win for us.

The evolution of Health 2.0 in our data-driven world calls for a shift in the way health organizations locate and communicate with their target audiences. While health challenges abound in local communities and on a global scale, so does the potential within the communication tools and technology that we hold.

Spectrum’s team of health communicators from across the globe will converge in Washington, D.C. on May 18th from 9-10:30 a.m. ET to present data and reveal insight from a global listening program. The listening program was conducted in 11 countries to assess the impact and conversation around malaria. During tomorrow’s event, the International Healthcare Social Media Summit team will discuss the implications for the data found, as well as offer insight into strategies for using digital tools to benefit national and international healthcare organizations today. For more information about the summit and to register, please visit the event page. You can also view live-streaming of the summit or follow the conversation on Twitter: #ihsms.

We are thrilled to be working with our GLOBALHealthPR network on this first of its kind event. Bringing the partners together, in one centralized place, to explore the ins and outs of social media is something that I’m personally really excited to be a part of. In the days following the event, Spectrum is hosting GLOBALHealthPR’s 2011 Annual General Meeting. Network partners from South America to Europe to the Asia Pacific will meet at our D.C. office to discuss network business, exchange best practices and enjoy each other’s company.

Stay tuned for photos, tweets, videos and more from the IHSMS and the annual meeting…