Leveraging Technology I: The Basics: Web 2.0 and RSS
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Via The Power of Media Blog. Click image to visit.
Last week, I gave a 30 minute demonstration and lecture to students illustrating how to utilize RSS and RSS Readers, specifically Google Reader, in accessing research, information, and discussion specific to physical therapy students and clinicians. The next series of posts will explain:
- Basic concepts of RSS and Google Reader
- Selection of content: Which journals we should be reading and WHY
- Review and critique some of blogs that I follow
- Finally, discuss the use of social media and Web 2.o principles, including Twitter, to not merely access information, but engage in critique, debate, and discussion.
Web 1.0 to Web 2.0
In the beginning, Al Gore created the internet. And, that internet was very much like navigating our highway system. You merged on, with or without a map, and started exploring. You searched, found, and read relatively stagnant content published by others. If there was a website you enjoyed you added it to your bookmarks folder. Then you had to visit the website regularly to check for updated content. That is Web 1.0. With the rise of blogs, Facebook, and now Twitter, users are not just recipients of content. Now, users can edit content (i.e. commenting on a blog or news article) and create content (i.e. Facebook and Twitter). This is Web 2.0: User generated content. Engaging, critiquing, editing, adding, and publishing content in real time!
What is RSS?
RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication. RSS is a specialized URL (usually ends in .xml) that feeds information from a website to an RSS Reader. It is a way to receive information from a website without actually visiting that website. For example, a podcast is a type of RSS feed that has an audio file at the center of each new post. Research journals and blogs all usually have RSS feeds.
What is an RSS Reader?
An RSS Reader, or Aggregator, is a software program that collects and displays information pushed from RSS links/feeds. A reader is similar to an e-mail inbox, except this is an inbox for the internet! No more bookmarking or remembering [forgetting] to visit different websites, journals, blogs, and online resources. The RSS Feed pushes new information to your RSS Reader allowing YOU to stay automatically updated on any new content from a blog, research journal, website, or even a PubMed search. Journals, blogs, websites (like ESPN), and most online resources now have RSS feeds.
There are browser-based readers and desktop based readers. Many readers also feature mobile apps, allowing you to access your RSS Reader Information on your smartphone. I utilize Google Reader, but of course there are other options.
Why RSS?
RSS Feeds and Readers save time and energy by pushing information directly to you. You then decide what to skim, what to skip, what to read later, and what to read now. There is absolutely no way you could access the same amount of information by surfing the net and bookmarking. RSS allows you to organize an inbox for the internet which broadens not only the volume, but the perspective of information you engage, share, and participate in. The scope of information pushed to you is limited only by your imagination. Plus, you only have to add an RSS to your reader once!
That is the basics regarding RSS. Hopefully, if you are not already utilizing RSS this outlined some of the advantages. The next post in the series will detail how to set up Google Reader.
Resources
- What is RSS? on ProBlogger.net
- Information to YOU! RSS and RSS Readers on AAOMPT Student Special Interest Group Blog
- RSS Info Detailed website dedicated to RSS information and history
- RSS Feeds for Physiotherapy by Rachael Lowe
Videos
- RSS In Plain English
- Getting Started with Google Reader
- Monitoring Research using Google Reader by Mike Pascoe [includes how to make a pubmed search into an RSS feed]
Slide Design in Physical Therapy: A Case Study
A recent survey shows that most of us view at least 25 slide presentations per year. This is most certainly true for physical therapists, whether it is an in-service at the clinic or sessions at annual conferences.
Of the dozens of presentations, how many are memorable? What makes a presentation memorable? Aside from a story that resonates with your audience, engaging slide design is they key to sharing your message.
In this post I will illustrate what I mean by “engaging slide design” using a recent experience in which I was entrusted with a slide deck from a colleague who asked me to “jazz it up a little”. You see, I let this colleague in on my little secret – I am a presentation snob! Let’s get started…
Title Slide
Before
I did not like all of the logos on this slide. The “four corners” look really takes your eye away from the purpose of having this slide: to convey the TITLE of your talk and your name. Also presents too many font types and gives an eclectic feel to the slide. If you have a good introduction, which is not always the case, your audience will know where you’re from and who you represent. Presumably they also know that they are sitting in a chair at AAOMPT. I would also argue that only Johnny needs to be listed on the slide and to remove “Presenter:”. Mintken and Struessel can be moved to an acknowledgement slide. A black slide background is not a good choice, especially if your audience is going to attempt printing them out later.
After
One logo, one presenter name, no background color. Credentials are impressive but can take up more characters than your name and so I prefer to leave them off. I also convinced Dr. Mintken to finally join Twitter. You can learn more about Twitter use in physical therapy from this recorded lecture. Basically, by providing his Twitter user name “@PMintkenDPT” he is giving his audience a way to share content from his talk with others not in the room and providing a venue for discussions about his work long after the talk is over. It is 2011 and didn’t you know Twitter is the new Facebook?
Background Slides
Before
Time to build up your story by explaining why things are the way they are today, a.k.a. the background slide. This slide is typical of all slides in the “Before” deck, a title with bullet points, not one single image, redundant logos in the top corners, and a stock theme from PowerPoint.
After
In the first 60 seconds of your talk your audience is sizing you up and determining if they want to pay attention, you better grab them early! I suggest a full bleed, high-quality photo of a joint manipulation. The audience knows what they’re in for and they also have a better emotional response to a photo then a bunch of text. I confess that I did use bullet points here, but this is one of the only slides I used them. I felt that it was appropriate here because I am listing several items in the same class, terms for spinal manipulation.
Before
After #1
I really wanted an image to demonstrate how much research on the effectiveness of joint manipulation is out there – a stack of papers.
After #2
I used a photo of a classroom for the question – Are students receiving the education?
Before
Every talk with a research component needs to discuss what has been published previously. Here we see what is typical, a bulleted summary of the results.
After #1
It is also very common to put a screenshot of the title and author on your slide. I’ve been playing with a different way of showing the reference to the audience by capturing a screenshot of the top and sides of the paper and putting it into the slide with a shadow dropped behind it. The effect is that there is a physical paper out in front of you. Then I took a page from Garr Reynolds and built in the “56 %” in huge characters on top of the image of the article.
After #2
I also transformed the bulleted list of reasons why joint manipulation was not taught into a table.
Before
Here is another example of a slide that is covering the results of a previous study.
After
What I did here was magnify the bottom line of the study – 54% of clinical instructors reported not teaching joint manipulation. Again in a huge font, with an image of a PT clinic that reflects the fact that this lack of instruction on joint manipulation is happening in the clinic (where everyone in the audience also works).
Before
The presenter wanted to draw attention to the fact that some time had passed between when these studies above were published and when this talk was given. And did so with a text box.
After
I wanted to again use imagery to get a gut reaction for the audience. What happened in 2005 that really shows a large amount of time has passed? A pop culture image would surely connect with the audience. This is were Napoleon Dynamite can in to save the day. The presenter wanted to demonstrate that 5/6 years is a long time and I would argue that it feels like ages since since classic lines such as, “I told you! I spent the summer with my uncle in Alaska hunting wolverines!”
Methods
Before
People want to know how you did the research your presenting – the Methods. Here I saw another opportunity to transform bullet points into graphics.
After
The large blue circle represents the Program Directors and the small ones are the students that received the survey distributed from the Directors.
Results
Before
The data could be conveyed more effectively by using graphics over bullet points. But how?
After #1
Because the data were based on geography, a map immediately came to mind. You tell your audience that 38 states participated in your survey and they are probably wondering “was my state one of them?” I downloaded a vector graphic of the USA from wikipedia and filled in the relavanet states in Adobe Illustrator.
After #2
What about percentages? A pie chart works well to quickly show proportions. Put yourself in your audience’s place: while you are talking do you really want your audience to need to read all of your bullets? The words coming out of your mouth are in direct competition with the text on your slide. Make it easier for your audience to digest!
Before
For the first bullet point, a sub bullet point is used to convey MUCH IMPROVEMENT.
After
Made the 95% larger, in green to suggest this is a good thing, and put a thumbs up graphic in place of CAPITALIZED TEXT
Before
Here was an opportunity to tell the audience WHY students were not performing the joint manipulations they were trained to do.
After
Great opportunity to add some video into the talk. It is one thing for Dr. Mintken to stand up front and read quotes from students. It is a much better thing for him to show video testimonials from the actual students themselves.
To conclude…
So, all of these changes were made to this slide deck. How did it go? The presenter (Dr. Mintken) was pleased with his delivery of the talk, which is a good thing. For the remainder of the four day conference, every time someone approached Dr. Mintken the first words our of their mouth were “that was a really great talk!”
Here are some great books that have influenced my approach to slide design – Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds – slideology by Nancy Duarte
I would love to hear your thoughts on how the slides changed in the comments section below.
- Mike
Post Series: Leveraging Technology for Research, Evidence, and Discussion
Via www.problogger.net What is RSS? Click image to link to post!
This week I will be giving a lecture in the Scientific Inquiry course at the Physical Therapy Program of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Recently Mike Pascoe posted about Papers a Mac based application that allows for streamlined organization of PDF’s.
My talk will focus on how to utilize Real Simple Syndication (RSS) Feeds and Readers (such as Google Reader) to improve access and engagement of information. This includes information from journals, blogs, websites, and even pub-med searches pushed directly to you. I have written about this topic before at the AAOMPT Student Special Interest Group in a post entitled Information to You! RSS Feeds and RSS Readers. That post detailed how to set up Google Reader and gave a list of some blogs/journals.
Afterwards, I will also publish a series of posts about how to utilize various RSS tools. It will focus on RSS feeds and readers from set up through advanced use. I will also outline why you should be following and reading specific journals. Then, I will provide critiques of various blogs. Twitter and Physiopedia will be briefly discussed. Lastly, I will outline how we can improve our discussion and scientific debate through these tools with an eye towards the future. This is not a new topic, but I hope to bring a lot of information together to aid in how YOU leverage online tools for learning, debate, and collaboration. If you have any specific requests, please comment!
These tools allow individuals from around the world and across various disciplines/specialities to share information. Further, as Mike Pascoe mentioned in his recent talk regarding twitter, journal articles are being critiqued before the print version has even been released!
Via Flickr: Courtesy of Laurel Papworth & Gary Hayes at laurelpapworth.com and personalizemedia.com
We are truly in an exciting time. Online tools and collaboration in medicine and health are approaching a tipping point. We can leverage these tools to improve physical therapy, medicine, and the entire health care system from education to research to patient care to patient education to documentation to inter-professional communication…
The Value of a Patient Portal: Increasing Compliance While Reducing Cost
As patients become more and more interested in engaging and communicating with their healthcare providers online, the demand for portal applications will only increase. Patients are looking for innovative ways to access their health information and care providers – what better way than online patient portals?
Portals are healthcare related online applications that allow patients to interact with their healthcare providers through secure websites or integrated electronic medical records (EMRs). These applications can give patients the ability to request prescription refills, make appointments, receive medical reminders, view billing statements, and ask providers questions about ongoing treatment regimens (2). The key is engagement and it’s a growing trend among individuals who expect the most out of their provider‐patient relationships.
While portals empower patients to take control of their treatment and recovery, they hold even greater potential for healthcare providers. In particular, these platforms can substantially enhance the quality of physical therapy care. Compliance is an overarching issue for ensuring proper recovery during the physical rehabilitative process. Think home exercise regimens, post‐surgical contraindications, body mechanics… physical therapists always have so much to communicate and monitor. As we discussed in past blogs, compliance plays a direct role in patient outcomes. Portals provide a secure platform for sending important messages directly to patients and monitoring their compliance at the clinic and outside of it. The downstream effects are increased efficiency and productivity, reduction in administrative overhead costs and improved patient outcomes. These applications also allow therapists to expand their practices’ reach by providing innovative solutions for patients that are geographically inaccessible.
So, you may well ask: is now really the time to integrate this type of technology in my practice? In a recent survey conducted by Intuit Health, 73% of respondents said that they would use an online communication application to pay medical bills, communicate with their physician or physician office, make appointments and view lab results (1). More than 40% said they would consider switching physicians in order to obtain such access. Research such as this makes it clear that patients are eager to adopt such applications and now is the time for providers to get on board.
The use of portal technology is inevitable as patients take control of their health and demand two‐way communication platforms from their providers. As we innovate around ways to increase the quality of care provided to patients, the integration of secure portals should become a mainstay for effective clinical practice.
Resources
1. Shinkman, R. 2011. Americans want more online access to physicians, FierceHealthIT, http://www.fiercehealthit.com/story/americans‐want‐more‐online‐access‐physicians/2011‐03‐07.
2. Terry, K. 2011. Patient portal use becoming an inevitability, ForceHealthIT, http://www.fiercehealthit.com/story/patient‐portal‐use‐becoming‐inevitability/2011‐04‐23.
This guest post was co‐authored by Bronwyn Spira, P.T., President of Force Therapeutics and Mark Anthony Fields, Ph.D., M.P.H, Digital Media Associate of Force Therapeutics. Force Therapeutics is an online suite of solutions tailored for the busy physical therapist. Force Therapeutics can be found at www.forcetherapeutics.com, www.facebook.com/forcetherapeutics, or www.twitter.com/ForceTherEx.
Avoiding the Breach: Is our patient data really protected?
Electronic health records (EHRs) are the future of the provider‐patient relationship. As the storage, retrieval and sharing of information via EHR accelerates, providers benefit from the most accurate and up‐to‐date information available. The delivery of care is optimized through these systems giving providers the information necessary to make the most effective clinical decisions for their patients.
The issue of patient security is an ongoing concern. Privacy of our medical data is one of the cornerstones of our healthcare system. This code of confidentiality empowers patients to share critical information with providers and, in turn, allows them to make the most appropriate diagnosis and plan of care necessary. In a recent blog entitled Living on a Cloud, we discussed how physical therapists are beginning to embrace ‘cloud computing’ as the new standard for accessing patient information any time and anywhere without having to purchase a server, upload a program or even back up their information. We emphasized that these services must provide Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant user logins to ensure patient‐therapist confidentiality and should be SSL encrypted to the level required by CMS guidelines.
So, just as with our financial information we must ask the same questions concerning our patient data: Is this data vulnerable to internet attacks and security breaches? What precautions are providers taking to avoid these issues?
Here are some facts on EHR security. A recent study conducted by the consulting firm, Software Advice, found that security breaches of patient data through internet hacking only account for a small percentage (6%) of HIPAA violations (2, 3). A majority (63%) actually came from physical theft and unauthorized access or disclosure (16%). Of EHR violations, all involved on‐premise violations as opposed to ‘cloud based’ breaches. The author of the study points out that, “HIPAA violations aren’t happening in the cloud, rather, they’re happening in the doctor’s office, hospital IT closets, cars, subways, and homes.” In order to continue the safety of patient data, providers need to take precautions to comply with HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification Rules (1). These include:
• Ensuring that any disclosure of patient information comply with HIPAA Privacy Rule
• Ensure the service performs a HIPAA Security Rule risk analysis indentifying potential threats and vulnerabilities to protected health information
• Ensure that service conforms to the HIPAA Breach Notification Rule which requires the reporting of breaches of protected health information
It is clear that EHRs can enhance the quality of patient care and that taking the necessary precautions to protect privacy is a crucial step to ensure that our healthcare system moves closer to a paperless practice model.
Resources
1. Dolan, B. 2011. Mobile Health: How to Comply with HIPAA, mobihealthnews, http://mobihealthnews.com/11272/mobile‐health‐how‐to‐comply‐with‐hipaa/.
2. Koploy, M. 2011. HHS Data Tells the True Story of HIPAA Violations in the Cloud, http://www.softwareadvice.com/articles/medical/hipaa‐violations‐arent‐in‐the‐cloud‐1062011/#ixzz1TYEUKe4G.
3. Simmons, j. 2011. Can ‘clouds’protect patient data from security breaches?, FierceEMR, http://www.fierceemr.com/story/can‐clouds‐protect‐patient‐data‐security‐breaches/2011‐06‐23.
This guest post was co‐authored by Bronwyn Spira, P.T., President of Force Therapeutics and Mark Anthony Fields, Ph.D., M.P.H. Force Therapeutics can be found at www.forcetherapeutics.com, www.facebook.com/forcetherapeutics, or www.twitter.com/ForceTherEx.
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The online encyclopedia of Physical Therapy.
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