Attn healthcare professionals/students..the boards.ie medical blog

tallaght01

Following on from the suggestions about a combined blog in the "asylum seekers" thread (how appropriate),who would actually be willing to get involved?

I think the plan would be for a range of different healthcare professionals and students to contribute, so as we don't all have to go part-time in our jobs to keep it going.

It works well at www.drrant.net, where a team of doctors keep the site going. But ours could be unique, in that we could have a range of people with different background and perspectives contributing.

There's a blog hosting site at www.blogger.com which we could use, although, as I'm clueless about these things, all input is welcome!

So, if you're interested, or if you have any suggestions, post here. let's get a provisional list going.

Might also be a good idea for people to post links to good medical/nursing/pharmacy/biomedical scientist etc blogs here, so we can see what's already out there.

From the medicine perspective, the most popular blog on the web is www.nhsblogdoc.blogspot.com although he's on sabbatical for a couple of months.

I'm about to go to New Zealand for a year, but have a month off in the meantime as of wednesday, so Id probably have time to set up the site etc.

Are there any good irish medical blogs?


is this thing a runner?

tallaght01

For those who are interested, I've managed to find one Irish medical blog. It's called "The bitter pill" and it can be found at

http://thebitterpill.wordpress.com/

It's not bad, but as it's written by a busy junior doc, it's not updated very regularly. It also doesn't detail the doctor's day to day experiences in the hospital. It's mostly an account of his/her opinions on the healthcare system.

It's an interesting read though.

faceman

great idea for a blog.

DrIndy

Add me to the list, got a lot to rant about!

Vorsprung

I'll add in some observations as I come across them.

Some things for a possible list of topics:

Low rate of vaccinations in Ireland
Medical cards (in the sense that someone on minimum wage doesn't get one)

I'll think of more later

wheresthebeef

i call the post of resident student nurse!!!

tallaght01

OK, so that's not a bad response for less than 24 hours.

So far we have:

1) Me

2) DrIndy

3) Bigjimthefirst (medical student?)

4) Wheresthebeef

Good effort. Tomorrow (wednesday) I finish my life in the NHS, so will have a few weeks off work. I'm going to get us a blogger page after my final shift.

WE're going to need the following:

-A name for the blog

-Some kind of place where we can have a private forum or something similiar where we can discuss the blog ourselves, and give out the passwords to enable us to post, discuss ground rules etc. Is there anything like that on the web? MSN usergroups or something? I don't know.

- Some more punters. I guess anyone who works in healthcare/biomedical sciences is welcome, or students of these disciplines. Are there any ambulance men who might be interested, for example? There's a guy called Tom Reynolds who writes a paramedic blog in the UK. It's so successful he's getting a book of his posts published. Would be an interesting perspective on things.

Anyone else who wants in, please post here ASAP

faceman

You can request a private forum on boards in the forums section. If approved the admins will grant one of your mod ship and you can decide on who has access.

littlebug

Do health/ health service researchers qualify? I wouldn't have much to add to the blog given that I don't actually work very much at the minute but I would like to have access to keep up to date on your musings...

tallaght01

faceman wrote:

You can request a private forum on boards in the forums section. If approved the admins will grant one of your mod ship and you can decide on who has access.

Is this an option? DrIndy, could you request this forum? They might be more inclined to oblige an existing mod?

tallaght01

littlebug wrote:

Do health/ health service researchers qualify? I wouldn't have much to add to the blog given that I don't actually work very much at the minute but I would like to have access to keep up to date on your musings...

Littlebug, it would be a public blog, so anybody could read it and keep up to date. The private forum would just be for us to set it up, but we'll be publishing it on the web.

Bison

tallaght01 wrote:

- Some more punters. I guess anyone who works in healthcare/biomedical sciences is welcome, or students of these disciplines.

Anyone else who wants in, please post here ASAP

I'm a pre-clinical med student. I can't promise a regular post but will write on things as they crop up.

tallaght01

Right guys,

I've sorted a site for the blog.

I'm terribly sorry, but I had to give the blog a name and a web address before it would let me start.
So, I've taken the liberty of calling the blog "two weeks on a trolley". That is by no means set in stone, and I imagine it could be altered reasonably easily.

I've also had to pick a template. But, again, that's up for change if the other authors want it.

Our blog can be found at www.twoweeksonatrolley.blogspot.com

I've started the "profile" by writing about me. Anyone else who's joining in can add a bit about themselves.

I might even make a blog entry tonight, just to get the ball rolling and to get used to the system.

DrIndy, can you see what you can do regarding a private forum, so I can give out passwords etc.

Also, can anybody who's posted above who's DEFINITELY interested in being involved in this please PM me. That way I can start giving out passwords straight away etc.

I guess we should look for a minimum commitment of a blog entry from each person every 10days or so.

No reason why we can't get this off the ground reasonably quickly.

DrIndy

I've put in a request into the forums forum concerning this, count me in!

GuanYin

I support this. Can only offer overseas insight Vs what I experienced in Ireland.

faceman

delighted to see this taking momentum for yizzer. Best of luck with it.

angeldelight

I'm definitely interested but I'm only a student so I'm not sure exactly how helpful I can be. I'd like to be included though

tallaght01

Bril, we're doing pretty well with numbers here.

Like I said earlier, can anyone who genuinely wants in, and is willing to contribute regularly, drop me a PM and I'll send you the passwords etc.

Many thanks to DrIndy for putting a forum request out there. Hopefully that will work out.

We could still do with a nurse (I've PMd nurseBaz to see if he'd be interested) and possibly somebody from the ambulance service. Anyone got any ideas of people I could PM who do either of these jobs?

tallaght01

So I've posted our first blog entry. Sorry it's a bit morbid, but I guess a blog is about what's going on with you at a given time.

Hopefully more posters will follow soon!

*belle*

Just had a look there and i must say its very good.well done and i hope ye get the support to keep it going.

That first entry is so sad,it really makes you think though!

tallaght01

Thanks for the kind words Belle, hope you keep reading. Use the comments section on the blog site to let us know how we can make it better, if you like.

for the bloggers:

here's the stuff on patient confdentiality that we need to stick rigidly to.
This has to be our number 1 priority.

These are the guidelines that other medical bloggers have been using:


http://hipaa.yale.edu/guidance/

in particular the following:


PHI and ePHI

ePHI stands for Electronic Protected Health Information. It is any protected health information (PHI) which is created, stored, transmitted, or received electronically. Protected Health Information (PHI) under HIPAA means any information that identifies an individual and relates to at least one of the following:

The individual's past, present or future physical or mental health.
The provision of health care to the individual.
The past, present or future payment for health care.
Information is deemed to identify an individual if it includes either the individual's name or any other information that could enable someone to determine the individual's identity. Identifiers

Data are “individually identifiable” if they include any of the 18 types of identifiers, listed below, for an individual or for the individual's employer or family member, or if the provider or researcher is aware that the information could be used, either alone or in combination with other information, to identify an individual:

Name
Address (all geographic subdivisions smaller than state, including street address, city, county, ZIP code)
All elements (except years) of dates related to an individual (including birth date, admission date, discharge date, date of death and exact age if over 89)
Telephone numbers
FAX number
E-mail address
Social Security number
Medical record number
Health plan beneficiary number
Account number
Certificate/license number
Any vehicle or other device serial number
Device identifiers or serial numbers
Web URL
Internet Protocol (IP) address numbers
Finger or voice prints
Photographic images
Any other characteristic that could uniquely identify the individual
Instead of removing the data, sometimes making the information more general is sufficient for de-identification; for example, replacing birth date with an age range.

See also the HIPAA policy on de-identification.

The “e” in ePHI

ePHI includes any medium used to store, transmit, or receive PHI electronically.

Examples include:

Personal Computers with their internal hard drives used at work, home, or traveling
External portable hard drives, including iPods
Magnetic tape or disks
Removable storage devices such as USB memory sticks/keys, CDs, DVDs, and floppy diskettes
PDA’s, smartphones
Electronic transmission includes data exchange (e.g., email or file transfer) via wireless, ethernet, modem, DSL or cable network connections.
As technology progresses, any new devices for accessing, transmitting, or receiving ePhi electronically will be covered by the HIPAA Security Rule.

tallaght01

Oh, and we now have a second post! I can't keep up with this pace.

tallaght01

Another "first" for the blog today....another blogger has just added us to her "Blogroll".

http://biopsy.wordpress.com/

As she gets lots of hits, I think we're now officially famous :P

Dr Galen

count me in lads and lasses.

god this cross-professional working is taking off ain't it. imagaine what'll it be like in 20 years time when some of us like-minded insightful heads are running the show

tallaght01

Just loking at www.drrant.net, which is the 2nd most popular medical blog in the blogosphere. It will be number 1 now that www.nhsblogdoc.blogspot is taking a break.

Dr rant runs a feature called "The BritMeds". It's a rundown of the best medical blogs online. Guess what.....Two Weeks on a Trolley has made it onto the list!!!!

Go to the Dr Rant website, and check us out :P

snorlax

+support if you need an Occupational therapist

tallaght01

Snorlax,
PM me if you're interested, you have something to say, and you can commit to a post every 7-10 days. We're a bit slow getting off the ground at the moment, so if you're up for it, drop me a message and I'll send you passwords etc.

John

Looks good, the two posts were both interesting reading (the first one was especially poignant). I did express interest in this but I don't know how much I would be able to contribute considering I'm quite peripheral to health care, all research and none of it directly medical.

tallaght01

John,
If you want in, and you feel you have something to say, then PM me. Basic science research is as important to healthcare as being a hospital worker with direct patient contact.

Maybe you can inform the punters about new and exciting scientific advances. Bear in mind, it's fellow nerds like me who read blogs. We love science!

The question is whether you can link it to healthcare.

But get in touch if you want in.

Btw, I've just posted our 3rd entry,

Dr Galen

any word on the private forum yet?

John

Not yet but add your support to the request here.

Vorsprung

I was just looking at a few other blogs there (e.g drrant). It looks like they have just one admin account, and then loads of other accounts who are allowed to post there.

Just wondering if it would be an idea to change to something like that? It would be clearer who's posting, and we could bling up our profiles a bit more!

tallaght01

That's exactly what I want to do, Jim.

However, I'm going to wait until we have a few posters on board before I set that up. A load of people currently have the password, but nobody has posted anything yet. I suspect many won't.

So what I was planning to do was set up an account similiar to the one at drrant.net, and invite anybody who looks like they'll be a regular poster.

I'll be away next weekend, so I'm hoping to do that on monday.

Vorsprung

^Cool.

I'm away for a few weeks now, then 8 weeks of Paeds. If misery stories about finals and studying for them entertain people, watch this space.