Therapists and school counselors no longer just meet with students in their offices. Now they check them out on Facebook. Researchers are looking to Facebook, Twitter and other social media to “hear cries for help” and to offer information and support, according to a story by Perri Klass, MD, at The New York Times.
Klass interviewed Dr. Megan Moreno, a specialist in adolescent medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who originally researched what kids said about themselves online, looking at “adolescents who displayed evidence of risky behaviors on public MySpace profiles, posting photos or statements that referred to sexual activity or substance abuse.”
But her new research has found that social media may be an opening into improving both physical and mental health for adolescents.
It might not seem like it, with people delaying hospital care, doctor’s visits and prescription drug purchases for the second year in a row. But national health spending actually rose a slight 3.9 percent in 2010, according to a story by Robert Pear.
Pear writes that a recent report by the federal government noted that the recession pulled down the growth of health spending, “as many people lost jobs, income and health insurance.” The study was published in the journal Health Affairs. Continuing pressure from the recession and its after-effects lowered the growth of health spending, which totaled $2.6 trillion, or 17.9 percent of the economy, in 2010, according to the government’s annual study of health trends, according to Pear.
Looks like WebMD may need its own doctor. The company announced that its president and CEO Wayne T. Gattinella resigned from the health-care-information company, according to a story by Tess Stynes at the Wall Street Journal. And its projected revenue will come in as much as two to eight percent lower than 2011, with most of the declines in the first half of the year, according to Stynes, with analysts projecting “revenue growth of one percent for next year,” according to the story.
That’s not the worst of it. WebMD also expects expenses will rise as much as five percent to eight percent. The company also said it is no longer for sale.
They used to be about as common as ice storms in August. Now they’re like ice storms, in, well, you know. Patient data breaches, that is. The Ponemon Institute estimated, after a recent survey, that data breaches could be costing the U.S. healthcare industry between $4.2 billion and $8.1 billion a year, or an average of $6.5 billion.
And here we go again in California. An employee at Loma Linda University Medical Center who took home work-related information has forced the healthcare institution to notify 1,336 patients of a possible breach of their protected health information, according to healthdatamanagement.com. And in Texas, protected health information for more than 3,000 patients at San Antonio-based Stone Oak Urgent Care & Family Practice happened to be on five computers that were stolen in October.
UnitedHealth Group will join in strategic partnerships with three health technology companies that offer mobile products and services designed to help improve consumers’ health and well-being, Jill Gilbert reports at digitalhealth.com. The solutions were demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. UnitedHealth Group’s new business partners — CareSpeak Communications, Lose It! and Fitbit —help users find information on smartphones and other mobile devices.
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Deborah DiSesa Hirsch is an award-winning health and technology writer who has worked for newspapers, magazines and IBM in her 20-year career. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by
Jennifer Russell
