Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Digital Revolution in Health Care

How the digital revolution will create better health care? Mobile wireless digital devices, including smartphones and tablets with seemingly limitless functionality, have brought about radical changes in our lives, providing hyper-connectivity to social networks and cloud computing. But the digital world has hardly pierced the medical cocoon. The most precious part of our existence-our health-has been insulated from this digital revolution. How could this be? Medicine is remarkably conservative. That is about to change.     We will be soon checking our vital signs on our phone. What if your cell phone could detect cancer cells circulating in your blood or warn you of an imminent heart attack? According to Eric Topol, practicing cardiologist and leading voice on the digital revolution in medicine, innovative technology will improve patients outcome and lowers cost. "Digital medicine"refers to the ability to digitize human beings, by a variety of means (sequencing, wireless sensors, imaging and health information). It is about being able to remotely and continuously monitor each heart rhythm, moment-to-moment blood pressure readings, the rate and depth of breathing, body temperature, oxygen concentration in the blood, glucose, brain waves while we sleep-all the things that makes us tick. He talks to Dr. Nancy Snyderman about how technology can capture all the relevant data from each individual to enable precision therapy, prevent major side effects of medications. And yet many of these digital medical innovations lie unused because of the medical community's profound resistance to change.
In his book The Creative Destruction of Medicine, Eric Topol argues that radical innovation and true democratization of medical care are within reach, but only if we as informed consumers will demand it. We can force medicine to undergo its biggest shakeup in history.
Read the full article by Forbes contributor John Nosta here: Eric Topol, MD Speaks Out On Digital Health
Q: What “home runs” have you seen in digital health that exemplify the future?
There are already a few but let me just describe the impact of one. I believe the portable high-resolution ultrasound (Vscan or Mobisante) represents a home run to replace the stethoscope for heart, abdominal and fetal examinations. We validated the Vscan compared with the standard hospital lab echo-cardiogram (Annals Internal Medicine, 2011). To have such high quality imaging done anywhere “flattens the earth” –not just all over the planet, but from a paramedic in the field or an emergency room doctor—to simply acquire the image and transmit the video loop to a radiologist or cardiologist expert with a rapid read and text back.
Q:What are some “bold and aggressive” predictions that will catch our readers off guard? 
I believe that DNA sequencing and other omics (RNAseq, microbiome, epigenomics, metabolomics) will be used up front for most cancers, serious difficult to diagnose conditions, and as the mainstay for new drug development. Perhaps one of the biggest will be embedded nanosensors, in our bloodstream, that put our bodies under constant surveillance and prevent particular conditions such as autoimmune, cancer, or heart attacks—by capturing a specific bio-signal and transmitting that to the smartphone. It’s a little ways off, but might be especially transformative. It brings a lot of digital medicine together and exemplifies what all this technology can achieve.
Dr. Eric Topol participates in the opening keynote address for the January 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Over 150,000 consumers, techies, international corporations and delegates were part of the largest convention held in the city. His presentation opened my eyes to the possibilities in front of us within the next 5 years. Technology will create "smart medical homes" and can help monitor health for aging Americans. Why we all should listen to him?
Eric J. Topol, MD is an American cardiologist, professor of genomics, and a leading voice on the digital revolution in medicine. He is the chief academic officer of Scripps Health and co-founder of the West Wireless Health Institute in La Jolla,  California. He was named Doctor of the Decade for being one of the top 10 most cited medical researchers. Eric Topol was selected as one of the 12 "Rock Stars of Science" by GQ and the Geoffrey Beene Foundation in 2009. Today he is the most influential physician executive in United States.
Affirmation for the day:
Smartphones make taking care of yourself more of a game, Dr. Topol said." I recommend these devices because it makes it more fun and I get more readings than if I ask them to do it manually."
Now we'd love to hear from you. What do you think? Lana & Jack
P.S. Neil Versel listed most of the technologies from clip on his blog here: mobihealthnews.com 

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Content is a new currency

 [Picture from Corine La Font]
At recent webinar Marie Forleo revealed that an estimated 3 billion more people will be online by the year 2020. More than 80% of people will go online to review a product before purchasing it. There are review sites, blogs and forums, to name a few. If your product or service is not online then you are at risk of losing out on potential sales and new customers. 
Wanna have a successful and profitable business? Then join online community and keep reading... 
It's not necessarily about doing more, it's about being smart. Having a good content in any form and published on the Internet can be worth a lot. It may not be in monetary terms all the time, but it is worth money in the end.
Basically you need to provide some valuable information or entertainment- content- that stops short of a direct sales pitch or call to action. This information can be presented in a variety of media, including news, eNewsletters, articles, white papers, infographics, case studies, how-to's, or Q & A's, games, etc... Share pictures , videos, podcast, e-books, even stories using the main platforms for business like Google+, Yelp, Youtube, Pinterest and Pixable.  You don't need to do them all, begin with couple and grow into the rest. According to a study by the Content Marketing Institute, over 90% of Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) marketers use one or more methods of Content Marketing on a company website. 
So you have to find creative ways for your readers to consume the information. In other words, you need to find out how best to reach or communicate with your target audience. Clearly the intent is to attract an audience to the content. Content is king, as they say. Spend a good deal of time mapping out exactly what you want to say. Content is the foundation of your website or blog becoming successful. If you want people to visit your site there has to be a reason why.
The Millennial Generation (the largest, currently composed of 1.8 billion people) has expectations of media that are often better met by Content Marketing than by intrusive traditional advertising. If you like to read about different business ideas, check this article here: 17 Lessons Learned
Photo: 401K.
 As always, thank you for visiting our blog. 
We look forward to hearing from you in the comments below.
Lana & Jack

Thursday, February 7, 2013

A Case Study on Marie Forleo

In this video Tony Robbins interviews Marie Forleo for The New Money Masters Program. They discuss how Marie went from trading on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, to working for various magazines, and finally determining what her life purpose was. This Tony Robbins interview proves that you can start with nothing and transform your life into one of purpose, success and happiness.

 
A Case Study on Marie Forleo
So how exactly does Marie Forleo start with a one-woman shop and build a digital home study courses such as Rich, Happy & Hot B-School with so much recognition that Sir Richard Branson invites her to South Africa to mentor other young entrepreneurs? Or what about developing such a powerful word of mouth engine that it stimulates a global community of 50,000 women in 108 countries? It’s nothing short of amazing!

Her 'Rich, Happy & Hot' brand is dedicated to empowering women with tools to create financial, spiritual and emotional wealth through entrepreneurship. Doing business online is the new reality and you don't have to be sleazy to succeed. In fact, if you have a product, service or message that you're committed to get out into the world...
Get inspired and take action weekly with Marie: sign here for B-school 
or check Marie Forleo web page   
Kindly share your thoughts in the comments below. You'll Thank Me Later, Lana & Jack 

Please visit  My Angel Linas Blog

Affirmation for the day:
" Everyone benefit from your happiness. Invest in YOU daily."- Marie Forleo