Why visit this Blog?

Conveying useful healthcare system information, including for organ donation and transplantation, as well as a social media emphasis.




Saturday, October 27, 2012

Using Social Media for information streaming in healthcare

Are you in health care and accessing social media for work purposes? Are you also comfortable with using some of the current social media platforms as tools for the streaming of information that meets your needs? If so, the following information is probably not new. However, if you do not fit in either of these two categories, then feel free to read on.

The amount of information related to health care is burgeoning whether it be in the form of facts, published scientific reports, or related to other day to day work processes. Much of this information is now sourced electronically including via the Internet. This situation has not gone unnoticed in some areas with there being an increasing realisation that somehow all of this needs to be managed. At times individuals can feel like they are "trying to drink from a fire hydrant" (Mitchell Kapoor) as pictured.



This same analogy was featured in a blog written by a medical student in Scientific American Blog-Unofficial Prognosis where the impact of this information deluge on medical students was explored.

So how can you use social media to help with your information needs regardless of where you are in the health sector? Plus why might this now be an increasingly important topic? First you need to gain familiarity with use of the most common social media platforms which include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Linked In (see below image). Then you need to ascertain which organizations, groups and individuals are relaying information via these platforms which can help meet your learning needs. As it turns out an increasing number of organizations are relaying important information via social media.



 


For example if you have recently joined Twitter but still feel a little unsure of how to go about finding the organizations or individuals of interest, the good news is that help is at hand. This is in the form of the Symplur hashtags project- @healthhashtags Via this Symplur web site you can find hashtags including for organizations, communities of practice(eg nursing, medicine, audiology), diseases, treatments, management and informatics. As a result of exploring the hashtags you will also be able to find relevant organizations, plus individuals on Twitter as well as their related web sites and other social media channels. As everyone has slightly different learning needs in health care, this is why it is now important that you know how to source useful information for yourself.


Finally feel free to explore, find like minded individuals and most important of all continue to learn! Also take some time to check out advice that is available on the safe use of social media platforms eg for Facebook via reputable channels including Mashable Social Media.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Organ Donation: Three essential 'A's.


You may notice that the postings on to this site mainly provide information on 3 topics - organ donation, organ transplantation and use of social media. So what would you say it you were told that there are important common messages contained within these topics? What does this represent? Well it comes down to three important words all beginning with ‘A’.

A is for Awareness, a term used frequently over the last 10-20 years for various campaigns promoting organ donation around the world. So do you think that having lots of ‘Awareness’ leads to higher organ donor rates? What would you say if you were told that the country with the highest organ donor rate in the world-Spain- does not run ‘awareness’ campaigns? Can you say that you or your family are truly aware of the importance of organ donation or what is involved? How about your friends or work colleagues? What steps have you taken to find out more about organ donation even though you may be ‘aware’ of its importance? This is where one other word beginning with ‘A’ becomes important.

A is for Action, a term used when individuals or organisations take steps to convert their ‘Awareness’ of a problem or issue into steps that lead to real change and hence results. Without taking action ‘Awareness’ on its own will not achieve any lasting impact. Probably the greatest example of awareness not leading to appropriate action for health is the world-wide obesity epidemic. Despite clear documentation of an increasing problem for e.g. CDC statistics, numerous campaigns via both media and professional organisations including, reports from the Institute of Medicine, the problem continues. You can view an Obesity info graphic from the Australian Science Media Centre which outlines the projected rates of obesity in that country if action is or is not taken.

So what do you need to do to take action on organ donation? Well first you need to find out the facts and there are a number of good web sites which include Organdonor.gov, United Kingdom NHS Then you need to talk to your family. You can also note your decision via your Facebook timeline if you wish. If you belong to an organisation with an interest in organ donation, then you will be combining Awareness with Action which are two essential components as depicted in order to help form a platform for leading and driving change

A is for Advocacy, a term used to signal the action being taken by individuals, groups or organisations who want change [or reform] to occur, including within the health care system and at policy level, for the barriers to organ donation to be overcome.


Three essential A's required for change

So there you have it, the 3 A’s as they relate to organ donation as depicted above, which is of enormous importance for organ transplantation. You cannot have one without the other two. As for social media, well this is now a conduit via which relevant information [for both Awareness and Action] is being relayed both by individuals and organisations with an Advocacy role. This is in order to facilitate the changes that are required in many countries to ensure that the maximum benefits of organ donation are realised.


Saturday, June 16, 2012

The Most Important Transplant Surgeon Conversation- Providing an Outline of the Transplant Surgical Procedure


The  most important conversation that a transplant surgeon needs to have with any potential recipient relates to the planned transplant surgical procedure. This involves describing what the actual procedure involves, as well as any potential problems that can occur with the surgery followed then by the expected post-operative course.

All transplant surgical procedures are considered major operative procedures and there are common elements which they all share-

a)     Making an appropriate incision either on the chest or the abdomen to gain the required access

b)    The surgical removal of the recipients own diseased organ in the case of the lungs, liver and heart in order to make space for the new organ to be transplanted. This also requires that some blood vessels and other structures need to be preserved to assist with the next phase of the surgery.

c)    Implanting the new donor organ which involves suturing a number of vessels and other pipes/structures that are specific to each type of donor organ

d)    Ensuring that any other problems such as bleeding are then dealt with

e)    Inserting drainage tubes and closing the incision

 Once the surgery is completed one of two things then happens-

1)    In the case of kidney recipients, most of the time the patient can be woken up from the anaesthetic and transferred to a ward or step-down unit for close post-operative monitoring to occur

2)    For the heart, lung and liver recipients most patients are kept asleep at the end of the surgery and transferred straight from the operating room to the intensive care unit for ongoing close monitoring. This is required until it is apparent that the patient is stabilising following the surgery and that the newly transplanted organ is functioning.

The nature of the surgery and the expected post-operative course can generate many other questions. There are some general guides available including via the Internet. In particular via the MedlinePus site in the United States-  Liver transplantation heart transplantation kidney transplantation  lung transplantation


The pieces of information that need to be put together for every transplant recipient including the last piece of information that can be obtained only during the actual transplant procedure.

However both the magnitude of the surgery as well as the range of possible complications do vary depending on both the organ being transplanted and how unwell each potential recipient is at the time of the transplant procedure -


       a) How each transplant recipient fares during the surgery and early on post operatively is   
           related to the many specific bits of information that need to be put together at the time-as 
           outlined in the above image.  


      b)  It is important to remember that the last 2 pieces of the recipient information jigsaw 
           puzzle are only able to be put together in the operating room during the actual transplant   
           surgery. For example there is no test for how much scarring may be present in the 
           abdomen in a liver recipient who has undergone previous surgery, hence this can only be 
           determined during the actual transplant surgical procedure. 


      c) Also if the combination of all of the non-surgical pieces of information were to predict an 
          unfavourable outcome in advance for a recipient, then the transplant surgery would not be 
          able to go ahead.

Hence specific advice should be sought by potential transplant patients and their relatives from the transplant programme that they are currently in contact with. There are both pluses and minuses from currently seeking health care advice only via the Internet as outlined via the following link- Mashable- what-doctors-think-about-your-online-health-searches


Image designed by Deb Verran 2012: acknowledgement Presentation magazine


Monday, April 30, 2012

Another Transplant Surgeon conversation: Waiting for an organ transplant

When a transplant surgeon is holding a conversation with a patient who requires an organ transplant, there is one topic that usually attracts more questions. It is the timing of that all important phone call that will be made to the patient with the offer of the donor organ. Can you imagine what it must be like to be listed for a transplant and waiting for that call day after day, week after week?


The conversation often goes like this-
Q: So doctor, when will I get the phone call [about the donor organ being available]?
A: You can get the call any time of the day or night, week day or weekend. So even in the middle of the night it is important to answer the phone.
Q: Why is that?
A: Well, first because the deceased organ donors can be identified at any time in the hospitals. Second, there is a need to track down all of the potential recipients of the organs from each donor, as there are time limits once the organ donation process is underway.
Q: So when I receive the call, do I need to hurry to hospital?
A: Yes, you do need to make your way to hospital reasonably quickly, but also safely. This is so you can be prepared for the surgery. If you live a long distance from hospital, special arrangements may need to be made to get you there in time.
Q: After I get to hospital, when do I know the transplant is definitely going ahead?
A: Once the organ you require has been surgically retrieved from the donor and is cleared to be suitable for transplant, you will be told. The organ often also has to be transported to the hospital as well.

Explaining what is actually involved in the process for obtaining the organ from the organ donor through to commencing the actual transplant surgical procedure is important. The journey to a transplant can be tough on potential recipients and their loved ones. Some descriptions of this journey can be obtained via the Organtransplants web site.

It takes good co-ordination for the available organs from every deceased donor to be successfully transplanted. Time is often of the essence once the organs have been surgically removed from the donor, due to limits on storage times of the organs. In many countries this co-ordination is achieved by agencies and or networks of professionals. Further information on this part of the process can be obtained via professional sources including from the United States and the United Kingdom

Some other general web sites which provide information are-
Transplant Living , OrganTransplants Understanding , United Kingdom
If you or a loved one are waiting for an organ transplant, it is best to seek advice from the professionals in the Transplant Programme that you are in contact with.

Monday, March 12, 2012

An important task for Transplant surgeons. Helping piece together the picture for every donor organ.

Transplantation involves the surgical removal of the organ(s) from a donor-who is either living or deceased- and then surgically implanting each precious organ into the designated recipient.

Do you know that there are many steps in the organ donation process that are all critical for deciding on whether or not a donor's organ(s) can go on to be transplanted? Transplant surgeons are very much involved in this process of assessing the suitability of the donor organs for transplantation.

Are you aware of instances where individuals were unable to be live kidney donors? Do you know of occasions where organ donation was not able to go ahead from a potential deceased donor (i.e.after death) in hospital, due to there being medical concerns?

Being able to assess each organ donor for their 'medical suitability' to donate one or more organs is one of the essential parts of the downstream transplant process. Although general information on organ donation is available via the Internet for eg, this website from the United States of America more specific information on the In's and out's of organ donation, may not be  easily located unless you know where to find it, eg from the United Kingdom

There are many pieces of information (see below image), that have to be obtained for each and every organ donor as to whether they are suitable to donate an organ (as a live donor) or multiple organs(after death). This whole process is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, with the final two pieces (bottom right hand of the image), made up of what the surgeons discover at the time of the actual organ retrieval surgery. As most of the pieces of the jigsaw are put together prior to the retrieval surgery, this helps explain why not all donors proceed to the operating room. However, information obtained by surgeons during the retrieval surgery is often critical to the final decision as to whether or not a particular organ can be actually used for transplantation.

Legend- DCD: Donation after Cardio-Circulatory Death; DBD: Donation after Brain Death; NAT: Nucleic Acid Testing





Of note as rates of organ donation do vary between countries as outlined in this report from the WHO Transplant observatory particularly for deceased donors, it is important to place this information into the context of where you live. However, as you can see transplant surgeons are very much involved in the assessing of the donor organs for transplantation!
Image designed by Deb Verran 2012: acknowledgement Presentation magazine 


Friday, February 17, 2012

Ellen Meets a Survivor-Young advocate for Organ Donation



If you want to be inspired by a young advocate for organ donation then watch this video-a conversation between Helene Campbell and Ellen DeGeneres which recently occurred- live on The Ellen Show.

This came about as the result of a twitter campaign via @alungstory with the hashtag #beanorgan donor tweeting up to @TheEllenShow By the way Ellen supports organ donation!

Friday, January 20, 2012

Why should I use Twitter, as a healthcare worker?

How often do I hear comments being made about Twitter including the 'it is for socialising with celebrities' statement. If this was truly the case this blog would not need to be written nor posted! If you know all about Twitter you do nor need to read on, for everyone else here are some facts plus tips.

The use of social media in health care is now very much on the increase as outlined in a recent posting on the popular medical blog KevinMD . So hoping that you can continue to ignore this major trend, is probably no longer useful.

Twitter has become a conduit for relaying information rapidly around the world and is increasingly being used not only by individuals but a number of organisations. Here are some of examples of organisations who all use Twitter- governmental Food and Drug Administration , VicHealth , United Kingdom National Health Service , international organisations World Health Organisation , OECD , professional entities Kings Fund , American College of Surgeon, universities Harvard University , Imperial College , hospitals Mayo Clinic , Kings College Hospital , and medical journals New England Journal of Medicine , Lancet. Also in the public health arena Twitter has been used for 'tweeting' out information on policy Centres for Disease Control , APHA , new developments Johns Hopkins Public Health and evolving health issues CDC Social Media

So what use is this information for you? Well by joining onto Twitter you can elect to follow some of the organisations or entities that relay practical, useful information that you already know about. Look out for the Twitter symbol which is usually a small blue bird icon or a small blue 't' on their web sites and by clicking on that logo, you can then become a follower. Then by checking on your own home page on Twitter you can view all of the tweets of everyone you follow. The information contained in these tweets plus their accompanying links onto web pages may be useful for ongoing learning activities and adding to your knowledge base.

By trial and error you can also find other organisations you may wish to follow by entering relevant words into the Twitter search tool bar. If you find yourself following someone or something that is not particularly useful you can always unfollow! Guides on how to use Twitter are available on the Internet and the Mashable  guide is one of the more popular currently.

How about actually 'tweeting'? Remember what you tweet is immediately in the public global Internet sphere, so anyone can potentially see it. Think before you write and even more importantly before you click on send! One unfortunate tweet can have major, major implications. There are guides available for the use of social media in the health sector. Examples include from the Australian Medical Association , and the British Medical Association . Your employer may also have a social media policy which you need to be fully aware of.

So what now? You can try joining up onto Twitter and start following what interests you. Whether you wish to tweet is up to you and please remember there are rules. Information contained in this recent Cool Info graphic , and the Jeffbullas Blog very much confirm that the use of social media is on the increase. So even if you are currently not accessing Twitter, there is a very good chance that people you know are. Good luck!