Web 2.0 for Emergency Physicians

Last updated 7 August 2010

What is Web 2.0 for Emergency Physicians?

Even though “the times they are a changing“, many Emergency Physicians are unfamiliar with the concept of Web 2.0, the diversity of Web 2.0 resources, and how to use these resources to enhance their clinical practice and professional development.

This guide addresses these issues so that Emergency Physicians won’t be afraid to take a ride on the ‘Web 2.0 roller coaster‘! (You might like to brush up on some Basic Web Definitions as well).

What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is a nebulous term referring to the current era of web development and design that, according to Wikipedia, is characterized by information sharing, collaboration, and interoperability. Web 2.0 changes the way we access, store, and receive information. The Web, rather than the desktop computer, has become the platform that matters. Web 2.0 resources provide us with boundless information that is:

Rapidly accessible anytime, from anywhere with an internet connection
Current and continuously updated
Dynamic and interactive
Created collaboratively
Easily stored, shared, and modified

Many of us are using Web 2.0 in our everyday lives already. Have you ever read a blog (that would have to be a yes…), or used a popular website such as Wikpedia, Facebook, Youtube or Flickr, or do you have a Google account? Then you have used a Web 2.0 resource.

Web 2.0 in under 5 minutes -- ‘The Machine is Us/ing Us’ by Michael Wesch:

How does Web 2.0 compare with Web 1.0?

Here are some differences between Web 1.0 (a backronym) and Web 2.0:

Web 1.0 versus Web 2.0

Why use Web 2.0?

Emergency physicians, and doctors, in general, are constantly communicating with one another about medicine whether formally (journals, conferences, meetings, CME sessions, etc) or informally (on the floor, during breaks, online, at home, etc). Because of this, Web 2.0, which epitomizes constant communication, is a natural tool for doctors to use.

According to Pat Croskerry, the environment that emergency physicians work in is a ‘Perfect Storm” for medical error. We work in a time-critical, information limited, pressure cooker environment. To thrive and survive we need to constantly maintain and grow our foreground knowledge (used for ‘flesh and blood’ decision making to care for our patients and solve clinical problems) as well as our background knowledge (the core content and basic sciences that we need to understand the language of medicine, to teach, and to pass exams).

We need to know a lot, we need to know it now, and often we don’t know what we need to know until we need to know it… Where can we turn?

Web 2.0 of course -- you don’t want to be stuck using old textbooks chained to the desk for the rest of your career do you?

iPhone versus Books

What can Web 2.0 be used for?

Emergency Physicians can use Web 2.0 for:

Searching and sourcing information
Sorting, saving and storing information
Staying up-to-date
Sharing information
Social networking

What are Web 2.0 Resources?

There are a diverse range of Web 2.0 resources relevant to Emergency Physicians and which can impact on our daily practice.

These include:

Wikis
such as OzEMedicine
Feeds and Aggregators
RSS feed Really Simple Syndication — Health Feed Aggregation
Blogs
Blogs Rankings and Rounds — When is a blog not a blog?
Microblogging tools
Medical Twitter — Blogs Rankings and Rounds
Social bookmarking
Social Bookmarking for Physicians
Social networking
Physician Social and Professional Networks — Australian Hospital Social Network list — Is Social Media the Rock’n'Roll of HealthCare?
Alternative search engines
Medical Search for Physicians
Search engine reviews:
Mednar the Health Search Solution — GoPubMed — Hakia PubMed Semantic Search — Search Medica Search — Customize Medical Search with Science Roll — Health Sciences Online — Yottlalook — Dr Socrates — Healthmash and Webicina — Health Professional Search — Top Bedside Health Search Engines 2008.
Podcasts
Podcasts for Emergency Physicians

The Web 2.0 Roller Coaster

Comments

Anne Marie Cunningham says:

July 7, 2009 at 8:42 am

Thanks for blogging about this. I started blogging myself because I wanted to find people interested in medical education like you. I also wanted to learn about the possibilities of web2.0 for clinical work. But so far I am coming up short.

For me clinically the most useful tools are still those like Tripdatabase, PubMed, NHS Clinical Knowlege summaries, Map of Medicine. Most of these do not have 2.0 content but might be improved be having so.

I have tried looking for answers to clinical questions on twitter but it hasn’t worked yet.

And I am not sure that aggregating RSS feeds is truly 2.o content.

We have discussed before the lack of doctors using social bookmarking sites such as delicious to aggregate clinical content. I rarely do this myself, preferring to look for info as I need it incase guidelines have changed.

So, it would really help me if anyone reading this could give an example of when some 2.0 content helped them with a piece of clinical decision making.

Thanks
Anne Marie
James says:

July 7, 2009 at 12:39 pm

This is a great blog, written form of an excellent presentation given at the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM) Winter symposium in Darwin June 2009.

Makes things a whole lot more digestable for the average punter than someone else I know.
precordialthump says:

July 7, 2009 at 7:55 pm

Hi Anne Marie,

As I alluded to in the post ‘How and Why Junior Docs use Web 2.0′ (http://lifeinthefastlane.com/2009/07/how-and-why-junior-docs-use-web-20/) Web 2.0 is generally used for background knowledge needs rather than foreground needs (real-time clinical decision making).

If you do at the bedside literature searches using alternative search engines such as Mednar or GoPubMed you are using Web 2.0 for foreground knowledge.

I have also responded to other doctors’ concerns about clinical management issues on professional networking sites such as Multimedix.

I consider the use of feed aggregators as Web 2.0 because they separate information from the form they are created in and allow sharing. Together with podcasts, RSS feed aggregators play an important role in keeping me up-to-date with emerging evidence, and cater to knowledge needs on the background-foreground boundary.

I’ve also been known to look things up on this blog (the brainstem rule of 4 for instance, and the Tony Brown lecture series – and my stingray tox conundrum came in very handy once too!).

If more of my colleagues were using twitter asking clinical questions may be an option (at the moment I’m restricted to asking Mike aka sandnsurf – often Twitter is the best way to get hold of him anyway…).
precordialthump says:

July 7, 2009 at 7:58 pm

Cheers James – you make a good groupie!
Alex Bettencourt says:

July 24, 2009 at 6:26 am

Thanks for putting this blog up. There are a lot of Web 2.0 companies that are fans including us at RememberItNow! We should be thankful for such great and innovative trends, and we just want to give a thumbs up for pointing this out.

With medication noncompliance costing our country $178 BILLION a year, there are a lot are ways this can be changed with the help of Web 2.0 and we hope to join.

Anyway, if you want to know more about receiving medication or event reminders via text or email, or providing long-distance health care for a loved one, check us out at http://www.RememberItNow.com or email me abettencourt@rememberitnow.com.

Great article and hope there are others out there as enthusiastic as us.
precordialthump says:

December 22, 2009 at 1:28 pm

Web 2.0 for Emergency Physicians http://tinyurl.com/yflg5fy Let me know if you have recommendations for the further reading section
precordialthump says:

August 1, 2010 at 8:11 pm

Web 2.0 for Emergency Physicians http://lifeinthefastlane.com/2009/07/web-20-for-emergency-physicians/ Time for a reminder
Medicaid Doctors says:

August 1, 2010 at 3:35 pm

Excellent! Great article, I already saved it to my favourite,