The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) announced the winner of their app developer challenge ““Now Trending: #Health in My Community.” Mappy Health is a web based application for local public health departments to use to track health concerns in real time in their communities using twitter.

Mappy Health: http://www.mappyhealth.com/

Press Release: http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2012pres/09/20120913a.html

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/slideshow/2012/09/10/30-best-ipad-apps/?intcmp=features#slide=1

Business Week reported this week on the growth of telemedicine in rural areas in an effort to mitigate physician shortages:  http://tinyurl.com/8cwpjyo.

Every day, the government uses social media services like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to communicate with you and provide easy access to government benefits and services.

But unlike most government websites, which are hosted on a .mil or a .gov domain, social media sites are hosted on commercial domains.  Without the .gov or the .mil, it can be difficult to determine which social media accounts are official government sources of information and which are impersonators.

To help solve that problem, we recently launched a social media registry in English and Spanish, where you can confirm the validity of a variety of government social media accounts.  Learn more about the social media registry.

Visit the social media registry to check the validity of government social media accounts.

In two studies published this month by the journal Teaching and Learning in Medicine, the Alliance for Clinical Education described the importance of medical student participation in the electronic health record (EHR).  The Alliance, made up of education leaders from a broad range of medical specialties, was formed to enhance clinical instruction of medical students.  “Currently only 64 percent of medical school programs allow students any use of EHRs, and of those only two-thirds allowed students to write notes with in the electronic record,” says Dr. Maya M. Hammoud, the study’s lead author and associate professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Michigan Medical School.
http://tinyurl.com/clu2jch
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10401334.2012.692267

Science Translational Medicine on posted an article, “From Free to Free Market: Cost Recovery in Federally Funded Clinical Research.”  The authors examined “some of the hybrid academic-business models in 19 clinical research centers within the Clinical and Translational Science Award consortium that are emerging to address the issue of cost recovery of clinical research that is supported by the United States federal government.”  The authors identified “initiatives that have succeeded or failed, essential supporting and regulatory components, and lessons learned from experience to design an optimal cost recovery model and a timeline for its implementation.” (A subscription may be necessary for access.)
http://tinyurl.com/6oksb32

Join the National Technology Center for an online class taught from July 23 – August 27, 2012: “Teaching with Technology: Tips, Techniques and Tools”!

In this class, you will learn about using technology tools for teaching distance learning courses.  We will discuss options and best practices for asynchronous and synchronous distance classes, as well as “blended” classes that offer both in-person and online options.  Adult learning principles will be reviewed.  We will examine and discuss examples of software and website tools in teaching.

The class is taught “asynchronously” using the Moodle course management system, so you can complete the classwork at a time convenient for you.  Allow approximately 2 hours per week for independent classwork.  There are 4 weeks of assignments, readings, and discussions, with the 5th week saved for a “catch-up” week.  Upon completion of the class you will receive 8 MLA CE credits.

The class is free and open to residents of the U.S.  Class enrollment is limited, so we do ask that you check your schedule to be sure you have time to complete the class.

To register: http://nnlm.gov/ntcc/classes/schedule.html

Earlier this month, the Department and Human Services launched the Health System Measurement Project.  The Project brings together, in an easy to use format, trend information on about 50 key health system-related measures across ten topical areas, including access to care, cost and affordability, prevention, and health information technology.  Most of the data can be viewed by various population characteristics.  The project was developed by the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation.  The measures included are drawn primarily from existing, publicly available datasets.
http://healthmeasures.aspe.hhs.gov.

To give users a virtual experience of its new exhibition, Native Voices: Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/index.html), NLM has created Native Voices iPad app.  The app presents video interviews with tribal elders, healers and other prominent people who practice traditional medicine, Western medicine or a combination of both.

From their unique experiences and perspectives, they weave a tapestry of stories of the vibrant and diverse cultures and medicine ways of Alaska Natives, Native Americans and Native Hawaiians.  Other video clips provide an exhibition overview and highlights of the 4,400-mile journey of the totem pole specially created for the exhibition.  The Native Voices app works on all iPads with iOS4.2 and higher.  To download the free app, go to the Apple iTunes store (www.apple.com/iTunes) and type in “NLM Native Voices.”

Check out the latest notices:  http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/mj12/mj12_pm_discovery_ads.html