7-23-10 Community E-Newsletter/Call

Opening Greeting (top right box)
Greetings,

Hello all--The second Phase of OurMed.Org is coming along quite nicely and we'd like to invite you to be a part of the world's first ever, unbiased, free licensed and dynamic medical/health knowledge base.

Please enjoy and comment on our new "OurMed World" E-newsletter (link to 7-23-10 E-Newsletter/Call) and join us for a Community Conference Call: Time: Friday July 23rd at 2pm EST Dial In Number: 712-775-7000 Passcode: 634011#

Watch our OurMed YouTube Video

Consumer Feedback needed to offset influence from Pharma Ads
OurMed Board Chair Professor Stan Kachnowski has done much research into the need for "information symmetry" which examines the need for balanced healthcare information including feedback from patients and consumers. He has forwarded the OurMed Tech team the following study as we develop the "split screen" between scientific articles and feedback. Instead of comments below articles such as on CNN, ESPN and other news sites, OurMed seeks to support the democratization of healthcare information by having the feedback be side-to-side.

Professor Kachnowski has forwarded us this study to spark discussion on the topic:

"Although the majority of consumers believe pharma ads on TV and in magazines are fair and balanced, they also think pharma companies need to do better when presenting risks online. That's according to Prevention Magazine's Consumer Reaction to DTC Advertising of Prescription Drugs survey, which is conducted with technical assistance from DDMAC. Consumers reported that they feel online DTC ads need to work harder to improve consumer awareness of DTC ads risks. Only 37% of consumers have "seen and heard" online DTC ads risk. Of these, 69% pay a lot or some attention and 75% find the information very or somewhat useful. "

OurMed's Technology Update
The Tech Committee has been working on updating our Facebook and Twitter strategy as well as further development within Phase2's Milestone2 development with Blueliner, our partner in web development. Much work in terms of categorization of all things health related.

1. All new articles created/brought into OurMed will be tagged as "New Article" so that each can be categorized correctly 2. All current articles will be tagged "Health A-Z", then we can remove that tag from only those whch do not need it. (This is a MUCH smaller number than the other way around). 3. All current articles will also be reviewed and placed in one of the other ten categories 4. A database for physicians and hospitals/institutions will be added-must find database to use

Founding Framer Qualifying Committee Members Seated
Founding Framers are those that devote more than 100 hours of volunteer service to the OurMed cause. Committee members Vanessa Moore (Chair), Stephen Press, John Volpe and Greg Miller have been hard at work to verify eight new nominations in addition to the current pioneers, Stan Kachnowski, Vincent Navarro and Florence Devouard.

Join the OurMed Community!
We have plenty of room on both our Content Committee and Tech Committees which meet weekly mostly by conference call using an American call-in number.

The Content Committee, chaired by Dr. Stephen Press, works to expand and organize the site with freely licensed medical articles. Currently, the team is looking into categorizing current articles amongst eleven categories so that when the site launches toward the end of the year, it will be filled with well organized unbiased information.

The Tech Committee is comprised of project managers, database and code programmers who have volunteered to assess the work of OurMed's Phase2 contractor, Blueliner and other volunteers. So far Blueliner has delivered the design and discovery milestones of the deliverable.

Committee members and anyone editing must sign a volunteer agreement to be eligible to be a Founding Framer. If interested please contact vanessa.moore@ourmed.org who will get you going!

Resource for information on comparing Hospitals
The centers for Medicare and Medicaid provide this site for comparing hospitals for their treatment of various conditions: HERE.

Significant New Study on Saturated Fat in Diet
A major study involving a review of a vast quantity of the existing literature, published recently in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, shows there is no relationship between reduction of saturated fats, by replacement with carbohydrates in reducing Ischemic Heart Disease!. It would appear that this explains the benefits reported for the Atkins diet, and gives a warning to either reduce carbs, or saturated fats. When you consume BOTH the risks increase significantly.

IOM Panel Frames Issues in Drug Safety Studies
"Five questions are posed to the IOM's 12-member Committee on Ethical and Scientific Issues in Studying the Safety of Approved Drugs: What are the ethical and informed consent issues that must be considered when designing randomized clinical trials to evaluate potential safety risks? What are the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches, including observational studies, including patient registries, meta-analyses, including patient-level data meta-analyses, and randomized controlled trials, to generate evidence about safety questions?  Considering the speed, cost, and value of studies, what types of follow-up studies are appropriate to investigate different kinds of signals (detected  preapproval or postmarketing) and in what temporal order?  Under what circumstances should head-to-head randomized clinical trials for safety be required?  How should FDA factor in different kinds of safety evidence in considering different kinds of regulatory actions?"

To read more click here

Building content – What to write about?
Changes or additions can be made with the help of this cheat sheet for those who do not know how to edit in wiki text. For Help with creating a reference, see Referencing for beginners.

When you want to include a reference in an article, simply go to another article, for example on Wikipedia's site, and look at the format, then copy the wiki codes for referencing your article. For example; for a journal, you can simply type (right in the middle of a sentence, adjacent to the term or most pertinent fact) the following:. This will place the reference in a numbered list in the "references" section, and an appropriate superscript in the place of the entry, where you typed it.

To create a "references" section (or any other section in the automatically created table of contents), simply  type ==  before  and after your heading; in this case, ==References==. Then in the next line of your new reference section, type this. and the references you created in the body of your work will simply appear here, properly formatted.

Of course, you can choose to just copy from one of the many free content ("copy left") sites such as much of the content on:

1. Medpedia.com

2. NIH's PubMedCentral.gov from the National Library of Medicine

3. Wikipedia.org

4. GanFyd.org (original medical wiki site that claims Medpedia copied them and boasts 2000 site visitors per day)

5. PubMed.org

6. Medline

7. Open.Michigan from the University of Michigan

8. WikiChiro.Org

8. Others?

Posting on OurMed.Org
In addition to the Symbiosis Project, OurMed offers writers of original work to publish a vast range of medical topics. Under the three pillar approach of 1) Being Referenced 2) Being Bold and 3) Being Polite, OurMed strives to be a forum through which multiple health and medical issues are presented and debated.

To write, you must have a free OurMed account. You can write about nearly anything, just keep your comments about new ideas,health and medicine.--It's really important that OurMed gets off the ground using a communities collaborative approach to building it, just as Wikipedia did nine years ago.

We are furthering our editorial policies to include a Style Guide. Feel free to suggest ideas to make this a global "go-to" resource for all healthcare needs fit for any patient or healthcare professional.

Please click on this link to make a small post about whatever is on your mind. You can suggest articles, design or features that you'd like to see on the site. New Ideas

 Most Active Authors in The Past Month: 

Savealife Gmiller M.tsangaroulis D Joiner T1 Arbab

OurMed's MedTool Project
As we develop OurMed's Phase 2 site, we want to announce a competition to inspire our content contributors to come up with the most useful healthcare diagnostic tools from around the world.

Submissions will eventually be open-sourced and written in Joomla so that it will "plug-in" to our new site as well as be available to all around the world in a copy-left offering. To contribute, a contestant need not be tech savy but only be familiar with common health and medical needs. Will it be a simple Body-Mass calculator, Symptom Disease matcher, Diabetic Insulin calculator--the list may go on and one but we want the most popular, best and easiest to use!

Pioneer Bios
Just like the Wikimedia Foundation that created Wikipedia, OurMed will mostly be driven by volunteers. In addition to the occasional business or technology consultant, the profile for OurMed’s volunteer community will be talented professionals that want to make bring forward the OurMed mission to the end-goal of having a global impact.

To incentivize our founders, we have created the Founding Framer Program. To date, the following folks are eligible and working toward a goal to volunteer more than 100 Community hours:

Vincente Navarro, OurMed Tech Committee Member
Tel:212 444 2633 mailto:vnavarro@pipeline.com

Research Specialist @ Weill Medical College

Online Database Manager @ Scientists Without Borders

I have done basic science research for over 15 years in the area of prostate cancer. During this time I have had the privilege of working on the development of monoclonal antibodies targeting prostate cancer from concept through clinical trials. This has afforded me a keen insight into development process of therapeutic drugs. In addition, a strong interest in computers has seen me pursue a graduate degree in computer science in addition to my undergraduate in Chemistry. As a result I have designed and developed a clinical trials management system in my laboratory. I am currently the Online Database Manager for Scientists Without Borders. There, I am responsible for the administration of the database and development of the web portal.

Eileen McGinn, MPH, OurMed Content Committee Member
MPH/Certificate in Aging mailto:qedeileen@aol.com

Worked in international health and development for 25 years, including several years living in Africa and Asia. Currently PT Research Manager for Nathan Kline Institute, working on the interrelation of poverty and mental health and health equity for persons with disabilities. PT tutor for immigrant high school students at Manhattan Comprehensive Night and Day High School. Volunteer work for many different agencies, including health, disability, immigrant, women's, peace, international. Have written for various websites on health issues. Especially interested in translating technical work into comprehensible language, community-based participatory research and the Capabilities Framework for development and justice.

Geoff Hayden, MD, FAAEM, FACEP, OurMed Content Committee Member
Tel: 615.479.6499 (Cell) mailto:Geoffhayden@gmail.com

I am a practicing Emergency Physician, splitting time between NYC and South Carolina. I have been in academic practice since 2005 (Residency at Vanderbilt University, Fellowship at University of Pennsylvania), with an emphasis on resident education and emergency ultrasound. My interest in OurMed.org stems from a dissatisfaction regarding the abysmal state of preventive care and a general lack of health care coverage in the U.S. I see OurMed.org as an essential resource to connect patients to health information and health providers.

I imagine my role with OurMed.org in terms of producing content, recruiting other physicians for ongoing contribution, and assisting Greg with the development of a user-friendly, comprehensive clearinghouse of useful health care information.

Adjunct Clinical Professor Vanderbilt University Medical Center Department of Emergency Medicine Nashville, TN Piedmont Medical Center Emergency Department Attending

222 South Herlong Ave Rock Hill, SC 29732

Vanessa Moore, OurMed Recruitment and Founding Framer Committee's Chair
Tel (home): 914-665-4534 Tel (cell): 914-751-9758 mailto:MVanellen@ourmed.org Vanessa Moore is a native New Yorker who brings 7 years recruiting experience to the Ourmed recruitment effort. She would like to leverage her experience recruiting volunteers to Ourmed, a forward thinking and progressive approach to disseminating unbiased healthcare information to the public. She has worked in both corporate and nonprofit settings including a consulting engagement for the Department of Education and most recently at the Westchester Independent Living Center, an advocacy group for people with disabilities. She studied Social Sciences at the Lincoln Center campus of Fordham University.

=== Stephen Press,  DC, PhD, OurMed Executive Technical Director; Content Committee Chair ===

A practicing Chiropractic physician (33 years). Was chief physician for the "Unified Team" (former USSR) at the XVIth Winter Olympic Games in Albertville, France in 1992. Founded the World Governing body for sports Chiropractic known as "FICS", for Fédération Internationale de Chiropratique du Sport, now headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland at the Maison Internationale du Sports, and administered in Toronto, at the World Federation of Chiropractic offices. He served on the Medical commission of two IOC recognized World Sports Governing bodies; 1st as Chairman for the Fed. Int'l de Roller Sports, and then as Vice-Chairman for FIDE (Chess). Founded the website IAOCO.org, and co-founded WikiChiro.org. Today, he serves as board member/advisor for the International Sports Chiropractic Association, which is the liaison body interacting with the World Olympian's Association. He speaks, English, French, Russian and Spanish, plays the cello and clarinet, competes in pool, and follow biblical archeology and do artist blacksmithing, making swords and medieval armor as hobbies.

John Volpe, OurMed Tech Committee Content Liaison
mailto:johnvolpe1@yahoo.com 516-221-4692

My background is primarily in accounting, finance and business operations, primarily in the financial services industry. While I'm not a technical professional, I have participated in and managed numerous technical and business projects, primarily involving financial systems. I also worked as a management consultant for a Virginia based company that I did consulting work for the federal and state governments. I am currently retired. In addition to playing tennis and engaging in other physical activities, I volunteer my time and an Account Director with an NYC based organization that provides service grants in the form of a volunteer project team that manages strategy, financial, marketing and development projects for non-profits. My interest in this project is really from the perspective of someone who is a consumer of medical information and is interested in the efficient delivery of medical information to the public.

Richard Knipel, OurMed Content Committee Member
I have been a volunteer for Wikipedia and other free culture efforts for several years, with a special focus on outreach initiatives to New York area cultural institutions, such as Wikipedia classes at the New York Public Library, museum photography with Wikipedia Loves Art, and urban photography with the TOPP nonprofit with Wikis Take Manhattan. I have served as President of the nonprofit Wikimedia New York City since September 2008. I hope to bring these experiences in helping to build Ourmed into an innovative and rich online healthcare community along the wiki model.

Elise Passikoff, OurMed Tech Committee
Elise Passikoff, OurMed Tech Committee From a background in print and educational publishing, I entered the online world as an editor and technical writer at a start-up software company. There I learned the tools of the trade and gained valuable experience in writing, editing and posting online content. In 2000, I moved to the New York Academy of Sciences [www.nyas.org], where, first as online producer and then as web senior project manager I led the development, implementation, and maintenance of complex online projects, including the ground-breaking website Scientists Without Borders scientistswithoutborders.org].

Diane Joiner, OurMed Content Committee
I have more than 25 years experience in print publishing. I began my career in publishing with Scientific American Magazine; and then transferred to Scientific American Medicine where I was a member of the production department. While at Scientific American Medicine I produced the 2,500 page, two volume, loose-leaf for internal medicine (Scientific American Medicine), as well as the 2,200 page two volume, loose-leaf for surgery (Scientific American Surgery: Practice and Principles). In 2000 I became a member of WebMD’s Professional Publishing Division. While at WebMD I continued to produce books, pamphlets, and on-line products.

Greg Miller, OurMed Executive Director
Tel: 212-740-1850

Have 17 years of Corporate Finance and Marketing experience for Fortune 500 companies including nine years abroad (Germany, England and Japan). I've been here in New York since 1996, always passionate about developing new brands, ideas and products. Did Marketing Analysis for ANA, a Japanese Airline, Finance for Cablevision's HD Satellite business and Revlon. Since 2005, I've been inspired by non-profits, created New York's Dance Parade and have worked on OurMed since the Fall of 2008. I'm inspired by the transparent, non-profit approach to the democratization of healthcare. OurMed has a small office at Columbia Medical Center's Audubon Business and Technology Building--Come by and visit us!

3960 Broadway (Entrance on 166th Street) Suite 301 o (212) 740-1850 c (917) 627-7155 mailto:greg.miller@ourmed.org

Marilena Tsangaroulis, OurMed Marketing Intern
After recently completing a 3D animation program at the New York Film Academy, I'm excited to begin an internship at OurMed. Prior to this, I received a BS degree in Biology from Rutgers University. My internship program at OurMed will focus on supporting OurMed's marketing committee with social media updates as well as helping Greg to put together the weekly e-newsletter. To support the tech committee, I'll be gathering freely licensed images and creating some images and videos for the Phase 2 development of the OurMed new website. I really feel that the new site will surely be successful because as far as I know, there isn't really an easily navigable global healthcare site on the web yet. My specific interest in developing my career is along the lines of 3D medical imagery and animation. I'm excited to be a part of the competition to produce that kind of thing for OurMed's homepage!

Swati Ghatpande,PhD, OurMed Content Committee Member
Dr. Swati Ghatpande possesses a strong research background in the fields of red blood cell proteomics and cancer immunology. Her research efforts were concentrated on the study of protein interactions in sickle red blood cells, hydroxyurea-dependent proteomic changes in sickle cell disease, and antibody-dependent immune mechanisms in brain cancer. She received her PhD in Molecular and Cell biology and worked as a post-doctoral researcher in the field of cancer biology and immunotherapy. Currently, she works as a freelance academic biomedical editor at Cactus Communications (Memphis,USA) and as an on-line Biochemistry instructor (School of Health Sciences, Kaplan University).

Florence Devouard
OurMed Board Member mailto:fdevouard@anthere.org

Florence Devouard served as one of the elected representatives to the Wikimedia Foundation Board starting June 2004, and was the Chair of the WMF Board from October 21, 2006 until July 16th, 2008. Florence was born in Versailles (France). She grew up in Grenoble, and has been living since then in several French cities, as well as Antwerpen in Belgium and Tempe in Arizona. She holds two masters, one in Agricultural Sciences (a 5-year degree in agronomical engineering (Diplome d'Ingénieur Grande Ecole) from ENSAIA and the other a postgraduate degree (DEA) in Genetics and Bio-technologies from INPL.She has been working in public research, first in flower plant genetic improvement, and second in microbiology to study the feasibility of polluted soil bio-remediation. She was employed until 2005 in a French company, to conceive decision-making tools in sustainable agriculture. She is now a consultant in Internet Communication Strategy. She joined the Wikipedia adventure in February 2002 and is known as a contributor under the pseudonym Anthere. Florence is 39, and lives in Clermont Ferrand with her husband Bertrand and her three children, Anne-Gaëlle aged nine, William eleven and Thomas two. On May 16 2008, Florence was made a knight in the French National Order of Merit, proposed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as "chair of an international foundation"

Alex Fotopoulos
OurMed Board Secretary mailto:alex@broadwaylawoffices.com

Alex Fotopoulos, Esq. has served on the board since October 2008. He attended Rutgers College in New Brunswick, NJ and then received his Juris Doctor degree from Southwestern University in Los Angeles, California in 1990. He has experience as a litigation attorney and as an entrepreneur. He has held held positions as an attorney and as part of the management team of such high technology companies including AT&amp;T Wireless, T-mobile, Nextel, Metricom, GTE Internetworking as well as small local start-up ventures. He is a licensed Attorney in New York, New Jersey and California.

Stan Kachnowski
OurMed Board Chair mailto:swk16@hitlab.org

Stan Kachnowski is one of America’s distinguished scholars in health-care information policy and management having taught e-health and health-care e-business for nearly 20 years. He has authored over 100 scholarly papers and presentations for the world’s leading journals and societies in health-care technology management, informatics and e-governance. In 2003 he was elected as a Fellow in the Royal Society of Medicine in the United Kingdom for his research with the National Health Service in using handhelds to track patient data. In 1996 he was elected to the US-based College of Healthcare Information Management Executives. Stan is currently a visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India.

Oleta McHenry
OurMed Board Treasurer mailto:Newsgirl_fl@hotmail.com

Oleta McHenry was born in Washington D.C. and grew up in Ohio. After graduating high school, she briefly attended Wright State University in Dayton, studying Political Science. She transferred to St. Petersburg College in St. Petersburg, FL and received her A.A. degree in Liberal Arts. Oleta earned her B.S. in Accounting from Florida Metropolitan University in Clearwater, FL in 2006. Oleta worked for the Pulitzer prize winning newspaper, St. Petersburg Times as a circulation manager. After receiving her degree in accounting, she worked briefly in the insurance industry before joining the Wikimedia Foundation as the full-time accountant of record. While at the Wikimedia Foundation, Oleta helped put in place accounting practices that would help the company in growth and development. She did not follow Wikimedia to San Francisco and now works for a large medical supply company managing the General Ledger for several regions within the United States. Oleta resides in St. Petersburg, FL and works as an accountant.