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MollyHippolitus
Molly
Hippolitus

Pres. Obama Pledged to End Hunger by 2015… We’ve Got 5 Years

Friday, January 29th, 2010

During campaign season, Obama promised to tackle domestic hunger. He made a pledge to "strengthen and expand nutrition assistance programs and commit to ending childhood hunger by 2015." The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) is holding Obama to his word.

Tuesday morning I attended FRAC's Hill briefing on "food hardship" (lacking money to buy enough food) in the U.S. The nonprofit organization works to improve public policies and public-private partnerships to "eradicate hunger and undernutrition in the United States."

For the first time, data that truly capture the extent of hunger in America, was unveiled. The report revealed nearly one in five American households ran out of money to buy enough food at least once during 2009. FRAC President, Jim Weill, along with Rep. Jim McGovern (MA), presented the data with the hope of igniting fire in the belly of our government, by helping policy leaders understand the "depth and breadth" of hunger in America. (more...)

Posted in Community Involvement, Food Policy and Nutrition, Public Affairs, Research
By MollyHippolitus | 1 Comment »

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MollyHippolitus
Molly
Hippolitus

The App Lab: Food Safety, There’s an App for That

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

The evolution of food-related iPhone apps has answered every question from "where's my closest Chili's?" to "what strain of E. coli could be in my burger?"

locavore1This past decade the nation has seen its fair share of food safety scares - the most recent food contamination has a Southern California meat-packing firm recalling some 864,000 pounds of ground-beef that might be contaminated with E. coli. Although surveillance of foodborne illness can be complicated - mainly due to underreporting - the CDC estimates that 76 million Americans get sick, more than 300,000 are hospitalized, and 5,000 people die from foodborne illnesses each year.

With staggering statistics like these, it's no surprise that in 2010 we're beginning to realize the high cost of cheap food. As a result, a demand for transparency in our food system is growing.

It's unfortunate that our food system has become so convoluted that we need the help of a cell phone to navigate what food is safe for us to eat, but while we wait for Congress to act on the Food Safety Modernization Act, your iPhone is here to help!
(more...)

Posted in Food Policy and Nutrition, New Media, Public Health, Social Media, The App Lab
By MollyHippolitus | No Comments »

 
MollyHippolitus
Molly
Hippolitus

Weekly Digital News: Sidewiki, Game Changer for Pharma

Friday, November 13th, 2009

To recap, back in September, Google introduced a downloadable sidebar that allows a Mozilla Firefox, or Internet Explorer, user to leave their comments on any Web site - appropriately named "Sidewiki." To add method to its madness, Google's algorithm sorts these comments by relevance, not by date. In a nutshell, the Sidewiki has the potential to transform every Web site into a social media platform. It pairs the voice of the consumer with the voice of the brand, side by side in your browser... and, with an "opt-out" feature not yet available from Google, it is a company's responsibility to determine the best possible way to approach the online "voices" coming from the metaphorical peanut gallery. (more...)

Posted in Crowdsourcing, Health 2.0, Public Health, Social Media
By MollyHippolitus | No Comments »

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MollyHippolitus
Molly
Hippolitus

Weekly Digital News: Catering to the e-Patient

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

E-Patients, the  growing group of individuals using the internet to find health info, are the fire in the belly of the e-Health movement. They are online, they are collaborative, and they are tired of the one-way communication that happens in the doctor's office.

According to a video shown at Reshape09, a Health 2.0 conference held this month in the Netherlands:

- 84% of individuals do a Google search before visiting the doctor.

- Patients only remember about 50 to 60% of what's been said during a ten minute doctor consultation.

- 76% of individuals trust their family's and friends' advice more than ads and articles.

It's  clear from statistics like these that there is an enormous push of e-patients "taking back" what is rightfully theirs - personal health information. But who's catering to this ever-expanding group?

(more...)

Posted in Health Care Industry, Technology
By MollyHippolitus | No Comments »

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MollyHippolitus
Molly
Hippolitus

Weekly Digital News: Out With the Old, In With the New

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

In digital health care, there already exists audiences for related products and services.  If you don't believe me, try this out, Google "Type 2 Diabetes" - and see  how many returns pop up on the results page. People are a communal kind, we seek advice, guidance, and direction from others who have gone through similar situations.  E-patient, or not, individuals are using the internet to search for information regarding their chronic condition, disease, or illness - whether for a specific pharmaceutical drug or simply support.  The PEW Internet Project  finds that 83% of the online population are networked individuals using the internet to find health information.  What does this mean for health care and drug marketing?

Out with the old, in with the new. (more...)

Posted in Community Involvement, Health Care Industry, Public Health, Technology
By MollyHippolitus | No Comments »

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MollyHippolitus
Molly
Hippolitus

Weekly Digital News: e-Force

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

A new trend is bubbling up on the internet. More and more individuals are returning home from their doctor appointments, and turning to the web for a second opinion.  Fortunately, there exist countless Web sites devoted to providing health information for these individuals... unfortunately, the information is vast, general, and terribly non-person specific.

This growing group of  "e-patients" are individuals "who are equipped, enabled, empowered and engaged in their health and health care decisions," according to e-patients.net.  They pour over the Google search results page in hopes of finding tailored, data-driven health information in real-time.

Spectrum's VP of Digital Strategy, Kevin Walsh, attended the Health 2.0 conference held last week in San Francisco where user-generated health care was one of the main topics of discussion.  Many of the products and services introduced at the conference had a lot to do with this new group of e-patients using the internet to find data to aid in managing personal health decisions.

Steve Lohr, of The New York Times, recently wrote about a new start-up company introduced at Health 2.0 that sets out to aid e-patients in wading through the "vast trove of generalized health information" found online.  Lohr explains:

 "The ideal, health experts say, would be to combine personal data with health information to deliver tailored health plans for individuals. That is what Mr. Bosworth and his San Francisco- based company, Keas (pronounced KEE-ahs) Inc., mean to do."

The Keas system is still in beta, and not an end-all-be-all of online health consumerism, it is, however, an initiative  to supplement the lull in person-specific health information found on the Web.  The system's  goal is to help e-patients take control of their health, to "own" their medical information, so to speak.

(more...)

Posted in Health Care Industry, Public Health, Technology
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