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Archive for the ‘multimedia’ Category

Alternative Healthcare Website Launches

• Posted April 30th 2008
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• by Marji

The Holistic Option Inc. this week announced the launch of a website that will serve as a source for consumers seeking information about alternative healthcare as well as practitioners and schools in their area. Consumers can use the site to educate themselves about holistic treatment options spanning 50 modalities, from acupuncture to massage therapy.

Access to the site’s content is free and includes natural remedies for treating specific ailments, as well as articles, videos, podcasts, discussion forums and shopping.

The Holistic Option has created a screening process to ensure the accuracy of practitioner information. To be listed on the site, practitioners must submit an application that is reviewed by The Holistic Option’s advisory board to ensure proper member certification and professional credibility in their specific practice. The site currently hosts practitioners and educational information in 25 modalities, but will add more than 25 additional modalities in the upcoming months.

The site has several advertising options, from banner ads to enewsletters and articles to podcasts.

Alternative healthcare is certainly of interest to many consumers, and perhaps such a site will help promote it and bring more prominence to this field. With a variety of content sources and formats, the site is certainly positioned for success. You can’t launch a site these days without videos and podcasts. Just plain text doesn’t make the cut anymore.

The listings of practitioners and schools will also help to add value–and credibility–to the site. It’s good to know that The Holistic Option plans to carefully screen listing practitioners before their information is posted. Having clean (and reliable) data from the start is crucial in developing such an enterprise.

 

Medical Reality Shows for the Pros

• Posted April 23rd 2008
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• by Janice

I just took a look at the recently enhanced Procedures Consult, one of the online clinical reference products in Elsevier’s Consult line.  Procedures Consult builds on some of Elsevier’s medical reference texts and is supplemented with custom—produced animations and video content that enhance the textual and still-image content.

The videos offer step by step demonstrations on real patients of how to perform certain procedures, such as defibrillation or shoulder arthroscopy (the number of procedures continues to grow). Procedures Consult includes online testing that reinforces the understanding of the anesthesia, emergency medicine, orthopaedic and internal medicine procedures that are included in the reference tool.

This is a case where the addition of video content adds obvious value to the reference content, compared to some products where the video element consists of nothing more than talking heads. Even an amateur can appreciate how useful the video content will be to physicians and medical students who need to study new procedures or refresh their knowledge of infrequently used procedures.

Procedures Consult may not capture the imagination of the consumer-focused investment firms eager to pounce on ad-supported consumer-centric online health products, but it represents an intelligent application of technology that greatly enhances the value of information to the audience it serves. Furthermore, by virtue of highlighting industry-standard patient safety guidelines within the product, Procedures Consult becomes an important tool in the performance improvement efforts of hospitals. Performance improvement may not sound leading edge and exciting, but it represents real dollars to health care provider institutions and better outcomes for patients.