Speaking Event: Cayman Islands National Healthcare 20/20 Conference

By Barbara Ficarra, RN, BSN, MPA I’m delighted to participate in the Cayman Islands National Healthcare 20/20 Conference, and the topic of my presentation is “The rise of digital technology for better patient engagement.”  For further details you may read the Press Release (provided by the 20/20 Healthcare Conference) below. 20/20 Healthcare Conference to discuss how patients can be better informed The use of mobile devices and the internet to help provide a greater level…

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Too Much Hype in the Mobile Health App World?

By Barbara Ficarra, RN, BSN, MPA [Original post, “Too Much Hype in the Mobile Health App World?” published on The Huffington Post on 7/23/12 in the Healthy Living/Health News Section.] The Wild West of mobile health (mHealth) is taking the health care industry by storm, but “there are no rules to the game,” said Joseph C. Kvedar, M.D., founder and director at the Center for Connected Health in a recent interview. Mobile health is a…

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Social Media and Health IT – List of HIT100 Winners

By Barbara Ficarra, RN, BSN, MPA Healthcare IT News recently published the winners of #HIT100.  The #HIT100 is a crowd-sourced list of the most influential individuals or organizations who contribute to the advancement of health care technology through social media. Nominated by their peers, winners are Twitter users active in the health IT (#HealthIT) and social media (#HITsm) space. Michael Planchart, enterprise healthcare architect at Perficient, and blogger at The EHR Guy is the creator…

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Brilliant Tech Geniuses with Dreams to Change the World

By Barbara Ficarra, RN, BSN, MPA I’m super excited to write this post because it highlights amazing students who are passionate about changing the world for the better.  Students from around the globe with passion, brainpower and love of technology are utilizing their talents to make the world a better place.  They had the opportunity to compete in a world-wide technology competition, Imagine Cup 2012, made possible by Microsoft Corp. and Coca-Cola.  These students represent…

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mHealth: Valuable information in PwC report, but are the findings remarkable?

By Barbara Ficarra, RN, BSN, MPA A recent report, (PDF link) “Emerging mHealth:  Paths for growth,” commissioned by PwC, (PriceWaterhouseCoopers) the Economist Intelligence Unit, is well executed, however it’s important to understand the research sample for this survey. Is it possible that the results of the survey would be different if the sample was broader in terms of the types of patients questioned and the doctors and executives from payer organizations that were selected were…

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