Practice, practice, practice. Touch Surgery, a mobile surgical training platform, is collaborating with the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy to convert some of the society’s procedural videos into interactive mini-simulations at the Digestive Disease Week. 

ASGE members will get the chance to try out the mobile platform during the conference. The technology is a blend of digital and hands-on experiences and will let users try out several endoscopic procedures. 

“We are really excited about working with the ASGE we are humbled and honored partnering with them on the initial roll out.  We [hope] ASGE members will find the procedure valuable and useful and continuing to work with to work with us,” Jean Nehme, CEO of Touch Surgery, told MobiHealthNews. 

...

Patient portal skeptics. A recent survey put out by the National Poll on Healthy Aging found that roughly half of patients between the ages of 50 and 80 set up an account on a secure online access site or patient portal offered by their care provider.

The survey also found that adults with a higher household income were more likely to sign up (59 percent) than patients with a lower income (42 percent). Women were more likely to sign up (65 percent) than men (45 percent). Researchers also found that older adults between the ages of 65 and 80 were more likely to say they don’t like to communicate about their health through a computer than their younger counterparts.

... 

Everything is more interesting on video. Communicating health information via video could help researchers obtain information and improve patient understanding during clinical trials, according to a recent study presented at the American Thoracic Society Annual conference. 

The trial was made up of children and their parents. The pairs were split into two groups: one group watched a 15-minute video with multimedia channels for more information about the study and the other got a 13-page consent document. In the short term, caregivers in both groups performed roughly the same on a retention questionnaire. However, after five months caregivers in the video group outperformed the traditional group. 

"Right now, 80 percent of clinical trials are delayed because too few people sign up to participate. Nemours is investigating how we can improve recruitment and participation in research," Kathryn Blake, director of Nemours' Center for Pharmacogenomics and Translational Research and the lead researcher of the study, said in a statement. "As a part of this project, we looked at new ways to obtain informed consent, by utilizing a 15-minute video that incorporates eLearning principles for a more visually engaging way for participants of all literacy and health literacy levels to digest the information.”

...

Tracking you, tracking. Eye tracking research company Tobii Pro just launched their latest tool that lets eye-tracking studies be conducted within 3D virtual reality environments. The technology, called Tobii Pro VR Analytics, could be used to help train doctors and analyze their eye movements in a number of hypothetical situations, according to the company. In addition to training medical professionals, the company said the technology could be used in the fields of retail, manufacturing, and aviation.