Doctor Blogs Reveal Patient Info & Endorse Products
3 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // July 23rd, 2008 // 12:17 pm
For all the complaints about not having enough time to see patients or keep up with the latest innovations, some docs do manage to blog an awful lot. And that may be causing a problem - some authors may be unwittingly revealing confidential patient info, according to a new study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
The study, which was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, examined 271 blogs and found that, while overt violations were rare, 45 blogs, or 16.6 percent, included sufficient info for patients to identify their doctors or themselves. Individual patients were described in 114, or 42.1 percent of the blogs. Patients were portrayed positively in 43 blogs, or 15.9 percent, and negatively in 48 blogs, or 17.7 percent. And three blogs showed recognizable photographic patient images. Here is the study.
They cite an example in which the anonymous blogger “Flea” revealed details of a patient’s death after a malpractice case was brought against him. The lawyer for the plaintiffs recognized the description of the case, and shortly thereafter, the case was settled out of court and the author removed his blog from the Internet. (You can read about that here).
“The blogging community has made an effort to set standards for medical bloggers, but unfortunately, professional organizations and medical educators haven’t come out with rules for handling the new medium,” lead author Tara Lagu of the University of Pennsylvania tells Pharmalot. “Medical blogs are a great opportunity to learn about the health care system, but they need to know some bloggers have unprofessional conduct, although that doesn’t represent the medical profession as a whole. The issue is the risk of losing patient trust. We want to maintain that.”
Another interesting finding - healthcare products were promoted, either by images or descriptions, in 31, or 11.4 percent of the blogs. The products included prescription drugs, medical devices and nutritional supplements. She notes that a recent poll found 29 percent of bloggers have been approached by a public relations professional to endorse a product, and of those, 52 percent had written a post endorsing the products on their blogs. Meanwhile, the study found there were no disclosures indicating author conflicts of interest info.
“I don’t know if its public relations firms or companies directly contacting bloggers, but there are promotions and we looked for conflict of interest statements and didn’t find any. And that’s the most disturbing thing for us,” Lagu contines. “By standards of the profession, you should have to disclose conflicts when giving a talk or writing a paper. When you have an ad on the side of your blog, people know it’s an ad. But when you write in the text about a product, people don’t know.
But what about simply mentioning or reviewing a product? “Sometimes, it sounded very much like an endorsement. Other cases, it was difficult to know. And that’s part of our point. If there was mention in the text that was going on and on about the merits of the product, it could almost sound like a pitch. So we would count that.”
Dan
The Prevention of Ignorance
Historically, information sources provided to American citizens were limited due to the few methods available to the public. And also this information was subject to being filtered and, in some cases, delayed or eliminated. This occurred for a number of reasons, which included political ones. What I am referring to is pre-internet sources, such as media sources in the form of radio, newspaper, and television, for example.
Now, and with great elation (some may say), there is the internet, which has been useful to everyone from researchers to job seekers. Even doctors who seek authentic information and research elements of their profession
Soon after the advent of the internet, web logs were created, that are termed presently and simply ‘blogs’. At that time, about a decade ago, the blogs were referred to as personal journals or diaries visible on line. As time passed, blogs became a media medium, and blog communities evolved on topics that often were not addressed in mainstream media. In addition, blogs provide immediate contributions by others instead of the cumbersomeness of opinion and editorial pieces historically and not always presented in such media forms as newspapers.
The authors of blogs vary as far as the backgrounds of the creators of these journals, as well as their true intent of what they choose to present to possible readers. Furthermore, they are not exonerated from the legalities of what is written, such as cases of libel or plagiarism, for example. While we can presume that blog creators have at least an interest in a particular subject, ideally they should also have an interest and ability to annotate the written word. As with other printed material, the quality varies, as I believe this is overall rare as far as what is posted on blogs. What is of concern is the sharing of personal information about another by some writers. Then issues of invasion of privacy become a possibility.
Yet presently, blogs have become quite a driving force for those with objectives often and apparently opposed by others, and are possibly and particularly a great threat to big business and politics- both of which have been known to often monitor often the progress and/or content of some blogs, which potentially provide instant and often accurate information for readers- which includes what is posted on blogs as well as what may be commented on these posts. Understandably, this weapon certainly has the potential to affect such groups unable to prevent or filter what could expose what has not been disclosed, and at times needs to be disclosed. Rarely do blogs involve trade secrets, for example, as far as I know. So this information source in the form of a blog can be of great value to others.
This also and fortunately includes information released from whistleblowers on certain blogs or directly to the creators of certain blogs- often and with good reason to remain invisible in doing so. Normally, information shared by these people is valid, honest, and complete. And remaining anonymous is certainly possible. So secrets are difficult now to maintain with select organizations.
Yet, blogs are not free of fallacies, as one disadvantage of blogs is the potential lack of reliability, blogs however do allow the posting of documents that typically are not created for view of others besides perhaps a select few. Furthermore, blog owners, as with journalists, strive to verify any premise stated on their blog. For example, blogger Dr. Peter Rost, a whistleblower himself, not long ago posted a newsletter on his blog, http://www.peterrost.blogspot.com, that was given to him by pharmaceutical maker AstraZeneca employees who called themselves the ‘AZ Group of Seven’ to bring to the attention to others the illegal activity of off-label promotion of one of their cancer drugs. Yet this is not what caught the attention of so many who viewed all of the content of this newsletter posted in completion on Dr. Rost’s blog site, named, “Question Authority”. It was instead a comment in this newsletter that was annotated as being stated by former regional AZ manager Mike Zubalagga, who in this newsletter referred to doctors’ offices as ‘buckets of money’. Again, the statement was authentic and in writing in this newsletter. At the same time, the statement validated what others view of pharmaceutical companies in relation to their greed, perhaps, so it traumatized the company’s public relations most likely.
Mr. Zubalagga was fired the next day due to this comment. His manager resigned soon afterwards.
And there have been other whistleblower blog cases in addition to this one, so blogs have become a very powerful and threatening medium of information release that does not allow others to prevent such releases. This is true freedom of information, free of alteration or omission. One could say that blogs are reaching a form of some sort of communication utopia. Also, as with the case just stated about the newsletter, some are more careful what is written than others.
Yet again, the information on these blogs should not be taken as absolute truth without proof to verify claims that may be made. Of course, documents that are authentic are in fact proof, as illustrated with the above example. And this, in my opinion, is the blog’s greatest value, combined with the comments on blogs from the growing number of readers who are allowed to contribute to the subject matter so quickly, which fuels the objectives of the blogs, which clearly opens formerly closed loops.
Because we, the public, have a right to know what we are entitled to know and what we want to know. This is especially true if the information could potentially be adverse to our well-being. Personally, I have no interest in the financial future of a company, for example. More important to me is the importance of knowing if others may potentially harm others with deliberate intent.
“Always be smarter than the people who hire you.” — Lena Horne
Dan Abshear
Author’s note: What has been written is based upon information and belief
truthman30
Lets Face it..
Blogs rock!!!…
Never before in the history of our globalized capitalist-consumer driven system have the consumers ever had a powerfully real, accessible and tangible way of communicating their thoughts and experiences to the corporate monoliths..
Blog power is people power…
Fix Online Doctors Appointment
Doctor service has very much improved and can make many wonders like treating cancer etc