Health Management Rx

Team Contagion! In Sticker Form...

2010-07-21T19:30:00.001-04:00

Swag from #casualconnect.

Far left, for Keith, analyst and Chief Science Officer: The "Looky Lou" Middle, for Jen, CEO and soc-me demon: "Blogmuncher" Far right, for Andrey, CTO and dev wizard: "The Web Ninja"

"I'm on a cart - hiyahhh!"

2010-07-17T18:30:00.001-04:00

Someone should do an Old Spice "I'm an entrepreneur" spoof. Chris Sacca, consider yourself hereby nominated...

CHRISTUS CABRINI HOSPITAL ANNOUNCES INTERNATIONAL DIABETES CONTEST WINNERS | CHRISTUS St. Frances Cabrini

2010-07-16T01:55:00.001-04:00

We're thrilled to be a part of CHRISTUS Health’s’ commitment to compassionate care, and to bring this social focus to such a worthy goal.” "We are committed to finding ways to make healthy daily decisions ‘contagious’. We believe your health is in your hands, and the pursuit of better health is a social activity. Who better to support you in this effort than family and friends?

via christusstfrances.netreturns.biz

Contagion took 2nd prize!

Now the *real* work begins.

I'm thrilled and yes, a bit frightened by the scope and opportunity we've been presented with here.

Even though we all tell ourselves we start companies with the noblest of intentions, it's not everyday a scrappy startup gets a chance to ACTUALLY save the world, or - at the very least - improve the state of healthcare for folks with diabetes in the state of Louisiana.

This is the kind of opportunity I go to bed dreaming about and wake up to find - amazingly - we have in front of us.

I am so grateful to be called to doing this kind of work, and to have the resources appear, sometimes through sweat, blood, and tears, sometimes through absolute luck, to make this happen.

Thank you - everyone - for your support and love and encouragement.

Your enthusiasm and belief in Andrey and I is contagious.

It is palpable. It allows us to keep reaching for goals that seem unobtainable.

Please...keep it coming. We'll need it more than ever in the year ahead.

Emailing Docs is Good for You (and Them) - Who Knew? Kaiser, Apparently...

2010-07-12T15:30:00.001-04:00

Patients who take advantage of secure patient-physician email options offered by their doctor are more likely to experience healthy outcomes, according to a recent study published in the journal Health Affairs. In a study of their own electronic health records system, Kaiser Permanente researchers found that patients suffering from diabetes and hypertension who emailed their doctors had higher quality of care scores than those who do not use such technology.

A similar study, published simultaneously in Health Affairs, found that primary-care physicians must improve their communication skills in order to deliver "patient-centered care."

Patients who email their doctors are healthier, Kaiser study finds - FierceHealthIT

2010-07-12T15:28:00.001-04:00

Patients who take advantage of secure patient-physician email options offered by their doctor are more likely to experience healthy outcomes, according to a recent study published in the journal Health Affairs. In a study of their own electronic health records system, Kaiser Permanente researchers found that patients suffering from diabetes and hypertension who emailed their doctors had higher quality of care scores than those who do not use such technology.

A similar study, published simultaneously in Health Affairs, found that primary-care physicians must improve their communication skills in order to deliver "patient-centered care."

via fiercehealthit.com

Dinner #getupandmove!

2010-07-05T23:43:00.001-04:00

I will grate cheddar for an awesome spinach dinner salad if you will...?

Getupandmove.me/Cabot

The PHR: Uber-Simple Definition

2010-07-05T17:48:00.001-04:00

via omowizard.files.wordpress.com

Toss this to your friends when you start making med-record-acronym-salad all up in ur social networks....

Reason #42 to Get Up and Move...

2010-07-05T16:05:00.001-04:00

By the power of Greyskull that is a lot of money but I admit to being in desperate need of increasing my body strength. My ten year old child often turns the taps off in the bathroom very tightly and I have to go several days without washing. I feel bad constantly having to ask the lady from next door to come over and loosen them for me, what with her arthritis and limited wheelchair access to my apartment.
To be honest, I originally joined your gym with full intentions of attending every few days but after waiting in vain for someone to offer me steroids, I began to suspect this was not going to happen and the realisation that I may have to exercise instead was, quite frankly, horrifying. My aversion to work, along with the fact one of your employees, Justin, was rather rude, telling me to 'lift this', ''push that' dulled my initial enthusiasm of becoming muscular and I stopped attending.

via 27bslash6.com

If your aversion to working out is as strong as David's, consider increasing your body strength with a sweet lil' situp challenge.

Join 5 of us here: http://getupandmove.me/shazow/2234

Our new nifty groups feature is sort of like Evite for healthy actions

Who do you think needs to get a move on? Invite them to work off that 4th of July bar-b-q, courtesy of Team Contagion.

Long Live Pedal Power

2010-06-26T20:49:00.001-04:00

via awesome.good.is

From: GOOD.is | Transparency: The Rise of Walking and Biking (Raw Image)

Want vs. Need

2010-06-25T21:05:00.001-04:00

Often, we know what we *should do, and what we *shouldn't.

Sometimes all we need is an excuse (someone, something) to make the right choice.

The most valuable part of the decision-making process may be cutting things out, when we discriminate or "put a hit" on the 'bad' options.

Learning in progress with Get Up and Move...

Andrey's stroke of simple brilliance during a planning session = we tend to learn what we want GUAM to be by first determining what we do NOT want it to be.

1. We do not want it to be a quantification site.

2. We do not want it to be a generic pledge/promise site.

3. We do not want it to be a health site.

4. We do not want it to be a game.

5. We do not want it to be all talk, no action.

Amazingly, this helped us figure out what we do want Get Up and Move to be when it grows up (although, like a teenager, it's probably gonna change its outfit repeatedly and suffer from a few really bad haircuts):

1. We do want it to help you quantify your achievements. But we don't want to demotivate people to whom seeing achievement numbers or leaderboards feels like getting poison ivy in the private parts. Action: API planned.

2. We do not want it to be about 'just any' promise.' You can already use it for this now, if you like. Because after all, health is about so much more than what is done to you at the doctors office, what happens to you at the hospital. It's about good living, and reciprocal nurturing. Action: Analyze what actions people find most valuable, and design for those. Continue to keep 'completing' a challenge at the core of our philosophy, while continuing to make it easier to 'motivate' without completing an action by including comment, media, and other nifty stuff.

3. We want health to be the side effect of designing a really kick-ass action platform that helps you git er done by aggregating support from across your existing social graphs. Action: Continue moving folks from intent to action. Continue testing the best way to get you a surplus of support from friends and family, stat. Want a phone call? We're on that like the snowy white casing on the new iPhone 4G.

4. We want using Get Up and Move to feel like a commitment to yourself and someone else. This isn't a game. You don't have to find some rare snowy egret egg, become a drag queen or motocross racer or 6 foot blue yeti. You don't have to go on quests, grow leaves, or kill off daemonic choices. You're smarter than that anyway, and you'd probably rather be watching True Blood than become a Level 7 Blue Footed Bed Jumper. Action: We won't social-gamerize you, or try to trick you into better behavior. We will, however, try to use smart game design and behavioral economics to figure out how to make this fun without being spammy or gimmicky.

It's crazy to believe there are still only two of us, and one programmer, and we're already on V6.0, code named "Awesome." This was about building what we want, mixing it with some of what you need, and then tossing it all back to see how smooth it goes down.

Speaking of which, we left you alone too long without letting you know how we're doing - as a team, as a company, as a platform.

We won't make that mistake again. We don't want to move with you, we NEED to. Expect some very nifty news from us, and more frequent love letters, dear readers.

And in case you hadn't noticed, Version 6 of Get Up and Move Me is live and hot out of the oven.

Groups, comments, upload a video, emails, and you can 'fly solo' too. We'll have a nifty update on all the new stuff Monday, with tech deets from Andrey to boot.

Here's to a long, happy lifespan - for you and for us. Now I'm gonna go do that "put my feet up for 1 hour" challenge. Who's with me?!

Want vs. Need

2010-06-25T20:00:00.001-04:00

via files.posterous.com

Wiifit Gets a Competitive Cousin

2010-06-24T10:10:00.001-04:00

So Kinect works—and better than I’d have thought.

Still, I foresee some challenges, the first being the space required to play some of Kinect's more active games.

Most of the activities I tried demanded plenty of movement—much more than any Wii game I’ve played. The key differentiator is that the player’s feet are now involved, which means we no longer stand in one spot and just move our arms; we actually move around the room.

I’d estimate that I was moving left and right at least three metres while I was steering the raft and a couple of metres forward and backward in the handball game. And that doesn’t include the two metres between my movement zone and the television—space necessary in order for the camera to get a full picture of your body and the area in which it moves—or my flailing limbs.

via theglobeandmail.com

Want. +1.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1395482059027

Best Bed Jump #getupandmove Evar

2010-06-22T11:26:00.001-04:00

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Ten Clapping #getupandmove Pushups for @evanmacmillan

2010-06-21T14:02:00.001-04:00

Note to guammies: do these on a springy gym mat. My nostrils kissed the floor more than a couple times.

Sent from my iPhone

Eat Ur Own Dog Food

2010-06-19T05:35:00.001-04:00

Download now or watch on posterous

IMG_8106.MOV (2979 KB)

If you don't use your own app on a regular basis, who the heck are you building for?

Try something new today. Something small. How long has it been since you did a somersault? Touched your toes?Walked barefoot in fresh early- summer grass?

Move. Today. Your body will thank you. So will I.

Ready for the Hospital? Nope? How about "Cave Explorer?"

2010-06-17T13:26:00.001-04:00

via pbfcomics.com

Note to self: Reconceptualize the mundane. Each microcosmic moment of life can feel like an adventure.

Now excuse me, off to figure out how to make a shower fun...

Team Contagion Uniforms - Want One? We're Hiring

2010-06-16T15:16:00.001-04:00

Download now or watch on posterous

IMG_0026.MOV (8266 KB)

It was a long day, after we pulled an all-nighter. What can I say ;).

Join Team Contagion. We're lookin...

2010-06-16T14:57:00.001-04:00

Right now. For a front end engineer and a back end engineer.

Contagion is building an early-stage consumer action platform.

We are engineering and product driven, with an early revenue deal and passionate users.

Click here to download:

IMG_0026.MOV (8266 KB)

-1 if you call yourself ninja, 10x, or some other nomenclature on your resume. Of course you're 10x ;).

We'll be very picky about the right fit. Personal recommendations are the best way in.

Company perks:

Join us for the summer in a pre-eminent incubator.
Be part of the journey as we get an office, meet with VCs, and grow our core product, pushing further into the mobile and social spaces.
You want to work on location? Sure. Game mechanics? Yep. Mobile/iPad development? Come on over.
We encourage you to own and open-source any libraries or software you develop on which our core product doesn't depend directly, under your own name.
We highly encourage side projects and don't retain ownership. The stuff you like to do is your stuff.
"Inspiration" oriented work schedule and 4 day work week (Fridays the founders keep working - hang with us if you like). Our office is open 24/7 or work from the beach, coffee shops, the CalTrain.
Gym memberships and work-out meetings.
Don't get us wrong - we work hard, and we work long hours. The answer to anyone on the team asking: "Is X ready to roll?" should always be "yeah, yesterday" not "almost.
Speaking of which, we'll move you out to Silicon Valley for the summer.
Meet our Board of Awesome (Garry Tan of Posterous, Joe Gebbia of Airbnb, Stephen Cohen of Posterous Technologies).
Interact like peers, not subordinates. Every engineer is a founder of the product. We treat you like one. Whatever part of the company dynamics interest you (funding, legal, UX, speaking/demoing) we want you to do that and learn from our mistakes.
Hang at brunches and dinners where we learn from the best: Matt Galligan of SimpleGeo, the crew from GreenPatch, and more.
Teaching Thursdays: Want to learn chess? Frisbee golf? How to interview? For an hour or so 1x a week Team Contagion members teach each other cool stuff.
Champagne delivered to new employees, dinner with your significant others, hosted by the founders, Adobe-style.
Salary important? Need a visa? Want equity? We'll work with you to figure out the right individual compensation package.

Interested? Get in touch:

@shazow (CTO): andrey@contagionhealth.com

@jensmccabe (CEO): jen@contagionhealth.com

Email resume and what you'd change about http://getupandmove.me to icanhaz@contagionhealth.com.

Feast!

2010-06-14T00:57:00.001-04:00

Thanks to the DotCloud and Padmapper boyz for joining Team Contagion, plus the founder of Subtle Influence and Limedaring.com, for this awesome summer repast.

Good food, good fun, good friends and founder talk. So grateful to be exactly where I am, doing exactly what I'm doing. I'll feed you guys anytime ;).

Must Read: How Information Spreads in Online Social Networks (Social Contagion)

2010-06-13T14:14:00.001-04:00

The online users are connected to each other via links of trust and utilize the features of the OSN to interact and communicate in an easy socio-technical way. Hence these virtual networks of social relationships have a high potential for influential decision-making and the word of mouth spread of information, but also for spreading fads, rumors, and erroneous information. The power of these new forms of social networks is also recognized by service providers, marketers and vendors of consumer goods. They would all like to (mis)use these existing communication channels to spread product placements, advertising and promotions directly to the connected users. However, just like the old economy businesses, not all attempted marketing initiatives are successful. Most of them fail or do not reach the desired audience.

via papers.ssrn.com

SSRN-Spontaneous Diffusion of Information in Online Social Networks by Chris Russ.

Read it here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1620808

How Get Up and Move Works...

2010-06-11T17:45:00.001-04:00

via 20x200.com

Perfect summary of how Get Up and Move works.

Art at www.20x200.com. This print by Austin Kleon.

You might be a startup founder if...

2010-06-09T18:59:00.001-04:00

You and your cofounder show up at Stanford, buy a bike from a Craigslist post, stuff it in the trunk, realize you have no string, and "borrow" tape from a kid who is moving out to-literally-tape the trunk shut like a giant present.

Sent from my iPhone

State of the Geolocation Nation

2010-06-07T15:32:00.001-04:00

via columnfivemedia.com

From Column Five Media: GO-GEOLOCATION-R7.png 905×2500 pixels.

Dance with a Heifer, for Ben Rubin

2010-06-05T13:28:00.001-04:00

She was *not* happy with being my partner at the Strolling of the Heifers. Maybe it was the ears...

Contagion Health and Cabot Creamery: Partners in Healthy Moooves at Strolling of the Heifers Setup

2010-06-04T16:05:00.001-04:00

Setting up for live #getupandmoves onsite, Brattleboro, VT.

Where Magic Happens

2010-06-03T16:25:00.001-04:00

The spot from which many good things will originate this summer....

New team Contagion live/work space. Desk is a stainless steel impenetrable fortress of happiness and motivation. Gift to myself, courtesy of Craigslist and a great couple with excellent taste who are moving back to Sweden. They carried the desk up two flights of stairs and wished us well with Get Up and Move. Thanks Eugenie-we'll make you proud ;)

Lessons on How to Be Leader of the Pack

2010-05-19T23:01:00.001-04:00

From George Lucas. Maxim Magazine (yep, I read it, every once in awhile). June 2010.

Interviewer: "Have you mellowed over the years?"

Lucas: "Yeah but I'm old-school. I'm hands-on with everything from the screenplays and the music to the hair cuts and the shoelaces. I've learned to accept that it's a team effort, but somebody finally has to say, "No, we do it this way." If you're not the leader of the pack, then you should be doing something else."

Posted via email from Niffer's Sooper Secret Posterous

Enterprise Biz Dev Folks: Social Tech May Come a Knockin'

2010-05-19T14:23:00.001-04:00

But Foursquare’s deal with Starbucks points to an inconvenient truth about scaling a check-in service: for check-ins to have real value, they need to be incentivised. And real incentives come through partnerships laboriously hashed out by a strong biz dev team.

That means it’s going to take more than snappy engineers, pretty badges, or even tons of users, for a company to win the war for check-ins. It’s going to take a strong salesforce that can offer users lots and lots of coupons and making checking-in worth their while.

via blogs.ft.com

From: "Foursquare keeps up the buzz | Tech Blog | FT.com."

The irony of a scalable, viral social app that requires an enterprise team to close revenue is thoroughly enjoyable to anyone who's lived/worked through a Valley startup and heard echoing down the corridors of Sand Hill Road: "Yeah, but will it scale?" or "Don't worry about revenue, just get users."

I'm looking forward to the day when startups (some, not all, the old early 2000's model of virality is still useful) focus more on maximizing VALUE per individual user rather than scaling a service that has less than 5% repeat, 'regular' users.

Thesis: With geolocation and check-ins, the 'quality' of your users (where they go, how often) will matter more than the quantity.

If you are Foursquare for example, consider this example of individual user value: a loyal user may check-in 7+ times weekly.

This user is more valuable than 5 other users who check-in, on average, 1x a week.

With check-ins and other real-time data capture services, all of a sudden recidivism matters (again).

After the novelty of checking in wears off, the company providing that service better be able to build in real-life perks (geopromotions, coupons for 1$ off my Frappuccino, etc) to keep you coming back.

Check-ins are essentially confirmations of life events (places we go, people we're with).

And this requires, gasp, a focus on individual user loyalty and utility over time, offered in the context of an intensely personal contextual data firehose.

Foursquare's badges, leaderboard, and mayor awards were a good early strategy to get users comfortable with the check-in behavioral pattern, but now they'll need to move past virtual incentives to real-world goodies.

Fortunately for Foursquare (and friends), most of us fill our days with an endless parade of comings and goings to lighten the tyranny of hours.

The brilliance of their platform is that it captures the underutilized asset of how we spend a portion of the 10,080 minutes we're each allotted weekly.

The question will increasingly be whether or not it's worth my while to burn 21 or so of those minutes checking in (3 mins/checkin, 7x weekly).

"Life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you wish, but you only spend it once. " ~Lillian Dickson

Today's #getupandmove

2010-05-18T21:38:00.001-04:00

The road less traveled, off Ravensbury, high in the Los Altos hills. Have you moved today?

Sent from my iPhone

Check-In's Will Become a Commodity - Does Your Health App Have 'Em?

2010-05-17T19:02:00.001-04:00

Because as Lee explains, the "check-in" is going to be a commodity in a matter of months -- everyone will have a "check-in" feature, ranging from the likes of Foursquare to Facebook and Google. It's what happens after the check-in that is going to be valuable, Lee says, and he and Booyah plan to use location data specifically to make games.

via sfgate.com

From: "Booyah! Foursquare Rival Raises Huge $20 Million Round From Accel (AAPL)."

Geolocation and personal identification combined = 'here I am,' or a 'check in' format.

However, if you're a Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, or MyTown user, you may have found that after the honeymoon period of seeing yourself show up on a map or leaderboard wears off, there's little incentive to continue broadcasting your location.

Also, constant check-ins, like constant micro-blog updates via Twitter, may serve to highlight for some of us the banality of our everyday routines.

How can the places we go become a game? An asset?

How can a list of the places we go, subjectively selected and entered - become both a personal experiential (n=1) asset and a clinically relevant population-health (n=

A note on the subjectivity/self-selection check in process and clinical utility...I've yet to see any friends check in at meth clinics or strip clubs, although both of these behaviors might be an important piece of evidence in the clinical record.

If you use these sites and services, what incentivizes you to 'check in?'

Are there any incentives you can imagine that would move you to 'check in' for healthcare related transmission of personal data to direct and unplugged to your health record?

Open question...

How Long Before We Have a "Diabetes" Program Button?

2010-05-14T00:19:00.001-04:00

Eating our own #getupandmove dog food, post-dinner at Cracker Barrel.

11:16pm. 15 mins down the hatch.

I just checked into a flight using my iPhone

2010-05-13T13:25:00.001-04:00

And an emailed link to a QR code.

AWESOME. Sent from my iPhone

PS-#getupandmove!

2010-05-12T02:57:00.001-04:00

Sent from my iPhone

What's Old is New Again - Geolocation's Potential = Getting People Through the Door

2010-05-10T14:10:00.001-04:00

People talk about location-based advertising, but location removes the need for advertising," said Seth Goldstein, co-founder of SocialMedia.com. "If you know where the consumer is, and that she is physically touching your brand, then you do not need to rely upon traditional mass-media channels to reach her.

via adage.com

From: "Facebook Poised to Take  Geo-Networking Mainstream - Advertising Age - Digital."

Even better, what if the consumer is physically doing something *beneficial* with your brand? Walking? Running? Lifting? Dancing? :)

Weirdest #getupandmove Yet...for @nostriluu

2010-05-09T18:27:00.001-04:00

Check - "spend 15 minutes looking for a lost pet."

Unfortunately, Hallie was last seen in Blacksburg VA in December...

I didn't find her on my walk (which took 30 minutes - after I got into the spirit of the thing it was hard to give up).

2 mins of #getupandmove crunches

2010-05-07T16:52:00.001-04:00

In the hospital birthing center where my niece Ava was just born. Legs are hanging on the edge of the couch, held together tight, Pilates style.

For @busternoe ... Please to keep 'em coming? I'd love to get up to 6 mins/day and I need an "abs buddy" ;). Sent from my iPhone

Dear Awesome Guammies - It's Been Awhile...Now You Can See Why!

2010-05-07T09:24:00.001-04:00

Guammies -

Thank you *so much* for your patience as we fumbled through figuring out features that will make your user experience better.

You gave us plenty of suggestions on how to improve Get Up and Move (GUAM) via Twitter, Facebook, and our Uservoice Feedback Forum.

Our challenge was to digest and categorize all those comments and figure out how to combine them into 'best use' design.

We're ridiculously pleased to announce our next big version is LIVE!

Amazingly, the "birth" of Get Up and Move's latest version occurred on the same exact day as the birthday of my newest niece!!!

Last night, while I was walking around with my sister Kate, who was having contractions, my cofounder Andrey was readying your new platform for healthier microchoices.

At about 2am, my niece Ava was born (7lbs 11 ounces!). At about 2:30 am, Andrey sent me an email. Here it is (with some commentology from moi):

Dear Awesomes:

The new getupandmove.me is live. You must all invite one new person or complete 50 pushups. :P

A non-exhaustive list of what's new:

NEW: Improved Facebook-ish design for challenge lists
NEW: Settings page! (Customize how you login and send challenges! Create a bio so people know what kinds of activities to ask you to do)
NEW: Your connected social networking services now link out of your public profile (one step closer to being able to get a date out of getupandmove) Um. A date?! From a #getupandmove challenge? I guess stranger things have happened on the web...
NEW: A snazzy "friends" grid based on your social graph (Facebook + Twitter - you'll see familiar avatar photos on the right side of your screen)
NEW: Improved tweet character counter to help you with those snarky challenge completion comments
NEW: Improved permalinks to challenges (now the permalinks are the same to all participants, which they weren't before)
NEW: Better links in tweets with bit.ly'fying (now permalinks to a challenge, rather than just to getupandmove.me)
NEW: Various image improvements courtesy of Tracy, our amazing designer (@limedaring)

Invisible changes that are enabling us to build even MORE exciting new features you've asked for to roll out next month:

COMING SOON: Completely rebuilt the challenge schema to support group stuff, the next "big thing" we're working on for June
COMING SOON: Commenting on someone else's challenge is almost ready, launch that next week
COMING SOON: Our first sponsored challenge community!

Please to ignore:

Notable increase of profanity in source comments and commits
Jen's rants about QA

It's constantly amazing to me what we're doing with a tiny, time-strapped 2 person team (and one of us taking baby steps towards learning Python).

*Please* keep telling us what works for you - and what doesn't - folks; it may take us some time to get your dream GUAM built, but your contact, comments and criticisms keeps us going on the long, dark, cold lonely nights :).

Your friendly neighborhood technical co-founder,

Andrey (@shazow)

Your friendly neighborhood non-tech co-founder,

Jen (@jensmccabe)

Remember Playing in the Dirt as a Kid?

2010-05-06T20:27:00.001-04:00

Tonight's #getupandmove...

Find a biiiiiig dirt pile. This one, in Blacksburg VA, weighs in at about 14 feet. Pretend there's a host of zombies (or 'social media consultants') at your heels... Scramble up said dirt mountain as fast as you can-like salvation is waiting on the other side. Don't just get UP and move this week. Get OUT and move, even if you live in an urban jungle. Sent from my iPhone

How About Some TB?

2010-05-04T17:43:00.001-04:00

Awwwe...I want some!

You can get TB, swine flu, or their buddies heartworm, sore throat, or rhinovirus at giantmicrobes.com. Spotted in th wild at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Now, where can I get the kissing disease?

Stairway to Healthy

2010-05-04T14:00:00.001-04:00

At ICSI

Sent from my iPhone

Geeky Valley Saturday at Weirdstuff Warehouse

2010-05-01T17:00:00.001-04:00

Great for startup chairs and other goodies!

Although I had to talk myself out of buying this Japanese typewriter... Sent from my iPhone

Forget the Obvious Solutions: Go for "Stealth" to Establish Self-Awareness in Healthy Decision-Making?

2010-04-27T16:23:00.001-04:00

There are a lot of reasons why we believe the stealth interventions will produce longer-term, more sustained effects that are of a greater magnitude than other strategies that have been tried in the past.

via physorg.com

From: "Stealthy leads to healthy in effort to improve diet, study shows." Via @physorg.

The Remains of Kung Foo Lettuce Salad

2010-04-26T22:52:00.001-04:00

For @dtran320's #getupandmove kitchen challenge...

I seriously have never had so much friggin fun in the kitchen in my entire life. Thanks David! More kitchen and food challenges most welcome... Challenge me here: http://getupandmove.me/jensmccabe. Request Flip video coverage if you like ;)

Holy Sh*& - Someone Wants to Create an Alternative Adverse Event Reporting Database; Who is the Empowered Patients Coalition?

2010-04-26T20:19:00.001-04:00

Patients who have been the victim of an adverse medical event will now have a new way to share the details of their experiences, according to the Empowered Patient Coalition. The San Francisco-based not-for-profit group, in collaboration with the Austin, Texas-based Consumers Union Safe Patient Project, has released a 40-question online survey that patients can use to report on their perspectives of incidents of medical harm.
The survey prompts respondents to provide the details of the incident including the state where it occurred, the type of provider involved, contributing factors, whether they considered litigation and providers' response following the event. Patients have the option of submitting the surveys anonymously.
Patients can also choose from several checklists to indicate the procedure or treatment that was associated with the adverse event. For instance, in the section of the survey related to surgical errors or complications, the respondent can check boxes to indicate “wrong-site surgery” or “post-operative complication.” There are also fields to provide details about healthcare-associated infections, falls, adverse medication events and other types of incidents.
“In the aftermath of such an adverse medical event, patients and their loved ones often have a strong need to share information about their experience,” the coalition said in a news release. “In the United States and Canada, there is no comprehensive system in place to capture and disseminate information on adverse events, and patients often feel excluded and unheard.”
In addition to providing a forum for patients who have experienced medical harm, the coalition also plans to aggregate the data and use it to analyze patterns that could lead to adverse events, according to the release.

From: "HITS - Modern Healthcare's daily IT e-newsletter."

The Consumers Union Safe Patient Project could be the start of a very interesting workaround for a lack of cohesive national, public variance reporting.

However, the "considered litigation" factor worries me a bit; will we see lawyers logging in and using the public database (if it's ever open) to find potential clients and suggest suits?

Even though patients and their families can leave responses anonymously, it will be interesting to see if early responders choose this option, or whether a culture of anonymity emerges.

The early community on Quora.com for example encouraged self-identification, but in the last few weeks a greater percentage of both questions and individuals posting answers choose to be 'anonymous' rather than to self-identify.

In the hospital where I served as a Patient Advocate and often filed variances in the ED, we *could* submit variances anonymously but were encouraged not to do so...the CQI root cause analysis tended to be more complete when as much information about the event and participants as it was possible to obtain, including names, was entered.

The Empowered Patient Coalition is new to me, but I'll be making friends in short order.

I'm especially interested in their goal of building a thorough adverse event database and where they hold and aggregate the data and analyze patterns.

A few questions...

1. Do they plan to release the data to the public?
2. What do they gain from building this body of data about adverse events? Do they plan to become a consulting body for hospitals and other organizations about CQI?

We'll see. This is one to watch.

Strange Bucketfellows: The Colonel and Breast Cancer Research

2010-04-24T21:39:00.001-04:00

Very interesting combo of consumer/health marketing...

And no, I did NOT buy a bucket ;)

New CureTogether Research: Exercise "Popular and Effective" for Treating Depression...

2010-04-23T12:47:00.001-04:00

via curetogether.com

But looks like a daily focus on sleep, talk therapy (BST anyone?) and personal growth workshops - along with small acts of microfitness - pack a powerful combo punch in fighting depression.

Amazing community-sourced research @accarmichael - and thanks for sharing it in a visualization where the import's easy to grasp.

The Problem Every Behavior Change Platform Should Shed Blood, Sweat, and Tears to Have...

2010-04-22T22:15:00.001-04:00

Interesting - after using the brilliant #getupandmove for 4 months, running is so integrated into my life that I no longer need the app #qs

via facebook.com

To build something so useful at providing social support and helping motivate behavior change that -

YOUR. USERS. OUTGROW. YOU.

Wow, this is a first.

The good news: #getupandmove is WORKING.

The bad news: most of us fall off the wagon after a bit (cough cough Susannah, self).

(Notice I do not believe the bad news is people stop wanting to #getupandmove, or stop wanting to use our platform).

Unfortunately, the bad news is that behavior change maintained over time takes anywhere from 18-260+ days, depending on your personality, environmental variables, and a whole host of factors we don't currently know how to track and then optimize.

Right now at Get Up and Move we're taking a look at how to build a kick-a#$ platform that:

1. helps guammies "level up," or go from individual/1x use;

2. lets you discover a fun new occasional activity you then repeat (like bed jump challenges or reading an article);

3. builds you up to prep for hitting a goal with a group (like our Bay to Breakers crew training - and I use the word loosely - in San Francisco);

4. and then helps you maintain (routinize) healthy microchoices you personally find fun and valuable, like Alex's running.

How can we do this?! That's a damn good question.

Alex's achievement represents our ultimate goal - building a platform that 'plugs in' near-real-time, extrinsic social support so useful that you no longer need it...motivation to move becomes internalized, intrinsic.

You own your goals. You own your microchoices. And you use them to be, well, better. .

That's the point where we think you can do one of several things:

1. you can pay it forward and challenge a friend or family member. (1:1);

2. you can adopt new guammies. (1: many - we're working on 'groups' features to help with this sort of thing);

3. you can motivate others to make micromovement a part of their daily decision tree so they too can see macro results.

But hell, why stop at achieving just one?

Speaking of which, I'm heading back offline to remind myself why we're so focused on building this online support platform.

See you all on the road to better health.

And may you too, one day, no longer need us ;).

Jen
Andrey

Genomics Keeps Getting More Exciting: Forget DNA. Give Proteomics a Pass...

2010-04-21T20:59:00.001-04:00

U.S. and Swedish scientists say they've discovered tiny bits of genetic material known as microRNAs can move from one cell to another.

MicroRNAs were first characterized during the early 1990s as regulating the activity of genes within cells. Now researchers at the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy, in collaboration with the Universities of Helsinki and Uppsala, have shown microRNAs can move from one cell to another to send signals that influence gene expression
on a broader scale.
The scientists said they made the discovery while investigating the intricate details of plant root development in Arabidopsis, a highly studied mustard plant. Although the researchers haven't determined how the microRNAs travel, they said it appears the mobility allows them to play an important developmental role in sharpening the boundaries that define one plant tissue from another.

"To our knowledge, this is the first solid evidence that microRNAs can move from one cell to another," Professor Philip Benfey, director of the Duke IGSP Center for Systems Biology, said.

The finding adds microRNAs to the list of mobile molecules -- including hormones, proteins and other forms of small RNA -- that allow essential communication between cells in the process of organ development.

via upi.com

RNA is where it's at...(or, at least, where it's heading).

From: "Study shows micro-rna's can move - UPI.com."

Why am I working so hard/fast/furious on Contagion and Get Up and Move?

Because, after some crazy group of folks saves healthcare, someone has to focus the genomics sect on something other than RNA therapies.

My next startup will work with practical applications of the RNA-centric genoanthropology theory.

I love startup Halcyon Molecular, but until someone has the microscopy to show us RNA action/movement in real time, we won't really know what we're missing.

DNA molecules are the cars on the highway, but RNA are the drivers.

Walking the Walk

2010-04-21T14:31:00.001-04:00

There are two types of people: those that talk the talk and those that walk the walk. People who walk the walk sometimes talk the talk but most times they don't talk at all, 'cause they walkin'. Now, people who talk the talk, when it comes time for them to walk the walk, you know what they do? They talk people like me into walkin' for them.

via imdb.com

From "Hustle & Flow."

Lesson of the day: Walk the walk. Then, don't let yourself get talked into walking someone ELSE's walk. (Harder than it sounds).

Social Games for Health Players Mean Move FAST: Wellness Companies, Are You Ready to Update 1x/Week?

2010-04-19T17:19:00.001-04:00

He also noted that the company’s games like Pet Society and Restaurant City are updated once a week “reacting to players and testing that sense of the game being alive. It keeps people there and when we launch new features they will tell you right away if they like it or not.”

Mr Segerstrale also noticed that this frequent interaction with players means the company is able to understand their likes and dislikes better.

“We are developing a long-term relationship with a specific user and that means if someone is a hardcore Pet Society player, chances are we shouldn’t push Gangster City at them.”

Mr Perry saw the value in that and seemed to suggest that, in the future, perhaps Facebook will need social gaming more than social gaming will need Facebook.

“The thing is you are now building on a platform and your platform is your community. That is why you will survive.”

via markwarner2008.com

From: "Spotlighting social gaming — World's Geekiest Dad | World's Geekiest Dad."

I was speaking with a venture capitalist last week about the social gaming for health space.

The ability to move fast, listen to users, and adapt quickly by releasing new features (or ruthlessly pruning ones that don't work) is one reason why larger, entrenched companies are hesitant to give up choice and control and allow 2 way challenges.

Even the most advanced, forward-thinking health insurers and medication reminder groups I know are still thinking that 'prescriptive' challenges issued by an authority figure - like your doc or a disease management nurse paid to give you a call to see if you're taking your pills - is the ideal way to go.

At Contagion, we think that's a bunch of bunk. The people who know you best - friends and family - these are the people who can provide the motivational support, in real time, that we need to make healthier daily microchoices.

Programming for contagious wellness is the only way to go, but it means you've got to:
1. Be willing to give choice and control BACK to your users;
2. Admit early when your assumptions are wrong;
3. Recognize quickly when you've baked in your own biases to platform design;
4. Move quickly to do all of the above.

Community Managers become vital 'software' in social gaming startups for precisely these reasons. The human machine/human code interactions are only one piece of the puzzle.

Being an active part of your community is another (this will, luckily, be a default if you build something to solve one of your own problems).

Health insurers, how many of you USE your own wellness portals on a weekly basis? If you haven't built something you want to use, what makes you think we will?

My Guammies Keep Me Honest...

2010-04-18T21:38:00.001-04:00

Even though they span thousands of miles and multiple social networks. Shockingly, my use of Get Up And Move has changed not just the way I think about taking cabs vs. walking, or taking the stairway to health, but also the way I eat (and what foods I choose to buy and cook, real time, at the point of purchase). Try it! Try tweeting or sending a Get Up and Move challenge for healthy food choice support next time you're a breath away from succumbing to junk food temptation. Just knowing I'm accountable for the debits and credits on my body's balance sheet to people other than myself means health becomes both community resource and an individual asset. Am I really going to intentionally pollute that? Sometimes yes, best intentions will fail me. But not today. Today I'm inputting blueberries. Thanks guammies! #getupandmove strikes again ;)

Sent from my iPhone

You've Got Five Minutes...

2010-04-14T17:05:00.001-04:00

Go outside. Take off your shoes. Plunge your toes into damp spring grass. Wiggle 'em. Life is good. Thanking @gwachob for this post-#getupandpace moment.

Sent from my iPhone

CBT Via the URLs - Treatment for Depression Online May Be as Effective as Group-Based Therapy IRL

2010-04-13T04:15:00.001-04:00

Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) via the internet is just as effective in treating panic disorder (recurring panic attacks) as traditional group-based CBT. It is also efficacious in the treatment of mild and moderate depression. This according to a new doctoral thesis soon to be presented at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden.

via physorg.com

From: "Panic disorder and depression can be treated over the Internet."

There's a great short story by Anne McCaffrey about a female psych/compsci student named Nora Fenn, who in a course discovers a lower incidence of psychosis and need for CBT after computer journaling became commonplace (cough cough socially acceptable catharsis on Twitter and Facebook anyone?).

Note: I think the collection of short stories is Get Off the Unicorn, and I highly recommend it as required reading for any self-respecting female scifi/fantasty geek.

Seems like Nora Fenn got it right. Some similar incidences in the cathartic value of sharing experiential patient narratives has surfaced in my Redefining Patienthood work as a Kisaut Fellow at the Health Strategy Innovation Cell.

The power of using "I" based narratives, and the opportunity to share them at will for community referential value, seems to have as yet unquantified cathartic gains for individual users.

Someday soon, someone's going to figure out the power of combining "I" and "you" to drive behavior change. Oh wait, @shazow, sound familiar? :)

I want this doctoral thesis candidate as a Contagion researcher. Anyone speak Swedish?

Get Up and Move Featured on Crosscurrents (KALW News/NPR)!

2010-04-09T14:39:00.001-04:00

via kalwnews.org

From: "Crosscurrents: April 8, 2010 | San Francisco Bay Area News - Crosscurrents from KALW."

Giving some guammie-love to @joemfbrown, who introduced Get Up and Move to Crosscurrents and KALW news yesterday!

Note: Skip ahead to 10:50 for Joe's segment on local SF tech innovations. #getupandmove appears right around 13:30!

"Whenever we can bleed that social networking on the web and social networking in the real world, it's good."

For @chimoose

2010-04-09T00:03:00.001-04:00

Why we go to work in the morning...at night...and all points in between.

Billboard in SFO. Sent from my iPhone

Trying Daytum: Why Self-Tracking Just Ain't Doin' the Job

2010-04-06T18:29:00.001-04:00

This afternoon I was typing an email to a new contact at Brute Labs in Mountain View, an awesome nonprofit that's partnered with Red Rock to launch Run! There, a geo-relevant social health program for collaborative run tracking in the MV area.

Our new #getupandmove buddy asked us if we'd seen Daytum.org. I replied that I used it last year to track things like sleep (or lack thereof), alcohol/caffeine intake. In fact, in that reply I finally hit on a relatively simple explanation of just throwing up personal biometric data all over a user doesn't necessarily drive 'healthy' behavior change.

Here's the transcript. After reading, chime in. Do you agree? Disagree? Does seeing data that hammers home how 'unhealthy' you allow yourself to be (for 'lifestyle' related conditions; many of us have chronic conditions that are outside our individual scope of choice + control) REALLY help you make better decisions?

*********************************

"In fact, using Daytum helped me realize one of the biggest challenges with visualizations of health/wellness data...how to get people to change? Turns out it isn't about the data for most folks.

In health/healthcare we tend to assume (erroneously) that just by presenting data a person will become self aware and make better, healthier choices.

I found that is often NOT true, in fact, sometimes it's the opposite: If you don't like what the data shows you (a lack of delta, you're not improving) you do NOT change your behaviors - you simply shut off the data stream. That's what I did when Daytum calculated my average caffeine intake....

I now think about it this way. One of the best forms of information architecture for health is the typical American bathroom. In most, you can't avoid that vanity mirror, that startling light. If all it took to make us change our behaviors to 'get healthy' was a datastream, wouldn't the daily visual view of our bodies in the bathroom mirror halt most of us from overeating? I'll be blunt - most of us don't wake up obese one morning...our weight is often the cumulative effect of daily microchoices. Seeing the data, even literally right in front of our faces, that we are not making healthy choices is just the first step.

*********************************

Figuring out how to provide real time, location-oriented, social decision-support in an n=1 personal context for each individual user is the challenge (and promise) of social health, and it's precisely what we're working on with #getupandmove.

Thanks for working on it with us, guammies. Sometimes seeing the data just ain't enough, and playing with your self-tracking gets lonely after awhile...:)

Secret Garden, Somewhere Along Howard Street, Downtown San Francisco

2010-04-05T22:23:00.001-04:00

You discover magical things venturing out on new #getupandmove adventures. Thanks to @limedaring for the run! Do yourself-and your health-a favor. Go get lost on a walk in your town. Take ten minutes for self+surroundings. You won't regret it.

Sent from my iPhone

#getupandmove Looks HOT on Ur New iPad!!!!

2010-04-03T18:33:00.001-04:00

Doing crunches for @litomikey with the iPad hitching a ride on my abs ;) Sent from my iPhone

Untitled

2010-04-03T18:32:00.001-04:00

Sent from my iPhone

Lesson for Health Tech Types - Don't Take Yourselves Too Seriously...

2010-04-01T10:14:00.001-04:00

via sockdoc.com

From the awesome team at ZocDoc.com...

@karsten, you guys really outdid yourselves on this one.

Also, note to startups looking for interns; do they get to do fun stuff like this?!

Surprise - Health is Social; Relationships Beat Out IT...

2010-03-31T15:13:00.001-04:00

Researchers examined the records of 568 patients at 24 New Jersey primary-care practices participating in a study on improving colorectal cancer screening and concluded that the “relationship-centered aspects” of the medical home model “are more highly correlated with preventive service delivery” than were “information technology capabilities.” Of the practices in the study, 46% used electronic health records, though it's unknown what functions were used and how long the systems were in place.

@fackeldeyfinds you remain visionary with 'hotealthcare' circa 2007.

Maybe We're Doing Something Right...

2010-03-30T23:06:00.001-04:00

via carsonified.com

From: "Fred Wilson’s 10 Golden Principles of Successful Web Apps | Carsonified."

Shoutout to our amazing UX/UI designer guru @limedaring for sharing this video of Fred.

Skip ahead to 7:14...

A Lesson in Problem-Solving, From an Unexpected Source...

2010-03-27T18:06:00.001-04:00

via media.wakooz.com

Preparing for our YCombinator interview (Monday) reminds me of cramming for exams in college.

You *know* you know the stuff, but writing it out on notecards repeatedly somehow helps you own the knowledge. It gifts you with a greater sense of perceived control.

I can't control whether or not we'll get into YC, but I sure as hell can control how we respond to some of the invaluable questions YC folks (PG especially) have raised about our business and growth.

So one problem I'm wrapping my noodle around this weekend is increasing the viral coefficient of #getupandmove.

In the midst of trying to graph out sectors, pick 'dream' potential partners, and generally figure out what the hell Google Analytics 'funnel' view is showing me, I happened upon a nifty lesson in perseverance and problem-solving.

This octopus is better at it than most bipedal homo-sapiens I know...

She boils it down to three essentials:
1. What I have
2. What I want
3. Try, fail, try again (iterate).

Off to figure out how to re-combine what we have (awesome guammies) with what we want (more awesome guammies).

Oh, and will someone please pass the coconut water?

Health: Yup, it's a Social Thing. Especially if You've Got a Chronic Condition...

2010-03-25T22:14:00.001-04:00

“People have good and bad days, and they don’t know a good day’s going to come Wednesday at 5 o’clock when a live support group is meeting,” Ms. Connell said. “The Internet is a great outlet for people to be honest.”
Not surprisingly, according to Pew, Internet users with chronic illnesses are more likely than healthy people to use the Web to look for information on specific diseases, drugs, health insurance, alternative or experimental treatments and depression, anxiety or stress.
But for them, the social aspects of the Web take on heightened importance. Particularly if they are homebound, they also look to the Web for their social lives, discussing topics unrelated to their illnesses. Some schedule times to eat dinner or watch a movie while chatting online.

via nytimes.com

From: "Online Social Networks Bridge Gaps for Chronically Ill - NYTimes.com."

Anal, Analytical, and...A Bit Brilliant

2010-03-25T19:05:00.001-04:00

To get to know her staff and their jobs, Dana is holding a "task auction." Everyone lists and ranks their duties; 10 being "I would do this even if you didn't pay me," and 1 being "You can't pay me enough." The exercise will not only allow her to see who does what, but also find ways to share responsibilities and change things up. Dana is also taking a note from Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy and balancing her time spent on resources, strategy, and personnel. She now color-codes her Outlook calendar by each category for even time distribution.

After your startup goes beyond a few founders, think this makes a lot of sense to do QUARTERLY.

This is NOT. Booth babes? Come on guys...

2010-03-24T15:19:00.001-04:00

In cheerleader shorts? Sigh. #ctia

Sent from my iPhone

This is beautiful mobile marketing by Kyocera

2010-03-24T15:17:00.001-04:00

At #ctia

Sent from my iPhone

#getupandmove Live at #sxsw! Shout Out On Smartblogs.com

2010-03-23T13:34:00.001-04:00

Inactivity & Apps
The Social Health Summit 2010: What We Learned wrap up highlighted a few gems, such as the social application Getupandmove.me which enables users to issue fitness challenges to their friends. (Think: I’ll do 15 pushups if you’ll climb two flights of stairs). Research shows that an asynchronous challenge, when two parties do things separately and not at the same time, is three times as effective as a synchronous challenge. (Think: You and I meet at the stairwell, and I do my pushups while you climb the stairs). Fascinating!

via smartblogs.com

From: "Health and social media at SXSW: New channels take on old problems | SmartBlog On Social Media."

Yeah Doug! :) Thanks for the shout - out...

(Health tweets, you can follow Doug on Twitter: @dougnaegele).

Of note, we also had 100% audience participation in the "pat your head and rub your tummy" group challenge. And yes, it was as silly and fun as it sounds...

Extra thanks to Chia Hwu (@chiah), Brian Singerman (@briansin), and Kyle Cooney for joining the panel moderated by Reed Smith (@reedsmith), and to Indu Subaiya of Health 2.0 (@bluetopaz), David Hale of Pillbox (@lostonroute66) and friends for hangin' with us on the last day of Interactive.

Now, let's see if @briansin's prediction that in a few years 50 percent of SXSW panels will deal with health in some way comes true...

Personalized Medicine Wins with Passing of HR 3590?

2010-03-22T21:11:00.001-04:00

H.R. 3590 — as passed in the House on March 21 by a 219-to-212 vote and which cleared the Senate in December — will include a section creating an independent Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. The non-profit institute will be charged with conducting research that informs the public and healthcare providers about the comparative risks and benefits of marketed drugs, devices, and medical products.

Specifically, with regard to personalized medicine, the institute's research will also look at the utility and effectiveness of medical products and services in "various subpopulations" differentiated by race, ethnicity, sex, age, co-morbidities, as well as genetic and molecular subtypes.

"For personalized medicine, this vote is historic," Amy Miller, public policy director at the Personalized Medicine Coalition, told GenomeWeb Daily News sister publication Pharmacogenomics Reporter this week. "It represents the first time that the principles of personalized medicine have been passed by both houses of Congress."

via genomeweb.com

From: "Personalized Medicine Looks to Take Step Forward with US Healthcare Reform Plan | GenomeWeb Daily News | DxPGx | GenomeWeb."

Gene geeks and #quantifiedself folks, pay attention to news about the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (as in set up a Google alert pronto)...

5 Minute Airport Marcomm Strategy Hack for #startuplife

2010-03-20T22:44:00.001-04:00

How to hack a magazine marcomm target list with your iPhone and 5 mins at an airport bookshop.... Step 1: Ignore the candy. Step 2: Put that sugarfree Red Bull back! Step 3: Pull out your iPhone. Step 4: Walk to magazine section. Step 5: Set iPhone to camera. Step 6: Take photos of magazine covers you want to cover your biz. *Consider going for regional or specialty pubs in your sector, like Yoga Health for #getupandmove, or a pub that may run a special use campaign, like The Knot bridesmaids' strapless dress bicep buff up #getupandmove. Step 7: Download this camera roll. Step 8: Research and email JUST ONE of these pubs a day. In a month, if you provide a short, simple concept pitch telling why Rachel Ray's readers should do 10 "counter kicks" every night before dinner, you should hit all the pubs you target within a month. Consider calendaring one/day on your Google calendar and adding any successes or requests for team resources to scrum or all hands meetings. Happy hunting!

@joemfbrown's Wall Sit Super Challenge Extreme!

2010-03-18T16:02:00.001-04:00

via youtube.com

This is the exact reason we built #getupandmove...+1...

First you harness your existing social network to send you challenges, and then you reach out to someone new.

Joe, thanks for being such a good sport :).

And no, I don't do a lot of wall sits, but I do challenge a lot of strangers to do physical things on Twitter...

Handstand #getupandmove for @genegeek!

2010-03-16T18:42:00.001-04:00

Coming to you live from Austin, TX. Photo credits to @oldbailey. Thanks to the lady and her dog on the path who said "nice handstand!" Community fitness like whoa! What you decide to do, every day, moves other folks from thought to action. How are you gonna move it today?

Cartwheel #getupandmove for @mdbraber

2010-03-12T19:27:00.001-05:00

Hoi Maarten-

Thought of you and the Nexthealth crew today running along the river in Austin, Texas.

#getupandmove works because, as @edbennett told me today outside the Hilton hotel at #sxsw, when you do a challenge, you wind up thinking about the friend or family member who sent it to you.

That means you're not just moving for yourself, you're moving for someone else too.

Maarten - this one's for you!

#getupandmove for #sxsh - The Bed Jump Challenge Returns!!

2010-03-11T00:09:00.001-05:00

Grown-ups (I use the term loosely) - have you forgotten how much friggin' fun it is to jump on a bed?
I highly recommend it. Find your inner silly kid. It still feels damn good...
PS - also, I like to put the ole' bed jump on ice til I'm in a hotel. My bed deserves better ;).
Click on a video below to watch it:

#getupandmove for #sxsh!
Video Length 0:57
Click here to watch

To learn more about the Flip Video Camcorder, click here.

Humana intro's individual health insurance in Oklahoma: http://www.insurancebio.com/blog/humana-introduces-individual-health-insurance-in-oklahom.html

2010-03-08T20:54:00.001-05:00

Cooperative Behavior is Contagious: Reason to See Glass Half Full in Health IT Design

2010-03-08T17:38:00.001-05:00

In a study published in the March 8 early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the University of California, San Diego and Harvard provide the first laboratory evidence that cooperative behavior is contagious and that it spreads from person to person to person. When people benefit from kindness they "pay it forward" by helping others who were not originally involved, and this creates a cascade of cooperation that influences dozens more in a social network.

The research was conducted by James Fowler, associate professor at UC San Diego in the Department of Political Science and Calit2's Center for Wireless and Population Health Systems, and Nicholas Christakis of Harvard, who is professor of sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and professor of medicine and medical sociology at Harvard Medical School. Fowler and Christakis are coauthors of the recently published book "Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives."

via behavioralhealthcentral.com

Research by Fowler and Christakis - we'll be examining early #getupandmove data using the social contagion research these two gents are publishing.

In addition to being fun, it's evidence-based, yo!

When Common Sense and Health Collide (Not Often): UK Teens Work Out More with Fun Txt Message Campaign

2010-03-07T20:44:00.001-05:00

"Our study shows that for inactive teenagers, emphasizing the emotional benefits of exercise may be a more effective way to encourage exercise than highlighting traditional health benefits," study co-author Reema Sirriyeh, of the University of Leeds in England, said in a statement from the British Psychological Society.

The study examined the value of sending daily text messages about exercise to 128 students aged 16 to 19 at four schools in West Yorkshire. The teens received the messages for two weeks.

Some students received messages that made exercise sound enjoyable, such as "Physical activity can make you feel cheerful," while others got messages highlighting health benefits, such as "Physical activity can keep your heart healthy." A third group received both types of messages, the study authors noted.

The researchers found that the level of activity among all the teens grew by an average of 31.5 minutes of moderate activity per week after receiving the messages for two weeks. Inactive teens who received the messages geared toward the emotional benefits of exercise boosted their levels of activity by two hours per week.

via health.yahoo.com

From: "Teens Might Exercise More If They Think It's Fun on Yahoo! Health."

Public Health Campaigns - They Ain't What They Used to Be...

2010-03-06T21:53:00.001-05:00

via 2.bp.blogspot.com

thetruth.com approach has good company.

An ad from the US Public Health Service, circa 1940's. This "contagious" ad campaign exhibit should be a good time...

The next tech goldmine: Electronic medical records - Mar. 5, 2010

2010-03-06T12:18:00.001-05:00

Block finally chose a product by eClinicalWorks, a small, privately owned firm in Westborough, Mass. Part of what sold Block on his final choice was the company's customer service. When he called with a question about eClinicalWorks' product, he was transferred not to a functionary but to co-founder Girish Kumar Navani, who told him, "I'm going to stay on the phone with you as long as it takes for you to decide you like eClinicalWorks best."

via money.cnn.com

Founders - answer phones. Answer emails. You're building a company, which means you have to sell it too.

#getupandmove Hits Stinson Beach

2010-03-05T19:12:00.001-05:00

How you can tell whether or not someone loves what they do...

Sent from my iPhone

#getupandmove Challenges in the Real World

2010-02-27T15:11:00.001-05:00

At the gym thanks to @litomikey and all my guammie pals. Next challenge for the Contagion team = how to augment time/place specific real world challenges with virtual social support?

Sent from my iPhone

Engineering FTW: This Would Require a LOT of #getupandmoves...

2010-02-26T08:36:00.001-05:00

via media.wakooz.com

From: "Wakooz Media Blog – Videos, Pictures, Jokes » Blog Archive » Things to Do with a Cadbury Cream Egg."

...but be worth every friggin' microminute of exercise needed to work off the Cadbury Creme Eggs.

Every Easter season my sister Kate and I try to resist the siren song of the eggs. Oh the chocolate. Oh the creamy yolk....I've had one so far and am averting my gaze at checkout lines.

However, now I may have to buy a pack to do, ah, some engineering for a mousetrap challenge (or something).

The Same Can Be Said of Cofounders...

2010-02-24T21:16:00.001-05:00

At the quantum level, the forces of magnetism and superconductivity exist in an uneasy relationship. Superconducting materials repel a magnetic field, so to create a superconducting current, the magnetic forces must be strong enough to overcome the natural repulsion and penetrate the body of the superconductor. But there's a limit: Apply too much magnetic force, and the superconductor's capability is destroyed.

via physorg.com

From: "Brown physicist discovers odd, fluctuating magnetic waves."

Beware too much applied magnetism, in love, in life, in startups. :)

Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here...

2010-02-23T14:56:00.001-05:00

Flumaggedon 2010 strikes the McCabe household. Good thing we're not losing our senses of humor along with our lunches...

Sent from my iPhone

Health Affairs Briefing: Child Obesity – The Way Forward – Health Affairs Blog

2010-02-22T22:00:00.001-05:00

“America is guilty of child abuse,” writes Health Affairs Editor-In-Chief Susan Dentzer in the March 2010 issue of the journal, devoted to combating child obesity.

via healthaffairs.org

Are we guilty of child abuse? Self-flagellation? Both?

Fear, Resilience, and Positive Emotions - Thank You, Anchor...

2010-02-22T12:36:00.001-05:00

“Well-functioning fear circuitry in resilient individuals, for example, might prevent over-generalization of fear responses to different contexts,” explains Dr. Feder. “This will only be clarified by studying individuals who have themselves survived an assault or a serious motor vehicle accident with few sustained symptoms.”

Another example involves reward circuit function. We now know from Fredrickson’s studies of positive emotion that the capacity to experience positive emotions in stressful contexts contributes to decreased autonomic reactivity.

“Positive emotions have also been linked to reward system function,” states Dr. Feder, “and brain imaging studies of reward circuitry function in resilient individuals are the next step.”

via psychweekly.com

From: "Psychiatry Weekly: Psychosocial and Neural Correlates of Resilience."

Trying to describe the difference in a person's fear response after a traumatic injury is, ah, challenging to say the least.

Looks like the good news is you may not *need* to experience a traumatic event to work out the fear-circuitry; instead, you may be able to practice exuding positive emotions during tough times to teach your autonomic nervous system to 'chill out' when threatened.

The power of positive thinking. Hmm. Maybe I'll take another look at that glass-half-full worldview...

YC Alum Dropbox Sponsors Lunar X Prize Team "Part-Time Scientists" = Awesome!!

2010-02-22T11:10:00.001-05:00

Today, Google Lunar X PRIZE competitor, Part-Time-Scientists, announced Dropbox Inc. as an official sponsor of their team. The cloud based storage provider connects shared folders across platforms and continents. Available on Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, Android and web Dropbox syncs files on all platforms. The cloud takes care of sharing, syncing and backups. Team Part-Time-Scientists, headquartered in Berlin, Germany with 38 team members is among 21 teams from 18 countries that are competing for their share of the $30 million prize purse.

“As a SAN (Storage Area Network) expert myself I am very excited that Dropbox decided to sponsor us. Collaboration on such a scale needs a reliable and easy way to let people work on files simultaneously. Our engineers are scattered across the hemispheres. When a U.S. member updates a file it is instantly available to every member in the world, while dozens of generations from that file are available for recovery in the background. I can’t think of a better way for collaborative work over the internet than Dropbox,” said Team Leader, Robert Boehme.

Dropbox Inc. joins the ever growing list of sponsors of the team Part-Time-Scientists. Among them is another semiconductor industry giant, Texas Instruments. For a complete list of the teams sponsors visit http://www.part-time-scientists.com/Partners_EN.

For more information about team Part-Time-Scientists, please visit www.part-time-scientists.com. High resolution photographs, video and other team materials are available upon request.

ABOUT DROPBOX
Dropbox was founded by Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi in 2007, and received seed funding from Y Combinator. Today, Dropbox is well-funded by Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, and Amidzad. Since launching publicly in September of 2008, Dropbox attracted over four million users and are growing rapidly. It has been featured in the New York Times and on TechCrunch, and won awards from places like PC Magazine and CNET. Their passion is making a product that rocks and putting it in millions of people's hands. http://www.getdropbox.com

From: "Dropbox Incorporated Official Sponsor of Google Lunar X PRIZE Team Part-Time Scientists." (Email alert)

My Kind of Conference...Victorian Plagues, Commercialism, and Disease as Metaphor (w00t!)

2010-02-21T15:58:00.001-05:00

Possible topics include, but are not limited to: -Victorian plagues: cholera, TB, venereal disease, influenza, smallpox -histories and narratives of disease -identity and pathology -disease and the body -disease as metaphor, languages of disease, contagion, illness -disease and colonization, disease and globalization -art as disease, mass culture as disease -the spread of commercialism -visual and literary representations of disease and illness -sewers, filth, miasma -slums, prostitution -health and hygiene -representations of illness -mental illness -imperial anxiety and disease

Please submit a 500 word abstract and short (50-75 word bio) by September 15 to Kristen Guest, Program Chair, kguest@unbc.ca

The conference will take place in Banff, Alberta in the heart of the Canadian Rockies. The town of Banff is surrounded by the spectacular scenery of Banff National Park, which offers excellent opportunities for both hiking and downhill skiing in late April. Banff is approximately one hour from Calgary and is easily accessible by car or air (regular and reasonably priced shuttles are available from Calgary International Airport).

Accommodations and sessions will be held in the Banff Park Lodge.

via thehoarding.wordpress.com

From: "CFP: “Victorian Epidemics” conference, VSAWC, April 2011 « The Hoarding."

Anyone down for a proposal?

Experiential Knowledge (and Pancakes)

2010-02-20T10:11:00.001-05:00

Blacksburg, Virginia. Brunch at Gillies. A "sprinkle" shower attended by friends and family. In this photo: Four generations of women in my family (both sides) sitting around exchanging female "folklore" about the pregnancy and birthing journey. These woman have 10 childeren between them. A small sample size yes, but a powerful one. Why, with all our tech prowess, are we still unable/unwilling to value (and capture) the incredible, hard won body of knowledge? I can't even count all the information of value I heard distributed- willingly, openly-through the central "nodes" in this network of women. We captured some of the tips on birthday cards for my sister's future daughter, but I kept thinking damn. If and when I need to access this body of data it will have vanished, save for a flawed set of memories. There will not be another gathering like this one. All these women will most likely not meet again. The knowledge exchanged was catalyzed by the company and the context. We share such value so casually, almost as an afterthought. When will it no longer be discounted?

Sent from my iPhone

Your Cofounders Need. Moor. Challenges....

2010-02-19T02:08:00.001-05:00

via flickr.com

@shazow - the only question is - which one are you? The Hulk or Ironman?

Guammies, we both could use a refuel.

Send us some challenges! Por favor!

Easy way to make me move more here: http://getupandmove.me/jensmccabe

@jensmccabe

We Ain't Scared, We're Just...Scared of Being Too Slow to Keep Up With Our Guammies

2010-02-19T01:47:00.001-05:00

When you mess up on a social web app, as you undoubtedly will, you have to come completely clean or your users will smell your fear and hate you for it. Social sites are not typical software…they ebb and flow depending on the community and how it evolves over time. You, as the manager of a community, must act accordingly.

via bokardo.com

From: "Common Pitfalls of Building Social Web Applications and How to Avoid Them « Bokardo – Social Design by Joshua Porter."

What we build depends not on the language, not on the coding, not on the elegance or scalability of the backend (although damn @shazow, that's nicely done ;)...

It's about the people we know and love who use #getupandmove. Or don't.

I've been slacking on community management - listening to you - trying to make 'big deals' for Contagion.

But there is no Contagion, there is no getupandmove.me, without you.

Glad someone reminded me.

Outtakes From Our YC Video Taping: This Guy's the Value, Thumbs Up!

2010-02-17T18:13:00.001-05:00

via sharing.theflip.com

Good thing we remember to mention the 85M TAM for Health 2.0 consumers, our revenue model(s), and the fact that we've done deals with 2 companies thus far and are working on more...

Whoops :) . As you can tell, we were having fun with it.

I blame the sleep deprivation...

How To Figure Out if You Should Share PHI - Give Yourself 100 Points...

2010-02-16T18:58:00.001-05:00

One thing I find useful when choosing to share PHI (or not) is to break down the issues relevant to me and my value system in a personal decision matrix.

This allows me to shy away from generalizations about 'should' or 'should not' outside my personal sphere of decision-making, and also to have a realistic, reciprocally valuable (I hope) conversation with another person who may be considering sharing PHI.

Here are some of the factors I consider:

1. Safety - does sharing *this specific PHI* jeopardize myself, or my family% 20in any way? (ie can health insurers use this information to deny my coverage?)

2. Security - does sharing this PHI in the format allowable by the social media site/service jeopardize any other information, or my future financial health/wellbeing? (ie do I use the same passwords, etc)

3. Privacy - does sharing *this specific PHI* reveal things I want to be 'openly available' in the public space if it's a public network, or would I rather share them via a closed or anonymized listserve? Would I say them aloud on a mobile phone in a crowded mall? Would I pay to post them on a billboard? (Obviously that last one's a stretch but if I *wouldn't* want to see that info posted on a billboard, why the heck w ould I consider sharing it in an open fashion on a public social network?)

4. Utility (self, self+doctor, others, self+others, self+others+doctor) - does sharing *this specific PHI* have utility/value for me? ie does it make me feel better to get this off my chest (catharsis, therapy, etc). Does sharing *this specific PHI* have value for my conversations with my doctor? Even peripherally? Does talking about it on a social network make me think about my condition(s), and/or decision-making and priorities in a new way that might influence my conversations with my care providers? Does sharing *this specific PHI* have a potential or inferred value for anyone else? (this may be the hardest to judge since I can%2 0attempt to predict what may be useful for someone else but it's a crapshoot at best)

5. Access - to whom does sharing *this specific PHI* on this site or service grant access to my information? Is the network structure opt-in (ie only my friends on Facebook can view this update) or is it publicly available a la Twitter public timeline?

6. Control - who has control over removing, revising, or redistributing my PHI should I choose to share it with this group, at this time, on this network? Does the site's User Agreeement or Terms of Service grant me control, or can they store, aggregate, and anonymize/use/sell my data on the backend?

7. R+R (personal reputation and community 'reliability') - what are my personal motivations for sharing this PHI? Do I want to gain a certain reputation (ie "I am an ePatient") by doing so? Do I hope to increase the group value by adding to the knowledge network?

I tend to give myself 100 points to distribute among the relevant factors.

Where I give points are the factors I use to make the decision to share personal health information (PHI) which changes episode by episode and site by site.

I do not often, for example, share PHI on Facebook, but I share ODLs (observations of daily living relevant for overall wellness) quite often on Twitter.

I also often choose to share PHI and my personal health narrative in the blogosphere (Posterous).

I take all the abo ve factors into account *each time* before I do so, as well as the audience and community/communities with which I'm involved on each site, and their motivations for perusing my content.

This may seem like a complicated exercise, but it's worth talking about. You can drop factors important to you into a simple Google Docs spreadsheet and distribute points from there.

Farewell Notes to a Great Poet and Friend

2010-02-16T18:03:00.001-05:00

blessing the boats
by Lucille Clifton

(at St. Mary's) may the tide that is entering even now the lip of our understanding carry you out beyond the face of fear may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back may you open your eyes to water water waving forever and may you in your innocence sail through this to that

via poets.org

From: "blessing the boats - Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More."

At St. Mary's College of Maryland, my junior and senior years were consumed with a project that examined the cathartic experiential benefits of poetry readings for author and audience.

I had a night class with poet Lucille Clifton. There were only 7 of us, and each week our poems were ripped to shreds by one another and sometimes , seldom, reconstructed into something beautiful, terrible, or, more often, mediocre.

Lucille taught me to love the feeling of the wind at my back during times of change, even when it felt more like a tsunami than a tender evening breeze.

Because of Lucille I didn't take my writing too lightly - nor too seriously - but just seriously enough. (Poets have an unfortunate tendency to ballast their public personas with more weight and gravity than their ethos earns).

Because of Lucille I stopped writing just for me, and started writing for others.

Because of Lucille I came to California - now home - for the first time in the summer of 2003, to the Squaw Valley Community of Writers' "Writing the Medical Experience" workshop.

I wandered around Truckee in a daze. I'd done nothing but have a car accident. What right did I have to be there, a lazy college kid, surrounded by brilliant personalities and wordplay at every turn?

If only I had known then the intense redirection that would occur as a result of that 2 weeks living and working amongst poets including Louise Gluck and Rafael Campo, plus medical students and doctors from all over the country, I may not have *wasted* so much time trying to tell myself one couldn't possibly make a living from creating and communicating the value of a single individual's learning about what it means to be sick, and what it means to live well.

Because of Lucille I stopped hiding from myself and began to write with gut-wrenching honesty. The way she taught me to write, about my life and desires, informed the way that I speak now - to audiences, to friends, to family, to loved ones.

Lucille, you have sailed through this to that.

I hope the water was smooth, my friend - near the end - for your journey. Thank you.

Just Another Day at the Office, You Know, Emailing the First Lady...

2010-02-16T13:51:00.001-05:00

When four of your friends tell you that your company should be working with First Lady Michelle Obama for her "Let's Move!" initiative - and continue to hound you until you've responded that you'll work on it - you've got three choices:

1. Giggle (check).

2. Hide (check).

3. Check out the program, stutter in disbelief (check).

Email the White House and send the First Lady a card (check on the first, working on the second).

The White House gets tens of thousands of emails daily. The likelihood of anyone working on the Let's Move campaign seeing my email is slim to none.

Still, as @betaCooking says, sometimes just showing up is a good approach if you want to play.

Here's what I emailed:

Dear First Lady Obama - I can't tell you how much I admire your work with the Let's Move campaign. The future of our country depends on moving from 'sickcare' to a proactive focus on the wellness of each individual. A healthy, happy population happens - ironically - one person at a time. How do we get individual people to make a series of smaller, slightly healthier choices - "microchoices" - that add up over time to health (or the lack of it?) We are working on precisely that problem at http://getupandmove.me. I would absolutely be thrilled to support your Let's Move campaign in any way possible, and we have seen from folks using #getupandmove (search Twitter.com for some interesting references to challenges people are issuing, accepting, and enjoying) that behavior change IS possible, especially when you make health social. My very young startup company is Contagion Health. We believe that although illness is viral, health can be contagious too. Kids were meant to move - and so were the grownups who look after them! We're working to make moving fun for BOTH. We look forward to being of service to you with the Let's Move initiative. All the best - Jen McCabe http://getupandmove.me/jensmccabe @jensmccabe on Twitter jensmccabe@contagionhealth.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/jensmccabe

Posted via web from Get Up and Move!

Your Prostate, Our Robot: Does Marketing Trump Medicine in Emerging Biotech?

2010-02-15T15:27:00.001-05:00

The runaway popularity of robotic prostate surgery is a case study in the triumph of marketing over medicine, and for that reason, it could be a glimpse into the future, according to a report in the New York Times. Last year, an overwhelming 86 percent of the 85,000 U.S. men who had prostate surgery chose robot-assisted procedures despite scant evidence that those operations have proven to be safer or produce better long-term outcomes than traditional prostate surgeries. Oh yeah, robot-assisted prostate surgeries cost $1,500 to $2,000 more per patient than traditional variety, which involve surgeons making small incisions in the abdomen and inserting tools with their own hands to slice out the organ.

Few procedures have skyrocketed in popularity as much recently, with robot-assisted prostate operations surging from an 5,000 a mere eight years to 85,000 last year. And it’s questionable whether the additional millions in spending helped patients at all:

Medical researchers say the robot situation is emblematic of a more general issue. New technology has sometimes led to big advances, which can justify extra costs. But often, technology spreads long before investigators know whether it is worthwhile.

via medcitynews.com

From: "When Marketing Trumps Medicine."

Amazing First Time Eating a Tamale From the Tamale Lady

2010-02-14T19:27:00.001-05:00

Veggie! Sweet potato, beans, corn. Four dollar=foodie bliss. Sent from my iPhone

Advance health informatics - Engineering Challenges (Contagion FTW!!)

2010-02-13T16:25:00.001-05:00

New approaches to analyzing the math can help — especially when the math describes the network of relationships among measures of health care use. In other words, monitoring not just individual streams of data, but relationships such as the ratio of one measurement to another, can provide a more sensitive measure of what’s going on. Those kinds of analyses can help make sure that a surge in health care use in a given city because of a temporary population influx (say, for the Olympics) is not mistaken for the beginning of an epidemic.

via engineeringchallenges.org

Never thought I'd see the day when I'd be working on an engineering challenge, as a non-engineer.

But thanks to my patient cofounder @shazow, Contagion Health is doing just that.

Last night we recorded our YCombinator video application.

We had just one minute to say why we're doing what we're doing, to try and explain why we're obsessed with making health social through simple, beautiful, easy to use tools like #getupandmove.

This was harder than it sounds. As a non tech engineer, I am guilty of spending too much time wrasslin' with complex metaphors, weighty analogies, and theoretical acronyms.

But during this 1 minute, we didn't have time to layer bullshit over our dreams about how social tech can enable health.

This turned out to be a very, very good exercise.

Andrey and I argued about what we'd say (ahem, 'discussed') for about an hour prior to taping 4 takes.

I'd recommend all startup founders and wannabee entrepreneurs who follow the gospel of Paul Graham (YC) tape a 1 minute intro describing your business.

Later (after the app process) I'll post our video - and in the next couple days I'll be posting some funny outtakes.

But for now, here's the gist of why we're working on a platform that'll let you find, choose, check, and use information that's important for your life *yes, Quantified Self friends, stuff like your Nike+ or WakeMate data too.

Life isn't about data. It's about choices.

Your choices. And how they reflect who you want to be, how you want to live - especially when something goes wrong, like falling asleep at the wheel and hitting an 8 foot iron ships' anchor dead on.

Because, let's face it, even after the worst kind of trauma we start to think - pretty much as soon as we wake up after a life disruption, shake ourselves off, and look around - about what in the hell we're going to do NEXT.

And these choices - both the ones we actually make and all the thousands of potential decisions we *could* make at any given time but don't - generate a shi%ton of data.

So what?

Your stream of data means nothing in isolation - it's about the decisions you make (or don't make) as a result of seeing it. Smart 'triple threat' engineers like Andrey get this, and code accordingly.

They get that you have to visualize data in a way that makes it USEFUL for your health, but more importantly, for your life.

You personally - not your mobile phone, not your personal health record - are still the best 'advanced health informatics' engine out there.

It's not your fault we haven't figured out how to help you make sense of it all.

Your datastream, your lifestream, this should be manageable, measurable, modifiable.

It must be by you, for you, your own personal asset - and presented in a way that makes doing the things you want to do possible.

We're working on it.

I hope others participating in this engineering challenge, that their work and ours, will mark the beginning of the contagious health epidemic.

amednews: 'Speed dating' matches physicians, patients :: Feb. 8, 2010 ... American Medical News

2010-02-12T09:44:00.001-05:00

If Doc Shop -- a program Texas Health HEB launched in fall 2009 to connect patients with obstetrician-gynecologists -- sounds like speed dating, it's because it was modeled on the matchmaking process that lets singles meet a significant number of potential dates in a short period.

The hospital's first event took place on Sept. 24, 2009. Two others have been held since, and seven are scheduled for 2010. The program has been successful enough that the hospital is expanding it to include pediatricians, with longer-term plans to include other primary care specialists.

via ama-assn.org

From: "amednews: 'Speed dating' matches physicians, patients :: Feb. 8, 2010 ... American Medical News."

@beccacamp, if Fort Worth is anywhere near Austin, we should maybe pay a lil visit at SXSW ;)...