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ON MY MIND: e-Health
IN THE MEDIA: "Weblish"
INFORMATICON: Cybersnoops
CYBERSPEAK: "Ego-surfing"
SITE OF THE DAY: Statistics Every Writer (and Reader) Should Know

I've spent every day this week at Harvard University, in a lecture hall in the new, $20-million Maxwell Dworkin computer science building, participating in the "eHealth Colloquium" -- along with over a hundred other physicians, attorneys, executives, entrepreneurs, government officials, trade association representatives, application service providers, consultants, and others eager to learn more about how the Internet is transforming the delivery of healthcare. ("Who in the world is Maxwell Dworkin?" I wondered, before learning that the building had been funded by Microsoft"s Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer and named in honor of their mothers.)

The setting was impressive and the company, distinguished -- comprising some of the most distinguished, successful thinkers and practitioners in, as they say, the "e-health space," along with a few distinguished, successful thinkers and practitioners who have been dragged kicking and screaming into the brave new e-health world. The lecture hall had been outfitted with one speedy new computer per participant, complete with broadband Internet access.

As a result, presenters looked out at a sea of beige boxes instead of faces. Their talks were accompanied by the constant low clatter of clicking keyboards, as participants multitasked away, taking notes, checking e-mail, reading online newspapers, and, yes, playing solitaire, while absorbing a vast array of technical, legal, ethical, financial, and medical points of view. Why had we all taken a week away from our real lives to enter this somewhat surreal environment? Cyber Dialogue, a consulting firm that conducts research into consumer behavior on the Internet, predicts that by 2005, over 88 million adults will be seeking health information, shopping for health products, and communicating with healthcare professionals and payors online. Whatever our roles within or on the periphery of the healthcare system, all of us recognized that e-health is fundamentally different from most other Internet applications. Virtually and literally, using the Web to deliver health information and services can be matter of life and death.

E-health is privacy, confidentiality, quality, and accountability writ large. My own interest in e-health stems from the belief that the Internet does not function merely as an add-on or a high-tech tool in business and organizational settings. Rather, it simultaneously mirrors and creates fundamental changes in the workplace and in society at large: rapid change, diversity, globalization, the information explosion, and the ongoing need for people and organizations to reinvent themselves.

As a result, the Internet -- and e-health in particular -- demands that we reexamine the structures and relationships we have devised to balance rights, responsibilities, opportunities, and human caring on the part of nations, organizations, and individuals. In the "e-health space" as perhaps nowhere else, we need to ask how it is possible both to do well and to do good.

Implicitly and explicitly, the eHealth Colloquium grappled with these issues. Next time, I'll tell you how some of the presenters addressed them.

Cordially,

Lois C. Ambash, Editor
editor@metaforix.com

"Net Kills English"
Tim Richardson, The Register, August 21, 2000

British infotech publication The Register reports on research published by The Fourth Room, an innovative UK consulting firm. According to the study, "Weblish" has replaced English as "the new Net-enabled language."

This article summarizes the basics of Weblish, which flouts convention and prizes informality, compression, speed, and creative invention. I'm outta here. B4N!

To read this article, click here.

"Big Brother -- in the form of your company's information technology (IT) department -- may be watching your Web tracks, or reading that e-mail you thought your trash had long since incinerated. According to the American Management Association (AMA), company snooping is rampant . . . .

"Nearly three-fourths of the nation's largest corporations, from Xerox to Salomon Brothers Smith Barney, check up on employees by monitoring e-mail, Internet use, computer files and even telephone conversations, according to a study by the AMA, a nonprofit organization that provides management and business training."

Source: Salon.com, August 3, 2000

"Ego-surfing" is the practice of using an Internet search engine to look up your own name. (Note: "Ego-surfing" is not to be confused with "I go surfing," a Californian response to the question, "How do you spend your free time?")

"Statistics Every Writer Should Know"

Journalist Robert Niles's site is aimed primarily at journalists -- but its resources are useful for anyone who wants to become a more efficient and critical consumer of information. The section on "Statistics Every Writer Should Know" is equally useful for the mathematically challenged in other professions.

Using plain English and homely examples, Niles explains basic statistical concepts, provides guidelines for deciding whether to trust numerical data, and offers a good beginning list of reliable statistical sources on the Web. His site is well-designed, well-written, and fun.

To visit this site, click here.

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