Ned Anderson: The Fourth Wave: Digital Health Update by Paul Sonnier ⋅ Jan 1, 2018 ⋅ #307

I made this announcement to 60,190 members of the Digital Health group on LinkedIn. If you’re on LinkedIn, please do join the group, which allows you to opt in to receiving these announcements in addition to connecting with thousands of other global stakeholders in digital health. I also send out my Digital Health Newsletter, which you can sign up for and receive for free, here.

The Fourth Wave: Digital Health Update ⋅ Paul Sonnier ⋅ Jan 1, 2018 ⋅ #307

Dear Group,

I’ve published one issue of my newsletter since last week’s group announcement, which you can read below and via the following link:
The Fourth Wave: Digital Health Newsletter for Dec 31

Also, please note that I’m available to deliver my keynote address at conferences and corporate events. You can also advertise in my group announcements, newsletter, and on my website. My professional bio is viewable here and my full list of services is viewable here. I can be contacted via my LinkedIn profile.

Follow me on Twitter @Paul_Sonnier for all the news I share each day.

SERVICES OFFERED: ADVERTISING, EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT STRATEGY CONSULTING, AND KEYNOTE SPEAKING
If you are a digital health company, event organizer, or provider of other relevant solutions or services you can advertise in my announcements, on my website, and Twitter. Doing so puts you in front of 50,000+ targeted global prospects each week. I also provide strategic consulting and keynote speaking. Contact me for my media kit, standard plans, and pricing.

The Digital Health Newsletter for Dec 31

Beginning on Jan 1st, Swedish residents in the Vingåker municipality will have access to free digital health primary healthcare delivered over the Internet by company Doktor.se. According to the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting, SKL), this reflects a growing breakthrough for digital health services. Following this rollout, both physical and digital consultations will be offered to patients throughout the country. Prior to receiving a digital visit, patients will have their needs assessed in person by a nurse. Patients who are unsuited for digital consultations will be directed to seek primary care at a healthcare facility. Other companies providing similar digital health services like those provided by Doktor.se include Min Doktor and Kry. Patients do pay a 250 kronor consultation fee on those services with regional authorities paying an additional 400 kronor. In another county, authorities pay the full 650 kronor fee to the providers.

Also beginning in 2018, the World Health Organization will recognize gaming disorder as mental health condition. This will be part of the draft of the WHO’s 11th International Classification of Diseases (ICD). The disorder is defined as a persistent or recurrent behavior pattern of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning and is characterized by impaired control with increasing priority given to gaming and escalation despite negative consequences. The WHO indicates that for the diagnosis to be made, the behavior must typically be normally evident over a period of at least 12 months. WHO spokesperson Gregory Hartl stated that the new ICD-11 entry for gaming disorder “includes only a clinical description and not prevention and treatment options” and that the ICD is the “basis for identification of health trends and statistics globally and the international standard for reporting diseases and health conditions. It is used by medical practitioners around the world to diagnose conditions and by researchers to categorize conditions.” According to Chris Ferguson, a professor of psychology at Stetson University in Florida, “People who have treatment centers for video game addiction or a gaming disorder will now be able to get reimbursed. In the past, they have not. It will be a financial boon for those centers.” The American Psychiatric Association’s “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition”, aka DSM-5, has included “Internet Gaming Disorder” as a proposed category, but it is not yet an official diagnosis. Internet gaming disorder, which is “built around substance abuse disorder” is considered to be different from the gaming disorder condition described by WHO, which is “built around whether gaming interferes with real life activities.” Ferguson adds that he doesn’t “think that the WHO’s proposal is reflecting a real consensus in the field.”

LIVING AND SOCIETY

In a NY Times op-ed, Confessions of a Digital Nazi Hunter, Yair Rosenberg writes that alt-right Internet trolls have been assuming the identities of Jewish people and then harassing and defaming them and other minorities on Twitter. After reporting on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, he was harassed by Internet racists who had “coalesced around the future president.” They sent him threats, anti-Semitic slurs, and even Photoshopped him into images of Nazi gas chambers. He is now turning the tables on these individuals and working to unmask and combat them via a crowdsourced database of impersonator accounts and a Twitter bot that can jump into discussions infiltrated by the impostors. Unfortunately, Twitter has suspended the “Impostor Buster” after the trolls reported it, stating: “A large number of people have blocked you in response to high volumes of untargeted, unsolicited, or duplicative content or engagements from your account.”

Writing in The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald reports that Facebook Says It Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the U.S. and Israeli Governments. After meeting with the Israeli government last year, Facebook has been deleting the accounts of Palestinian activists, who are protesting the Israeli occupation, but that Israeli officials say constitute “incitement.” According to The Independent, “the activist collective Palestinian Information Center reported that at least 10 of their administrators’ accounts for their Arabic and English Facebook pages—followed by more than 2 million people—have been suspended, seven of them permanently, which they say is a result of new measures put in place in the wake of Facebook’s meeting with Israel.” According to Greenwald, “What makes this censorship particularly consequential is that “96 percent of Palestinians said their primary use of Facebook was for following news.””

Vietnam has launched a new cyber unit to combat ‘wrong views’ on the Internet. The president of Vietnam has previously stated the country needs to focus on controlling “news sites and blogs with bad and dangerous content”. Lieutenant General Nguyen Trong Nghia, deputy head of the military’s political department, stated that: “In every hour, minute, and second we must be ready to fight proactively against the wrong views.” The country is seeking to watch over social networks and remove content it deems offensive. Recently, a blogger was sentenced to seven years for “conducting propaganda against the state.”

Writing in NewCo Shift, Rick Webb offers his My Internet Mea Culpa I’m sorry I was wrong. We all were*.” Rick is following up on his own tweet, in which he wrote: “Have any of those 90’s/00’s Internet utopians – Kevin Kelly, Chris Anderson, Or earlier ones Ike Stewart Brand – have ANY of them written a “hey sorry I was wrong the place turned out to be a terrordome” mea culpa essay yet? Any of them?” He elaborates in his article: “This version of a global village is not what they proposed or envisioned. Minorities are still denied equal voices on the internet—harassed off of it, or still unable to even get online. Massive amounts of data is still hidden behind firewalls or not online at all. Projects to bring more information online (such as Google Books) have foundered due to institutional obstruction or a change of priorities in those undertaking them. Governments still have secrets. Organizations such as Wikileaks that showed early promise in this regard have been re-cast as political tools through some mix of their own hubris and the adversarial efforts of the governments they seek to expose.”

Mobile app analysis firm Sensor Tower reports that Consumers Spent Nearly $200 Million in Apps on Christmas, Up 12% Over 2016. The company states that “Worldwide consumer spending on in-app purchases, subscriptions, and premium apps grew 12.3 percent year-over-year on December 25. Spending surpassed a combined $196 million on the App Store and Google Play, up from approximately $174 million the year before.” The company adds that non-game revenue grew the most and entertainment nearly doubled, and “The $196 million figure, which excludes Android revenue in China, represents year-over-year growth of about 5.2 percent for mobile game spending and approximately 66 percent for non-game apps. As the chart below shows, spending in mobile games grew $8 million, from $150 million in 2016 to an estimated $158 million this year, while non-games climbed $14 million, from $24 million to $38 million.”

WEARABLE TECH

I came across a fascinating product featured in a roundup of Best Health Tech Gadgets And Gizmos For 2018. The Powerdot is an “FDA approved, wearable, app-based electrical muscle stimulator. With just a tap to your screen, select the muscle group you want to target so you can get stronger, recover faster and feel better.”

GENOMICS

Could CRISPR gene editing save chocolate? It’s predicted that cacao plants will disappear as early as 2050 due to warmer temperatures and dryer weather conditions in traditional growing areas. Scientists at the University of California are teaming up with Mars company, maker of various chocolate candies, to evaluate the application of gene-editing technology CRISPR for making cacao plants that can survive the new climate conditions.

Consumer DNA testing company 23andMe has launched a weight-loss study that will leverage data from 100,000 volunteers recruited from its 1.3 million customers. The goal is to identify potential genetic bases of dieting results and thereby form predictive models to be provided to customers. Participating individuals can choose between two types of diets or, instead of dieting, follow a three-month exercise plan.

FEATURED EVENTS

Digital Medicine and Medtech Showcase 2018
Jan 8-10 in San Francisco, CA (alongside JP Morgan)
At the intersection of technology and medicine: Digital Medicine & Medtech Showcase

XPOMET Convention 2018
March 21-23 in Leipzig, Germany
The Convention for Innovation and High-Tech in Medicine

Digital Health World Congress 2018
May 8-9 in London, UK
The leading technology digital healthcare conference in London, UK and Europe.

EVENT PROMOTION
Please contact me for options on event promotion, including having your event featured at the top of this list, featured in my weekly Digital Health group announcements, newsletter, and on Twitter.

SUBMITTING AN EVENT
Please provide the event name, date(s), event website link (direct and not a shortened url), one-paragraph event description, the venue name, and location (city and country). Not all events are relevant to digital health and webinars are typically not allowed, but you can ask me about promotion options.

Paul Sonnier
Author ⋅ Speaker ⋅ Technologist ⋅ Social Entrepreneur
Book: The Fourth Wave: Digital Health
Contributing Editor, Innovation & Tech Today
Founder, Digital Health group on LinkedIn
Creator, Story of Digital Health
Twitter: @Paul_Sonnier
San Diego, CA, USA

Subscribe to The Digital Health Newsletter!

StoryofDigitalHealthLogo