Healthcare Blogging-A review

The Internet is changing medicine and web 2.0 is the current buzz word in the world wide web dictionary. According to Dean Giustini in British Medical Journal, web 2.0 means “the web as platform” and “architecture of participation”. It is the web or internet information which is created by the users themselves. Web 2.0 is primarily about the benefits of easy to use and free internet software. For example, blogs and wikis facilitate participation and conversations across a vast geographical expanse. Information pushing devices, like RSS feeds, permit continuous instant alerting to the latest ideas in medicine. Multimedia tools like podcasts and videocasts are increasingly popular in medical schools and medical journals. Recently, there has been no escaping the mention of blogs in the media. Blogging has emerged as a social phenomenon, which has impacted politics, business, and communication. Medical field or healthcare is also not immune to this global phenomenon. Hence this chapter will deal with this phenomenon of blogging, with emphasis on what is a blog, historical significance, various software platforms available, blogging for a physician, pros and cons of blogging in healthcare, examples from popular healthcare blogs and prediction for future trends. This chapter will familiarize the reader about healthcare blogs and their impact on healthcare.