Integration of Web 2.0 Technologies in the Translational Research Environment

Abstract

Recent advancements in translational medicine have created an urgent need for solutions that support information dissemination and facilitate a fluid exchange of data from the research laboratory to the clinical environment and on to the broader community. Medical libraries can help meet this need by incorporating emerging Web-based technologies in support of educational, research, and patient care objectives. Web 2.0 resources facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing among users. Integration of Web 2.0 resources allows scientists, students, and medical professionals to efficiently organize and manage the information and resources that are critical in today's quickly changing biomedical research environment.

Promoting and Tracking the Use of Hospital Library Web Services by Outside Entities

“…For instance, the author became aware of a brief but interesting mention of Washington University's use of ScanGrants by seeing a reference in Google to an article about the use of Web 2.0 tools in the translational research environment. 3 Google's impressive reliability of indexing revealed this reference despite the fact that the online abstract of the article did not list the word ''ScanGrants,'' although the article as published did. This example also illustrates the importance of subscribing to journals in a wide range of subject matter in the area of librarianship and scanning articles for mentions of the service when operating a Web service.…”

“…3 This brings up several issues which potential developers of Web services should note. First, while it is gratifying to see a service paired with such widely recognized services as Grants.gov and Community of Science, the greater the visibility of a service, the greater the need for quality control on the service.…”

Is there a role for social technologies in collaborative healthcare?

“…The Odones in this decade could have joined many of the health social networks available: fostering an informed interaction when asking questions to clinicians, and allowing for quick-second consultation and cross-referencing like MedHelp or PatientsLikeMe (Frost & Massagli, 2009). If they wanted to advocate for policy changes or funding, they could have joined a health care activist social network like WeGoHealth (Swan, 2009), organized through a standard Facebook group (Farmer, Bruckner Holt, Cook, & Hearing, 2009) or an ad hoc tailored Ning social network (Holmes & Dubinsky, 2009), joined many of the rich health care communities in Twitter , set up a blog, and/or uploaded video and photo updates via Flickr and/or YouTube .…”

Teaching Web 2.0 Beyond the Library:Adventures in Social Media, the Class

“…In health care, particularly, social media is both lauded as the new way to engage patients, donors, staff, and students and decried for its potential for violation and harm. [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] Over the past few years, hospitals and health systems have just started to grasp the necessity of having a workforce that understands social media and how to use it properly. 16,17 The story of Adventures in Social Media, which evolved out of this conglomeration of trends in library, education, and health care adoption of social media and Web 2.0-style tools, had its genesis in summer 2007 at the Mayo Clinic Libraries.…”