That title is a mouthful but as with most mouthfuls once you digest it you are filled with wholesome goodness. Leroy, et. al out of Claremont Graduate University publishing in Journal of Medical Internet Research have completed a study whose objective is:
To develop an evidence-based writer support tool to improve perceived and actual text difficulty. To this end, we are developing and testing algorithms that automatically identify difficult sections in text and provide appropriate, easier alternatives; algorithms that effectively reduce text difficulty will be included in the support tool. This work describes the user evaluation with an independent writer of an automated simplification algorithm using term familiarity.
Term familiarity is a new term for me. The authors describe it how easy words are for readers and is measured using Google Web Corpus. The authors identified unfamiliar word and tagged for replacement with easier words. They measured both perceived and actual text difficulty.
…our conclusion that lexical simplification is beneficial and has an immediate impact on understanding and learning. However, we did not find an effect of simplification on retention of information. This may be due to a lack of sustained learning or it may be due to the study design.
I would offer that part of retention and improved understanding and learning is to test participants with an HCP to help them or within a social media with others who have read the same article. Small group dynamics and learning will drive results some much better.
Hive Marketing In Healthcare: Creating and Maintaing Communities of Shared Interest
The Healthcare Marketer defines Hive but it strikes me that what he is describing is community of practice. Etienne Wenger on his Web site defines community of practice as:
Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor: a tribe learning to survive, a band of artists seeking new forms of expression, a group of engineers working on similar problems, a clique of pupils defining their identity in the school, a network of surgeons exploring novel techniques, a gathering of first-time managers helping each other cope.
The Healthcare Marketer makes the following point:
By creating these online environments, something health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and patient advocacy groups have already pioneered, the provider organization changes its relationship with its constituents.
These groups may have ‘pioneered’ this but the reality Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger coined the phrase in 1991 in a book titles ‘Situated Learning’. And further I am not sure how active learning is within the framework of insurance companies etc. We have a fairly sophisticated and savy group of healthcare learners who are cynical.
That Awkward Moment When The Woman You Try Robbing Know Systema
This has nothing to do with healthcare but everything to do with “You Go Girl” How can you not fall in love with that woman? Hehehe Thank you Daring Fireball for the tip.
