http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/tm_headline=youtube-prescribe-to-keep-patients-informed&method=full&objectid=18393391&siteid=50082-name_page.html
http://tinyurl.com/y84wx7 YouTube prescribe to keep patients informed Jan 5 2007 Madeleine Brindley, Western Mail IT HAS become notorious as a website featuring spoof videos and even disturbing and violent "happy-slapping" incidents. But YouTube is now home to a series of groundbreaking health education films posted by a rural Welsh GP practice. Builth and Llanwrtyd Medical Practice has filmed a series of short clips explaining some of the most topical health issues of the day. In an attempt to educate its 7,700 patients and a wider global audience, the practice has uploaded the home-made videos - featuring subjects as varied as the winter flu vaccine and smear tests - onto the website. The practice has even uploaded a short film about the latest demonstrations organised in the fight to save Builth Wells Community Hospital. Story continues ADVERTISEMENT Dr Richard Walters, a GP at the practice, said that he thought this represented the future in providing extra services to patients. "There are a lot of things that we do in a GP practice that have to be conveyed to patients, some of which are not easy to demonstrate within the surgery. "Sometimes getting patients to watch a quick video on the computer screen is a lot easier. "People are more trusting of information that has come from their own locality, rather than something they see in a wider context." The videos, which are shot on a digital camera and edited by staff, feature practice nurses Vanessa Wakefield, Gaynor Hooper and Pat Jones explaining cervical screening, the flu vaccine, inhalers and spacer devices. The smear testing film has already been viewed almost 4,000 times since being put on YouTube. The practice plans to make another educational film about the sexually transmitted infection chlamydia, specifically aimed at teenagers. As well as being posted on YouTube, all the videos - which are about three minutes long - are available on the practice's own website and have even been played at the surgery during flu vaccine clinics. Dr Walters said, "We are a practice in rural Mid Wales, shops in Hereford and Aberystwyth are an hour away, Cardiff and hour and a half, so although broadband access is not ideal, people tend to use the internet for all sorts of things. "So while we may not be hugely computer literate, there is a lot of interest in the internet. "We've also had quite a bit of interest from the US too, but all this is, is just another way of showing a video." Dr Richard Lewis, Welsh secretary of the British Medical Association, said, "The BMA is very supportive of this kind of innovative use of technology. It helps develop patient understanding. "It also avoids people attending the surgery, which can be especially difficult in parts of rural Wales. Its uses are considerable." A growing number of health-related video clips are now available on YouTube - but most of them originate from America and are created by lay people. A community blood bank in the US is one of just a handful of "official" organisations to upload videos - its films highlight how many lives can be saved by donating one pint of blood. Phil Commander created a series of instructive videos for parents with autistic children after his own six-year-old son was diagnosed with the condition. Mr Commander, who runs an office cleaning company in New Jersey, said, "At some point it just hit me - I'll show everything I'm doing with my son on YouTube." But the phenomenon is just beginning to catch on this side of the Atlantic in terms of using the website as an educational or instructive tool.
