Continuing Professional Development via Social Media or Conference Attendance: A Cost Analysis.

Background: Professional development is essential in the health disciplines. Knowing the cost and value of educational approaches informs decisions and choices about learning and teaching practices.

Objective: The primary aim of this study was to conduct a cost analysis of participation in continuing professional development via social media compared with live conference attendance.

Translating evidence to practice in the health professions: a randomized trial of Twitter vs Facebook.

Objective: Our objective was to compare the change in research informed knowledge of health professionals and their intended practice following exposure to research information delivered by either Twitter or Facebook.

Methods: This open label comparative design study randomized health professional clinicians to receive "practice points" on tendinopathy management via Twitter or Facebook. Evaluated outcomes included knowledge change and self-reported changes to clinical practice.

Translating Evidence Into Practice via Social Media: A Mixed-Methods Study.

Background: Approximately 80% of research evidence relevant to clinical practice never reaches the clinicians delivering patient care. A key barrier for the translation of evidence into practice is the limited time and skills clinicians have to find and appraise emerging evidence. Social media may provide a bridge between health researchers and health service providers.

The acceptability among health researchers and clinicians of social media to translate research evidence to clinical practice: mixed-methods survey and interview study.

Background: Establishing and promoting connections between health researchers and health professional clinicians may help translate research evidence to clinical practice. Social media may have the capacity to enhance these connections.

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore health researchers' and clinicians' current use of social media and their beliefs and attitudes towards the use of social media for communicating research evidence.

Empathy levels among first year Malaysian medical students: an observational study.

Background: The literature indicates that medical practitioners experience declining empathy levels in clinical practice. This highlights the need to educate medical students about empathy as an attribute early in the academic curriculum. The objective of this study was to evaluate year one students' self-reported empathy levels following a 2-hour empathy workshop at a large medical school in Malaysia.

Social support in type II diabetes care: a case of too little, too late.

Coping with type II diabetic patients is increasingly posing large financial burdens, sorely felt especially by growing economies. Self-management has been found to be an effective approach towards maintaining good control in diabetics. However, although efforts at implementing self-management have had initial success, there has been a lack of sustainability.

Health technology assessment in the Asia Pacific region.

Objectives: Although health technology assessment (HTA) has been well established in all developed countries, it has not found a firm footing in many developing countries. This is especially true of the Asia Pacific region, which has much of the world population.

Methods: The beginnings of HTA in this region go back to the work of Dr.

Health technology assessment in Malaysia.

Objectives: Malaysia, as a rapidly developing country, has been facing tremendous pressures in its attempts to maximize scarce resources. Despite this problem, Malaysia has made great strides in developing its health services, and has successfully provided good access to the population to healthcare services, reduced the incidence of many communicable diseases, and improved life expectancies and other global indices of health care, some of which are comparable to that of developed countries.

Methods: The Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Unit was set up in Malaysia in August 1995 in the Ministry of Health Malaysia and has since grown tremendously in size and resources.