HealthGate Articles

When Wikis and Blogs Won’t Do

With all the new-media talk surrounding these types of tools, one would tend to believe that if you’re not using them, you’re hopelessly out of touch. But how well do they work for the majority of collaborative projects within a hospital setting, where authorship, expertise and traceability are paramount?

Wikis are easy to create and use: you need only an Internet connection and a browser. To edit, just click ‘edit’ on a wiki page, and your browser will display the text in an editable format. When you’ve finished, just click ‘save’ and your updated page will immediately be published. Wikis are great collaboration tools for many web-based projects, such as updating websites.

Blogs, on the other hand, are hip-named online journals created by individuals, or groups of people, with opinions to share. Throw podcasts into the mix for good measure. These audio and video files can easily be viewed on media players, anytime, anywhere. But do these applications make good business tools?

Consider the following:

• Wikis’ free form, organic collaboration renders large variations in quality.
• There is little, if any, verification of the contributors’ expertise.
• There is no ability to monitor new edits and or roll back when necessary.
• ‘Closed environment’ wikis are increasingly being used to control contributions.

The beauty of these tools is their extreme ease-of-use, as anyone who can navigate a browser can quickly become a contributor.

Thanks to the technology that enabled wikis, commonly referred to as Web 2.0, we’re seeing Internet-based solutions moving in at all levels in the enterprise, even in healthcare. There is of course a new name for these: webware. [For a generic, fun sampling, check out www.webware.com.]

For working with projects that require:

• milestones;
• to do lists;
• file sharing;
• version tracking;
• tracking of deliverables;
• dashboard view of projects;
• sorting;
• structured functionality and more,

there exist a number of highly specialized solutions. HealthGate’s Collaboration Architect is one of these Web 2.0 applications. Sign up now to take the tour!

Examples of healthcare wikis and blogs:
Medical Library Association: http://mla-hls.wikispaces.com/
American Library Association Read Write Connection: http://wikis.ala.org/readwriteconnect/index.php/Main_Page
Listing of medical wikis: http://davidrothman.net/list-of-medical-wikis/
UBC Academic Search - Google Scholar Blog: http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/googlescholar/