......AND WE'RE OFF!

The data collection process has finally begun. The survey has finally been launched. For anybody reading this, I encourage you to participate in our survey to determine how healthcare consumers and healthcare providers use Web tools for personal and healthcare reasons. Evidence suggests that Internet use and technology make healthcare delivery better. The address to the site where you can take the survey is below. I couldn't make it work when I tried to create a link so you could just click on it. When I went to view the blog, the link was missing, just vanished. Anyways, so sorry it's not so convenient but if you could be so kind as to copy and paste in your address bar. And if anybody can tell me how to make it work, I would try to fix it if I knew how.

http://www2.gcsu.edu/irb/health.htm

Today, I sent the survey link via email to 43 people in my address book. I got failure notices returned on 2 of the contacts, so my email ended up going out to 41 people. That was just about everybody in my address book except for the businesses and the addresses for the people in the research group. I sent it to my old boss (a doctor in Warner Robins), my grandparents, my kid's teachers...I mean, everybody! In the email, I encouraged those I emailed to get their spouses (or whoever they want) to take the survey as well. I also emailed everyone in both of my classes to ask them to take the survey as well.

Just as Dr. Bondal said Monday night, I, too, am excited to "crunch numbers" and analyze the data we collect to find out the results. Of course, I have my own ideas and I have expressed those in my hypothesis. I think that younger people, women, better educated, higher income people will be more likely to use Web 2.0 for healthcare reasons. I wonder if we predicted accurately. I wonder how many people out there even use Web tools for healthcare reasons. I use a lot of different Web tools for school now, but until recently (in the past year), I didn't even know what Web 2.0 was. Wow, how much I have learned in such a short time. I think it is absolutely amazing how technology is continuously changing and improving and expanding. It's inspiring to be involved, especially at this stage. To my teachers and the research committee, thanks for this opportunity.