It's a Wiki Wiki World!

 

In March of 2007, the word "wiki" entered the online Oxford English Dictionary.

 

In the language of the internet, a wiki is a Web site that allows the easy creation of interlinked Web pages, using a simplified markup language within the browsers. The developer of the first wiki software described it as "the simplest online database that could possibly work."

 

In the language of Hawaii, where it was developed, "wiki" means fast. The developer of the WikiWikiWeb said, "I choose wiki-wiki as an alliterative substitute for 'quick' and thereby avoided naming this stuff quick-web."

 

The developer adds, "A wiki is not a carefully crafted site for casual visitors. Instead, it seeks to involve the visitor in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes the Web site landscape. A wiki is essentially a database for creating, browsing and searching through information." For Brian Jefferson, MD, this is just what the doctor ordered!

 

Jefferson, a cardiologist with Centennial Medical Center, along with collaborators who worked with him during a fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic, created a medical wiki Web site, www.AskDrWiki.com several years ago.

 

The site has grown to be one of the most often-accessed medical wikis available, with an easy-to-use wiki format that helps doctors around the world share and compare information. The ability to add content to the site is limited to licensed medical professionals to help maintain the quality and accuracy of the information.

 

"As a medical student and in my residency programs, I was always surrounded by exceptional library and reference facilities and had access to the most up-to-date information and medical journals," Jefferson commented. "It was easy to take the availability of the most current thinking and research for granted. It was only when I did some 'moonlighting' in my fellowship years that it really dawned on me that I would not always have physical access to the superior resources and references that I used in my training."

 

In an attempt to solve this problem, he and his co-workers turned to the free Wiki software, which makes it "fairly easy to collaborate" with a simple threshold for participation.

 

AskDrWiki.com serves as an online source of medical information for physicians, medical students and healthcare providers, creating a more vibrant, up-to-date conversation and library of knowledge than can be found in a textbook or journal.

 

Because the site is dynamic and edited by other physicians in the online community, it stays up-to-date and credible.

 

Jefferson said there used to be some stigma attached to wikis because of the ease with which information could be added. "But, in reality, the information is constantly policed and evaluated" by the online community that edits and corrects the posts, he noted. "It seems that the more edits or corrections there are to an entry, the more precise and accurate the article becomes," he observed.

 

There are several other medical wikis such as Ganfyd, which is based in Europe, and Medi-pedia, a Silicon Valley site. There are wikis for specific diseases, and a number of H1N1 wikis have popped up.

 

Jefferson, who was born and raised in St. Louis, is a graduate of the University of Missouri. He came to Nashville to attend Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, where he was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and was honored as the senior medical student recipient of the Rudolph Kampmeier Prize in Medicine for clinical excellence.

 

He completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at the Osler Medical Service at Johns Hopkins University and was elected assistant chief of service for the medical school's prestigious Longcope Firm. He received advanced fellowship training in clinical cardiology and coronary and peripheral intervention at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

 

Jefferson and his wife, who married here, returned to Nashville to raise their two children (now 9 and 7) when he joined the cardiology practice at Centennial Medical Center two years ago.

 

"We plan to stay in Nashville, and I'm looking forward to working with my colleagues to develop an innovative cardiology practice here at Centennial." 

 

Jefferson said that Centennial, as part of the HCA family of hospitals, has been extremely supportive of the AskDrWiki concept, especially as Jefferson looks to developing the next phase of the Web site, an adaptation of the Facebook-type of social networking.

 

Jefferson added this new aspect will be a "good resource for general medical information and provide ability to access information about specialists and super subspecialists" who are practicing in other parts of the country for collaborating and coordinating the treatment of patients.

 

"This is the way healthcare is moving — toward interactive and dynamic records," Jefferson commented. "For instance, many hospital facilities now encourage the surgeon to 'tweet' live from the operating suite directly to the family in the waiting room. Applying this technology improves patient care and streamlines communication," he added.

 

"The software allows notes and comments from healthcare providers in different areas to become part of the ongoing record of the patient's progress," he said.

 

Although Jefferson has always been a 'computer person,' he is impressed with the way the next generation of young physicians-in-training have integrated electronic communication as a major component in their daily lives. "It is so natural to them and so much a part of their interaction with the world that it clearly will be part of the way they study, learn and practice. It is the way of the future in medicine to use new technology to make a lot of things easier," he noted.