Blog
Expert Opinions
Commentaries about digestive and digital health from the MyGiHealth team
Low-FODMAP Diet Catches on Among People with Digestive Misery
This article, covering Dr William Chey's low FODMAP diet research, originally appeared in USA Today. Would a life without onions, garlic, apples and most bread be worth living? For growing numbers of people suffering from digestive ills, the answer is...
Top 10 Lessons Learned Using Virtual Reality in Hospitalized Patients
Brennan Spiegel, MD, MSHS If you’ve ever been hospitalized or visited someone in the hospital, then you know that patients can experience anxiety, uncertainty and boredom exacerbated by a radical change in living environment and loss of customary rights and...
Top 10 Principles for Advancing the Science of Digital Health
Brennan Spiegel, MD, MSHS, MPH. There are pervasive claims that digital health innovations are positively transforming healthcare (a notable example). However, despite this enthusiasm among technophiles, there are very few peer-reviewed and methodologically rigorous studies addressing the accuracy and impact...
The Digital Doctor: How Technologies Enhance Health Care
Published by Healio Gastroenterology. While physicians as a whole slowly adopt new technology, such as implementation of electronic medical records, a new wave of clinicians look toward clinical research and doctor involvement to bring digital technologies into the GI practice...
Food: The Main Course to Wellness and Illness in Patients With Irritable Bowel Syndrome
William D. Chey , MD, AGAF, FACG, FACP, RFF 1 Food sits at the intersection between gastrointestinal (GI) physiology and symptoms in patients with the irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). It is now clear that the majority of IBS sufferers associate eating...
Published by the GastroIntestinal Health Foundation. Watch Dr. Brennan Spiegel discuss diagnostic testing in IBS patients.
22 Foods You Should Never Eat Before Sex
As originally seen in Cosmopolitan : Avoid these menu items to beat bloat (and every other bodily function that makes you feel unsexy) on your next date. When there are so many foods that make you feel bloated and unsexy, it's shit luck that...
Top 10 Reasons Doctors Fear Digital Health
“Digital health? Is that like a rectal examination?” This was the first comment I heard from an audience member after recently delivering a lecture about digital health to a group of doctors at an esteemed academic medical center. To a...
Are There Really More Sensors in a Car Than in a Patient?
A notable speaker at a recent digital health conference presented a TED-style PowerPoint talk with provocative infographics about how healthcare has fallen behind every other industry on the planet. One of the slides said this: “Your car has 100 sensors....
I’ve Never Heard a Patient Asked to Be “Empowered” by Technology
Lately there has been considerable discussion about how digital health can “empower” patients. Although it seems fine if a patient wants to use that term, I am concerned when non-patient technophiles speak of empowering patients. I’ve even noticed it in...
Health-e: A Framework for Making Smarter Decisions in the Age of Digital Medicine
Brennan Spiegel, MD, MPH My father was 67 years old when he reported to the UCLA Medical Center for a CT scan to investigate a nagging complaint. As a physician, I always pause before ordering CT scans. Sometimes a scan...
As seen at the International FODMAP meeting in Prato. Watch Dr. William Chey and other thought leaders discuss the effects of a low FODMAP diet.
Expert discusses how health information technology will 'transform' gastroenterology
As seen in Healio Gastroenterology Watch Brennan Spiegel, MD, MHSH, discuss how health information technology will transform gastroenterology and medicine in general. “I talked about three different digital health platforms today,” Spiegel said. “I talked about social media, and how we...
Expert discusses diet as emerging cause, management strategy for GI disease
As seen in Healio Gastroenterology : HONOLULU — Watch William D. Chey, MD, FACG, professor of medicine at the University of Michigan health system, and director of the GI Nutrition and Behavioral Wellness Program at the University of Michigan, discuss the...
Patient Assessments and Online Ratings of Quality Care: A “Wake-Up Call” for Providers
Dr. William Chey discusses potential ways in which physicians can interact with online patient evaluation websites (PEWs) to improve doctor-patient communication and manage their reputation online.
10 BEST FOODS TO AVOID CONSTIPATION—AND THE WORST
As seen in Prevention : By PENELOPE ROSE MORRISON Remember chatting with your friends about how you hadn't pooped all week? Of course you don't, because that conversation never happened. Constipation isn't the most comfortable of topics. But for most women, occasional...
A Profound Example of Digital Health Getting it So Right
Although I am a technophile who actively studies the impact of digital health solutions in the clinical trenches, I have also written about how hard it is to do digital health. My research team at Cedars-Sinai has witnessed, first-hand, what...
Why You Should Get Your Colonoscopy First Thing in the Morning (Or, Why Skilled Doctors Can Blow It)
Imagine your doctor just informed you it’s time to get screened for colon cancer. She recommends a colonoscopy – a test to look inside your colon using a flexible tube with a miniature camera on the end. She explains that...
Why Digital Health is Harder Than You Might Think: A Reality Check From the Clinical Trenches
Brennan Spiegel, MD, MSHS Director of Health Services Research, Cedars-Sinai Health System Digital Health in the Clinical Trenches: A Reality Check We often hear that digital health is transforming medicine at a breathtaking pace. Each day brings news of an...
Latinos, Blacks with family history of CRC less likely to receive colonoscopy than whites
As seen in Healio Gastroenterology Almario CV, et al. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2015;doi:10.1016/j.cgh.2015.02.038. Among individuals with a family history of colorectal cancer, Latinos and blacks were less likely to undergo guideline-recommended screening colonoscopy compared with whites, according to recent study...