European School of Oncology: Learning to Care. Chatrina Melcher Founded in 1982, the European School of Oncology is based on the idea of uniting the clinical, cultural and scientific traditions of European oncology. The motto of the school is “learning to care,” and this institution is distinguished by its independence, particularly from the pharmaceutical industry. One of the school’s latest activities is the development of “e-grandround.” The e-grandround is a live webcast of a lecture delivered by an expert, who is able to interact with participants online. The contents of each presentation vary, and sessions are recorded and made available online for 6 to 12 months. The webcasts can be seen at www.eso.net.

A Hospital Without Walls:  Yuri Quintana, PhD A challenge faced by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is to share its knowledge with others around the world, especially with individuals in countries with limited resources. The St. Jude International Outreach Program meets this challenge by providing site visits and regional courses. In 2002 the program expanded its services by starting Cure4kids.org, a Web site designed to share knowledge and expertise and to promote collaboration. This Web site, which is provided to users at no cost, contains numerous seminars, courses and articles and provides live meeting rooms for education and clinical consultation. Oncopedia, which was launched in 2007, is an interactive tool in which educational cases can be submitted and reviewed; experts’ approaches to the cases are published with selected cases. Future projects include having some presentations available for downloading from iTunes and educating school children about cancer and its prevention.

IFPMA: An Example of Applied Internet: Laetitia Bigger, PhD The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) is a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization representing more than 40 independent associations and 25 pharmaceutical companies. In 2005, the IFPMA and other organizations made a commitment to promoting transparency in clinical trials. Specifically, the IFPMA agreed to make information about current trials available to the public and to present summaries of trial results after drug approval is obtained. To accomplish these goals, the organization created the IFPMA Clinical Trials Portal (www.ifpma.org/clinicaltrials). This portal is a search engine, not a database or registry. Use of this portal results in direct access to Web sites whose texts can be translated to multiple languages. Simple explanations of technical or complex terms are provided, and users can create accounts that make it easy to repeat the same query without the need to re-enter search terms. This IFPMA Clinical Trials Portal is certified as compliant with the HONcode standards for trustworthy health-related information.

Social Networking in Cancer Care: A New Paradigm for CDM David Wiljer, PhD At Princess Margaret Hospital, computer-based education is provided to patients to support them with needed information. As part of this education system, the hospital launched in 2006 the Web site Caring Voices (caringvoices.ca), a Canadian initiative to support survivors of cancer and connect them with other cancer survivors. Part of this Web site is People Matching, which was designed to help survivors connect with others to overcome isolation. In addition, education resources and events such as workshops are provided on the Web site. Opportunities for real-time communication and for research (e.g., the lymph line study) are also available.  InfoWell, another educational tool, is now available to provide patients with access to personal health information.

Cancer 2.0: Public Health in a Flat World: Joan Dzenowagis, PhD.  The Web has evolved in the past decade from an information highway to a worldwide library, to a platform for global enterprise, and beyond. Web 1.0 was about technology and access to information; in contrast, Web 2.0 is about sharing and collaboration.  Dzenowagis discusses how Web 2.0 is affecting cancer treatment and research and the support of patients with cancer (Cancer 2.0). She addresses the differences in Cancer 2.0 among rich countries, countries with emerging economies and poor countries. Dzenowagis also presents the challenges faced today and in the future.

Global eHealth Initiative and Cancer: Alejandro Jadad, MD, DPhil, FRCPC, FCAHS In recent years there has been a tremendous increase in Internet connectivity and in mobile phone use. People are using this expansion in technology as an aid in research (e.g., the Help Defeat Cancer Project), in efficient cancer fundraising and awareness campaigns, in educating laypersons about cancer and in providing peer-to-peer support. However, several obstacles prevent greater use of the Internet in providing care to patients with cancer and in conducting cancer research. Jadad discusses these obstacles in this presentation.

	Chatrina Melcher Coordinator at European School of Oncology European School of Oncology Bellinzona, Switzerland Last Updated: 07 Oct 2008
	Yuri Quintana, PhD Link to Personal Profile Director of Education and Informatics International Outreach Program yuri.quintana@stjude.org St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Memphis, Tennessee, United States of America Education Director and Cure4Kids Director, International Outreach At St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Yuri Quintana has led the development of several international online projects, including www.Cure4Kids.org, an online pediatric cancer education Web site used by thousands of health professionals in 164 countries; Pond4Kids, an online system used for international pediatric cancer protocol research; and Consult4Kids, a Web-based system used by health professionals for clinical consultations. Prior to coming to St. Jude, Quintana was a principal investigator in the Canadian HealNet Research Network focusing on consumer health informatics; while there, he designed breast cancer decision support systems for the Canadian Cancer Society. Formerly a faculty member at the University of Western Ontario, Quintana also served as director of the New Media Research Lab. He has held high-tech positions at IBM Canada Limited, Watcom Inc., WATFAC, and the University of Waterloo. The chair of four international conferences on medical informatics, Quintana earned master’s and doctoral degrees in systems design engineering and an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering and computer science, all from the University of Waterloo. Quintana is currently focused on the development of innovative Internet technologies that empower communities of health care professionals and consumers to communicate, learn and collaborate on a worldwide basis. Last Updated: 10 Jul 2012
	Laetitia Bigger, PhD Research and Scientific Analyst International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) Last Updated: 22 Sep 2008
	David Wiljer, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Radiation Oncology Web Page University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario, Canada Research Information Manager Princess Margaret Hospital Toronto, Ontario, Canada Last Updated: 22 Sep 2008
	Joan Dzenowagis, PhD Project Manager Health InterNetwork World Health Organization Geneva, Switzerland Last Updated: 07 Oct 2008
	Alejandro (Alex) R. Jadad, MD, DPhil, FRCPC, FCAHS Link to Personal Profile Chief Innovator and Founder Centre for Global eHealth Innovation University Health Network Professor Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, and Anesthesia Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto Canada Research Chair in eHealth Innovation Toronto, Ontario, Canada Dr. Jadad’s mission is to help improve health and wellness for all, thorough information and communication technologies (ICTs). His research and innovation work focuses on virtual tools to support the encounter between the public and the health system (with emphasis on self-management of chronic conditions); interactive tools to promote knowledge translation and mentorship of health professionals and the public; and online resources to support social networks, to respond to major public health threats (e.g., chronic conditions, pandemics), to support international collaboration, and to enable the public (particularly young people) to shape the health system and society. Born and educated in Colombia, he obtained his medical degree in 1986, specializing in anesthesiology. By the time he was 20 years of age and still a medical student, he became a leading medical expert on cocaine in Colombia and an internationally sought after speaker. In 1990 he joined the University of Oxford (Balliol College), where he became one of the first physicians in the world with a doctorate in health knowledge synthesis. He developed new methods to distill high-quality health-related information and to build specialized bibliographic databases to support health-related decisions. He led the development of the most widely used tool to assess the quality of clinical trials (‘the Jadad scale’), now used throughout the world. His work helped fuel the development of the Cochrane Collaboration, a global network of individuals who are synthesizing over 500,000 clinical trials in all areas of health. In 1995, he moved to Canada and joined McMaster University, where he was Chief of the Health Information Research Unit; Director of the McMaster Evidence-based Practice Centre; Co-Director of the Canadian Cochrane Network and Centre; Associate Medical Director of the Program in Evidence-based Care for Cancer Care Ontario and Professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics. In 2000, Alex joined the University of Toronto, where he led the creation of the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, a setting designed as a simulator of the future, to study and optimize the use of ICTs before their widespread introduction into the health system and society at large. He is also spearheading the development of the Global eHealth and eWellness Network Initiative (GENI, pronounced as “genie”), a unique group of individuals, organizations, tools and facilities working in harmony to promote research, development, education, policy, funding, recognition and commercialization activities related to the uses of ICTs to promote optimal levels of health and wellness, worldwide. He leads the People, Health equity and Innovation (PHI) Group, which focuses on innovative efforts to level the playing field for disadvantaged members of society, with emphasis on youth leadership development, supportive care (for people with chronic conditions, terminal illnesses or advanced age) and multi-cultural issues. Dr. Jadad was the founding President of the Spanish eHealth Foundation (he is now President Emeritus), which enabled the creation of the Spanish eHealth Network and Revista eSalud, the leading journal and portal in the Hispanic world focused on eHealth [www.revistaesalud]. In 2005, he was invited by the World Health Organization to act as the representative for the American continent, sitting as a member of its Global Observatory for eHealth’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE). He is now the Chair of the Board of the Foundation of the Institute for Innovation on Human Wellbeing, in Andalusia, Spain, overseeing the development of a centre and large-scale projects designed to re-create every aspect of human life, including homes, workplaces, learning spaces and multi-cultural communities. The Institute is a core element of a multi-billion euro effort to enable Andalusia to become a major world player in the Age of Innovation. Last Updated: 19 Sep 2011