Internet as a tool

SHARING CLINICAL NEEDS ON THE INTERNET?

Open communication and dialogue of clinical needs and discoveries is crucial to the future of medicine, including continuous improvement in medical technologies and reduction in healthcare cost. There are an increasing number of medical related social media sites cropping up every day (e.g. Sermo, doc2doc, doctorshangout, imedexchange,, spineconnect, socialmd, ozmosis). The Internet opens the door to broad dissemination of information and sharing, which physicians should leverage.

Once a physician advances an observation into a solution (e.g. a medical device), however, the clinician should take more caution in openly sharing this information. If you are considering utilizing a cloud-based technology for interacting with collaborators, sponsors, or outsourced resources, insure that the service is secure and robust and has a defined method for keeping your ideas confidential. Whenever communicating any details of a potential invention, always consult intellectual property legal counsel.

The Internet allows an individual inventor to achieve unprecedented efficiency and effectiveness. Analogous to working with collaborators, sponsors, and vendors in the “real world”, physician inventors should expect the same level of due diligence when interacting in the Cloud.