Medcasting - Commercial Application of Podcasting for the Medical Community
Medcasting
Medical casting or “Medcasting” is the commercial application of podcasting for medical related institutions. Medcasting is the distribution and publishing of audio and video feeds, that offer medical information delivered over the Internet, for on demand listening.
This is a new step in the evolution of on-demand medical information delivery, making it accessible, informative, useful and appealing. This mix presents the medical industry with a very unique opportunity to reach its community through this new medium. Those individuals, who are already seeking medical information actively, will use RSS subscription technology built into each podcast feed, to receive information immediately as it is updated by the medical institution. With one click of a button, a user can subscribe to a feed that may be interesting, and any related information that is ever updated to that feed will be automatically processed to their personal aggregator. An aggregator is able to subscribe to a feed, check for new content at user-determined intervals, and retrieve the content.
To take this process one step further, podcasting publishes each feed with the capability to be transferred to any portable audio or video device. So with the growth of the ipod and all the other portable media devices, you have the ability to grab Medcasts and place them on your portable player for listening or viewing. Most users attach their portable players to their computers daily or weekly, and once the player is attached they automatically receive the new medcast updates.
The flexibility of this medium is what will drive the growth of Medcasting tremendously over the next few years. Currently the most useful application for medical institutions worldwide is to compliment already existing medical information web pages. Most institutions have numerous web pages which deliver medical information in text format, by providing an audio or video link on that page it gives the user a different and potentially more effective format for receiving the information. This is also a great way to teach your existing users how to start utilizing medcasting services.
The popularity of portable on demand information will grow even greater as wireless internet services continue to flourish across the country. These portable devices will no longer have to be connected to the internet; they will receive information wirelessly as it is updated. In addition, as cell phones and portable devices continue to merge together, the market grows larger.
Additional formats that are being used consist of; medical talk shows, where various specialists within each institution will speak or answer questions on a certain topic. Medical lectures and seminars can be recorded and made available for the public or employees to download easily and on-demand. In addition, any information that may need to be delivered to employees can be recorded and made available on an in-house delivery network. For institutions that have thousands of employees, the distribution of company information is very important, and once again this offers each institution a method of on-demand delivery which is convenient to all. Medcasting can also be used as a direct line of communication, by recording video-casts of company messages from executives for company wide distribution.
There are numerous uses for medcasting currently, and over the next few years it will explode in popularity. It is beneficial to institutions as well as the consumer, and it will be seen as a great tool in any medical organizations’ operations.