UT Health Science Center at Houston Now Offers Free Podcasts

iTunes users can now get the latest health care information by downloading free podcasts produced by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston by logging into iTunes U at www.uth.tmc.edu/itunesu/ The UT Houston iTunes U initiative is led by The University of Texas School of Health Information Sciences at Houston and the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences (CCTS).

"This is another tool people can use to keep abreast of changes in health care," said Adol Esquivel, M.D., UT Houston iTunes U program coordinator. "You can listen to health care updates while jogging or commuting." Many podcasts are available in Spanish and English.

iTunes U is a free service provided by Apple that allows UT Houston faculty and students to distribute educational audio and video content using Apple's iTunes Store infrastructure. iTunesU gives institutions like the UT Health Science Center at Houston, Duke University, Stanford University and others an opportunity to enhance their public education and community outreach efforts.

With free iTunes software, health care consumers can download podcasts of research updates from the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences, which is working to fast track the application of scientific knowledge to patient care and community programs. Users can also listen to articles from UT Houston's online consumer wellness magazine - HealthLeader - and get information from the university's six schools.

"I often get more out of listening to a researcher describe his work than reading an article," said Nancy Murray, Dr.P.H., co-director of the community engagement component of the CCTS and assistant professor of behavioral science at The University of Texas School of Public Health. "It makes the research real and you hear stories you don't see in the journal article."

Karen Krakower, editor of HealthLeader, said, "HealthLeader gets the good works of UT out to readers around the world, so to be able to give these stories a voice, in two languages, no less, serves so many more folks in need of grab-and-go health tools they can trust."

The UT Health Science Center at Houston has both a public section for health care consumers and a private section for students and faculty members, where class information can be accessed. "If a medical student misses a class, he or she could log into iTunes U and download the lecture," Esquivel said. "Doctors can use iPods to keep up with research between patient visits."

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