This article succinctly describes a physician’s discovery, implementation and use of social media and portal tools to communicate engage and transact with his target audience.

He clearly delineates between the public, opinion type of communication to a broad audience from the private, secured message communication for patient specific questions and processes. He respects the audience to know the difference.

http://ow.ly/1Fc4z

I recently met with a group of physicians to discuss connecting to communities and use of social media (SM). There was agreement for the need and indeed a desire to communicate and interact more frequently with patients. There was agreement on the need to use tools that many in the community are using to interact with other organizations. There was a sense of responsibility to include interactive educational activities, openly communicate health system performance and provide preventive care reminders. Since much of healthcare is information sharing, face-to-face contact is not always necessary, social media tools could be leveraged to improve the clinic and health system’s image and relationship with the surrounding community.

As I mentioned there was a desire to leverage SM tools but concerns were expressed –

1 – How do I fit all this new “stuff” into my workflow with all that I already have to do?

2 – What about privacy and security?

3 – Can the health system or clinic support and sustain the new capabilities?

Regarding #1, each person has to set their own ground rules and parameters (like answering a cell phone). Twitter and SM can be time wasters (there are addicts out there, see http://ow.ly/1vpsX). The tools don’t force you to do anything. They are instantaneous but not have to be real-time. Regarding #2, Twitter and other public SM tools are not appropriate for one-on-one patient care. Patient care communication should be performed using secured messaging built into EHR/PHRs. As far as #3, any organization that communicates and/or interacts with the public must figure out how to incorporate SM into the mix. I think that SM needs to be built into already existing strategies/tactics; there is no need for complicated SM strategies. Organizations can build out the use of SM incrementally, introducing it slowly into the organization. Public SM tools are appropriate for general information sharing, commenting on condition specific blogs, topical/seasonal communication (H1N1) and notification of events. There seems to be alot of interest, but some confusion on when/where/how to use SM.

Facebook. Twitter. Ning. Blogging. MySpace. PHR. LinkedIn. Patient Portals. Web Enabled. Yahoo! Health. CaringBridge

OMG!!

What are healthcare organizations to do? Online communication and interaction has grown significantly in the last 5 years. Our patients are expecting us to communicate and build relationships in the same way they associate with other businesses. Facebook was started in February 2004 in a Harvard dorm room and reached 1 million active users by the end of that year. In February 2010 Facebook reached 400 million active users!! Twitter was created in March of 2006, and gained major popularity in 2007 at the South by Southwest Festival (SXSW). During the event, usage went from 20,000 tweets per day to 60,000. Since January 1^st , 2010 4 billion tweets have been posted. Amazing to think about when all you can do is send a 140 character message!!

The exponential growth is coupled with change. Companies with funny sounding names like Escobo, Foursquare, Lulu to name a few, are starting up everyday. Who would have ever thought that Facebook, would take out Google as the most visited site? Hitwise Research Director, Heather Dougherty, shared in an official blog post the fact that while Facebook recorded 7.07% of all web traffic for the week up to March 13, Google slipped below recording 7.03% of entire traffic share and Facebook has shown a 185% year-on-year rise in web traffic.

Growth and change in the online world will continue. The question is how to engage with these relationship-building tools efficiently and effectively. We don’t want to be chasing every new shiny object. The key, we believe, is to anchor specific online relationship-building tools to the business and clinical objectives. The tools and channels available will constantly be evolving, but the organizations’ goals will remain relatively constant.

The healthcare organizations we work with have already incorporated these and other relationship-building tools into their ongoing initiatives. We have seen that broad internal support and involvement is required. Many individuals within most departments will need to be informed, trained and then measured on their use of these tools. These organizations are now reviewing and revising roles, modifying workflow, and adding incentives for the departments to adopt these new tools.

Three key points:

• Growth and change are here to stay – how do we engage?
• New online relationship tools should be included in tactics to achieve current business and clinical objectives
• Broad awareness and participation are critical – many in our organizations will be involved

Please let us know what you think on the issue. What are the best tools and programs you’ve discovered that could lead to improved relationships between communities and healthcare systems and/or physicians and patients?