Social media is spreading to the operating room.
As you can see from this picture, surgeons at Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital are using Twitter, via TweetDeck in this case, before, during, and after a procedure to broadcast their findings to other doctors in real-time. Here’s an example of such a Twitter feed.
It’s an efficient, and effective, way to transmit medical findings instantly, and to a wide audience.
The phenomenon is a natural extension of blogging, and soon, I suspect, we’ll find more medical findings being first reported on other social media platforms like Facebook.
Of course, doctors that do so will be carefully scrutinized to ensure that they do not violate patient privacy, similar to physicians who blog, and patients should be informed that their procedure is being “broadcast” over the Internet.
Related posts:
- Hospitals are using social media, like Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, for advertising to patients
- Poll: Is Twitter necessary for physicians and other medical professionals?
- Tips for doctors who use Twitter
- Should hospitals use Twitter to follow patients?
- How Twitter can strengthen the doctor-patient relationship
- Twitter and HIPAA
- Do doctors who use social media prescribe more medications?
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Why is this any different from the train operator who was texting and had a wreck?
I’m not a doctor. Can you please explain the physical steps a surgeon will be taking between tweets. Does he have to rescrub each time he enters back into the sterile field?
The only reason that this was done was to promote an unproven, and risky procedure(partial nephrectomy for renal cell carcinoma is considered investigational because long-term cancer free survival has not been confirmed). The surgeon at Henry Ford is obviously using Twitter as self-promotion and pad his pocket book. There is no benefit to the patient whatsoever and maybe some risk because of the distraction.
Quite possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
Too bad Twitter is blocked by some hospital intranets!
Mary: This was a robot assisted laproscopic procedure. The surgeon driving the robot is actually not scrubed, but is sitting at a console. Awesome technology that has yet to be proven better than current laproscopic techniques.
What is worse in my mind is that they have the chief urology resident sitting at a computer, acting as a medical secretary, instead of operating.
This was a robot assisted laproscopic procedure. The surgeon driving the robot is actually not scrubed, but is sitting at a console. Awesome technology that has yet to be proven better than current laproscopic techniques.
Yep, but the surgeon gets to bill at higher rates, the hospital charges double for the procedure because of its “advanced technology” and the robot manufacturer makes a few thousand dollars and sells more worthless robots to the other hospitals in town because they “cant compete” against Henry Ford if they are the only robot hospital in the area.
Meanwhile insurance premiums and/or Medicare is paying for all this crap technology when outcomes are absolutely no different whatsoever.
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