Comments on: Health care social networking basics for doctors

By: Anthony

Anthony — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:38:11 +0000

Thank you for this post. It’s great to hear an authoritative voice promoting the use of Social Media in medicine. I’ve been advocating it’s use in the Dental community myself. The Web is changing the way we all live, including the way we find our healthcare providers.

Anthony Curtis
@AnthonyCurtis (Twitter)
http://dental.mktg-101.com (Web)

By: Nuclear Fire

Nuclear Fire — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:27:19 +0000

@ choi: I see your point. If you’re needing to recruit patients, especially if you are in something rare and referring physicians are unaware of it or if you’re attempting to modify your practice mix it could be a useful form of advertising. My view was limited by my own experience where both patients and referring physicians are fighting to get patients a consult as soon as possible and the waiting list is too long. Perhaps in the future if I wanted to tailor my practice to more patients with vasculitis, participating in those kind of forums would be a way to skew my patient mix. Thank you.

@ Fredric: I’m not sure I have any time that “could not be used for patient time.” Unlike personal social networking, where I might update my twitter status while walking to my car, if I’m doing anything involving patient care, I’m going to be doing it sitting at my desk, not distracted by other things, with ready access to their chart and my reference materials. Even though we’re just physicians and may even be somewhat anonymous online, I tend to take even the simplest questions very seriously.

I also don’t tend to think much of “multi-tasking.” I like to focus completely on what I’m doing. Any time spent doing one task is time I don’t spend doing another. I’m sure many patients would like to be able to twitter/facebook me questions but if I then told them I’d have to cut 10% of my patients in order to have the time to do that, they probably would not want to be part of that 10%. Time is limited so how best to allocate it. Maybe it would be better to see less patients and be more availble to the fewer I’d have.

The truth is I like the idea of SN in medicine, I’m just not sure about it’s implementation, so I’m playing devil’s advocate hoping someone else can help convince me how it can be effective and useful.

By: enoch choi

enoch choi — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:01:44 +0000

Nuclear & Watkins, it’s certainly won’t be seen as valuable for doctors that feel like they have enough patients, but for many physicians, they would like to see more of a particular kind of patient (Even if they’re in an HMO, it’s up to the patient to ask to see you). Social Networking helps doctors see more of the patients they’re interested in seeing.

By: Matt Fredric

Matt Fredric — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:53:34 +0000

What’s an example of using a video game for social networking? Like playing halo? (Forgive me but I don’t get the chance to play video games often so it might be obvious if I did.)

And about Doctor’s spending an hour a day to network, what if that hour was spent during a time that could not be used for patient time? Kaiser has this system that your MD will e-mail you advice – perhaps the efforts made to make the doctor available will draw in more “customers” and thus more more money on nurses? Thoughts Nuclear Fire? And keep in mind that I am a patient, and that’s my only experience with the industry.

By: Safty Training Videos

Safty Training Videos — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:28:47 +0000

I agree that video games are a way of social networking.

By: R Watkins

R Watkins — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:49:18 +0000

Exactly right, Nuclear.

By: Nuclear Fire

Nuclear Fire — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:07:13 +0000

While I like social networking sites for personal social uses and the idea of social networking is interesting as applied to the medical world, I wonder as to it’s utility when most doctors are reporting that they do not have enough time with individual patients and patients are complaining about long waits to get into see physicians, should a doctor be spending an hour a day on tumblr/facebook (which won’t generate revenue to hire more nurses etc.) instead of spending time seeing another few patients or being with his already neglected family?

By: Matt Fredric

Matt Fredric — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:13:01 +0000

Hi Enoch,

I liked what you wrote. It seemed like an honest and thorough explanation of your experiences with how social media is affecting and interacting with your industry – a topic I just became fascinated with yesterday.

Thanks for contributing to this e-world we now live in!