I was signing my post as a fellow physician in “doctor land,” as Dr. Gwenn calls it.

But, I also live in “social media land”, which is why the AAP, HCP Live, and my health care colleagues call upon my to provide guidance on how doctors can utilize social media tools more effectively.

Statements such as “Many physicians are fearful of what they do not know and are worried that it will be difficult for them to learn about new technology” are incorrect and condescending.

Written by an “actor” in “doctor-land.”

Interesting discussion, and the comments are spot on, especially the, “Where’s the beef” comments. It is silly to expect that overlaying a few technologies makes things better. This reminds me a little of Dorothy running around in ruby slippers, and the magic answer was clicking her heels three times. Unless K-mart had a big sale on ruby slippers, there is no quick win technology for doctors lining the shelves of Office Max.

To rub salt in the wound, the government is forcing more technology on physicians, namely EHR. If the technology was as great as the prognosticators write, doctors would be scrambling to be first in line. Has that happened? Of course not. Instead, the government is taking a Tony Soprano approach, offering rebates for doctors who take a course they don’t want to take, alternatively, burying bodies off the New Jersey Turnpike.

So, some tactical thoughts starting with EHR. Don’t do anything yet. You have at least a year. Yeah, you won’t get the ARRA money—that’s according to what’s written. Guess what? Nobody else will get it either. The ONC will have to change either the timing of Meaningful Use, or the rules, or both. I think they will push it back. Twelve to eighteen months from now, someone will offer a robust, shrink-wrapped solution that makes sense. If you’re interested, here’s a link to an audio interview I did for doctors about an EHR strategy—it’s just ideas, I’m not pushing anything. Go to EMRFIX.com and search for the link.

Other practical thoughts. There are a few hundred thousand doctors, none of whose Hippocratic Oath said anything about healthcare 2.0, or offered any training on how to get there, or whether you should even try to get there. Most of my physician friends set up their business model on a whim and a prayer, like all entrepreneurs do—like I did. There are probably as many business models for doctors as there are doctors. The good news is that some have done better figuring out the business side of healthcare than others. It’s not an ego thing. It’s not about being intellectually gifted and not being smart enough to figure out something as simple as running a business. Why? Smart has nothing to do with it. There are things to be learned from the efforts of others, and there are ways that some of the technologies can help.

Those things? Blocking and tackling. Business processes. Social media. Eliminate the rework. Eliminate whatever tasks that don’t add value to your business. Are there activities you can outsource? Payroll? Can you have someone design a website that will answer questions for your patients so they don’t have to call you? Can you collaborate with other doctors?

Just some ideas. You are justified in your angst.

Yes, that’s right folks… the return of Web 2.0! That hilarious, bizarre concept that was going to revolutionize our entire lives in various never quite specified ways.

Blogs? Podcasts? Twitter? Is this a joke? It is not a coincidence that this article is devoid of any actual ways in which these “amazing developments” ought to revolutionize our current practice. Whatever the hell “Health 2.0″ is, it appears to be far more relevant to online communities than somehow dramatically changing day to day medical practice, whatever the claims of the author.

The author defined #health20 and the usual laundry list of “blogs, Podcasts, tagging, search, [and] wikis” were stated as the tools needed for the #health20 revolution. What I still can’t seem to understand is how doctors leading the way in any of these activities is going to lead a health revolution? It won’t.

Besides search many of us pioneered “blogs, Podcasts, tagging, search, [and] wikis” by volunteering to work on the first projects to implement these ideas long before we went to medical school. These things were hobbies and specific tools for specific jobs. It was all about us techophilic geeks giving the layman on the street the ability to create and share content on the internet. As the tools became easier and the internet penetrated into the lives of people many of us realized that giving a voice to everyone meant the quality of the content decreased overall as the number of voices increased. The internet today represents a lot of noise with little signal and makes the ability to sort good information from bad even harder because the traditional academic or technophilic geek ivory tower is gone.

Much like little children that learn a new skill and suddenly use that skill on everything even if there are better skills for the job. Its a progression we see in child development from simple to increasingly complex tasks. However, technology and its application in adults doesn’t work that way. If people learn to use a blog or edit a wiki then they suddenly believe every problem in the world can be solved with those tools. Unlike children these adults don’t learn the limitation of certain technologies and try something new. Instead they keep pounding a square peg into a round hole and expect the rest of us to join in their futile endeavors.

These people keep going on and on about #health20 as if “blogs, Podcasts, tagging, search, wikis” will solve some yet-to-be-defined problem that is plaguing all of us. What is this problem? If its patient information sharing then HMOs like Kaiser Permanente have built an elegant solution for patients to be able to retrieve their health records, schedule appointments, and other relevant tasks. The doctors perform their duty as doctors and the information being recorded into the electronic medical record system is accessible to patients. I don’t see a problem in this solution as long as the EMR has a good workflow that isn’t jarring and uses natural human interfaces to ease data entry. Where blogs, Podcasts, tagging, and wikis comes in is beyond me.

If a doctor wants to participate in blogs, podcasts, and wikis then they should have the freedom to do so but I still keep coming back to the question: What do these technologies do for doctors? As a technophile doctor that’s been working with computers and technology for much longer than the current #health20-is-everything gang I’m still wondering that myself.