In a previous post on the Social Media Healthcare blog, I made an argument as to why physicians should be involved in social media—especially on Twitter. The purpose of this post is to describe how I use social media as a busy clinician and teacher of family medicine to keep up to date with clinical and policy information and also how I find the time to use social media. ...
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Identifying and recruiting study participants with rare and under-diagnosed conditions such as spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD) can be a formidable challenge because no single medical center, even my own organization, Mayo Clinic, has adequate experience and/or patient volume to even begin to perform meaningful research. Still in its infancy, “patient-initiated” research may prove to be the new gold standard for the study of uncommon medical conditions.
The people most highly ...
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Much has been written about educating patients. This can be in the form of educational materials provided during the office visit, providing access to accurate online medical data, or even educating patients about wellness- how to be well, stay well and live well. As physicians, I believe that part of our responsibility is to teach. As the familiar adage from residency goes: “see one, do one, teach one” – we ...
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Google’s made big changes recently. Google Maps and Google Places are being replaced by Google+ Local.
While Google+ Local will likely advance the review system for many industries- doctor reviews, however, will grind to a halt. Unless Google recognizes the considerable onus of HIPAA on today’s healthcare professionals, and subsequently carves out a healthcare-friendly mechanism for doctor reviews, expect that far fewer patients will post; the posts will generally read like ...
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There’s no denying that the Internet has been an industry-changing phenomenon across a wide variety of fields. When it comes to healthcare, though, it’s suffered a rockier relationship.
The reason behind this strained relationship can be summed up handily in one word: skepticism. Skepticism from doctors, nurses and really anyone who spends time diagnosing patients. For the most part, this skepticism is understandable -- after all, anyone with an Internet connection ...
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It used to be simple: build a practice website, stuff it with some keywords and your online spine practice marketing is done. Those days are long gone and search optimization and social media strategies continue to explode and cause confusion among medical professionals. New Google changes have caused practice sites to disappear or plummet in search ranks. Guidance for a proper social media strategy varies wildly or is non-existent. Mobile ...
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So you’ve decided to take the plunge (or at least, dip your toes) into the Twitterverse. Congratulations! Welcome to a vibrant interactive community. You’ll find plenty of different personalities here and lots of opinions. But if you are like I was back in January 2011, you currently have no idea how to actually use Twitter, let alone how a physician might want to use it.
There are plenty of places to ...
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If you’re like many of us, the minute you or someone you care about is diagnosed with something, you go online to do research. You may even reach out to your Facebook friends. You’re far less likely to think, “Hey! Now that I have cancer/diabetes/MS, I better get a Twitter account!” If you can’t understand what people get out of Twitter, this post is for you.
Reason #1. Real-time conversations with people who’ve been there. It doesn’t matter whether you’re dealing with cancer, ...
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The growth in internet and social media networking has introduced a new era in healthcare.
This growth in mobile health, or “mHealth”, will have a number of implications, which can be broadly defined as a new opportunity for health professionals to explore, listen and engage with both patients and colleagues.
In order to maximize the advantage of connected care solutions, we must first identify how advances in social media and mobile technologies ...
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Prior to 1794, farms across the world could only pick cotton as fast as humanly possible. In the late 18th century, Eli Whitney discovered the cotton gin and a simple process done since 500 AD was instantly improved upon. This invention took 1200 years and a lot of hard labor before it was discovered. Once this invention was created it caused efficiencies but also caused concern for a decreased ...
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-Eric Topol, MD, author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine
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Past 6 Months
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