Health care social media continues to be a hot-button issue for hospitals and other provider types around the country. Health care provider organizations considering taking a first step into social media often articulate concerns about regulatory and legal barriers to the use of social media in health care. As regular readers of HealthBlawg know, I believe that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure — in the health care social media arena as elsewhere. Careful planning up front will help you avoid the potential liabilities and pitfalls you may otherwise face in implementing a health care social media program. I invite you to take a look at this quick compendium of rules to live by, which I compiled with Dan Hinmon of Hive Strategies, and follow the link on the last page of the embedded presentation to download an expanded version.
9 Rules to Ensure a HIPAA Compliant Hospital Social Media Strategy
Please take a moment to let us know what you think of the eBook, and how we may help your organization.
David Harlow
The Harlow Group LLC
Health Care Law and Consulting
Dean Berg says
March 29, 2011 at 7:24 amGreat, simple 9 step guide! For a lot of people Social Media is fear of the unknown. But when you break it down into simple, easy to follow steps, it becomes crystal clear.
I especially like #1. Once people recognize that Social Media is just another communication mechanism and that the same patient privacy rules apply, it’s really not any different – they just need to be educated on ‘how’ this communication methodology works and ‘who’ is getting the communication.
Great guide!
David Harlow says
March 29, 2011 at 1:30 pmThanks, Dean. Many folks get tied up in knots over a variety of potential legal issues, and so never get started with their own social media programs, much less monitoring what is already being said about them on line. Our goal is to demystify some of these issues and help folks who are ready to develop local policies and procedures to get their programs going in a compliant manner.