HealthCare SocialMedia Review No. 19 – Festivals of Lights Edition

Welcome to the final edition of HealthCare SocialMedia Review for 2012. HCSM Review is a biweekly compendium of the best of the #HCSM blogosphere.

Given the plethora of holidays with themes of light that fall around this time of year — Diwali, Eid al-Adha, Christmas, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah (well, some of them are on different calendars, so they sometimes fall around this time of year), this edition of the Review will attempt to incorporate the theme of lights into the roundup.

(I had occasion to celebrate Hanukkah at the Massachusetts State House — the photo above shows the Senate President, Chabad rabbi, Speaker of the House and Governor Patrick on a scissors lift, lighting the giant menorah.)

Fard Johnmar sheds some light into dark corners, debunking some common myths about online and social media health content at digihealth pulse.

Kathy Nieder is getting ready to flip the switch and turn on an online physician community for herself and fellow docs at her system. As they begin using this system, they will be in good company; a new survey coauthored by (among others) fellow tweeps and bloggers Brian McGowan and Bryan Vartabedian finds that one in four docs uses social media daily.

(I captured the unusual set of lights shown here after a friend of mine flipped the switch on his bid for a more ecumenical approach to holiday lights in his neighborhood.)

Looking back on 2012 and peering into the future, Kevin Campbell offers some illuminating thoughts about social media, mHealth and medicine. He tips his hat to Doc Tom and the e-patient movement, medblogger Westby Fisher and others, but notes that health care providers are using social media in basic ways, just scratching the surface. It’s important to match the tool to the job at hand. (Everyone’s darling these days seems to be Pinterest, so here’s the latest Pinterest post from the HL7 Standards blog.) And let’s not forget: it’s important to measure the value of your social media efforts.

I recently spoke with Barbara Ficarra about clinicians lighting up online; check out her post on the subject.

The story about physicians on twitter has jumped the shark — it’s not on a blog; it’s in the LA Times, but it contains a boatload of references back to the blogerati and twitterati of health care, so I suppose it merits a link. Physicians who have not yet caught on to the many uses of social media should at least remember Dan Hinmon’s advice on The One Thing You Should Not Do if a Patient Posts Negative Online Reviews. And a ll health care providers should remember not to fear patient negativity on social media.

Hospital use of social media is the subject of a Hospital Impact post, which draws in part on Reed Smith’s study of Facebook use by thirteen hospital systems (check out the infographic at the link).

These days, when we think about hospitals and physicians, we often think of Accountable Care Organizations. Gregg Masters blogged about the role of social media in ACO development after hosting the #HITsm tweetchat where the issue came up.

Patient communities on twitter are the subject of a series of posts on the Symplur blog, including this one on network centrality analysis, focusing on Kelly Young (aka @rawarrior) and other key nodes (or points of light) in the RA network.

To balance this last post, here is a more basic primer on social media as a means to patient empowerment.

Health care brands active online understand the need to engage with patients. Exhibit A: a post on the NPR Shots blog, Social Media Help Diabetes Patients (And Drugmakers) Connect. (Shout out to Kerri Sparling.)  A key element of using social media to reach people and have a positive effect on their health is the need to meet people where they are.  This point comes through loud and clear in a post by Ruchi Dass about fighting malnutrition in rural India. And it is emphasized further by Susannah Fox, a reliable source of illumination and clarity, in her post on SMS messaging for health, and the cavalcade of comments that her posts always elicit.

Thanks to Dan Dunlop for highlighting “The Germinator” — a homegrown, soon-to-be-viral video focusing on hospital acquired conditions (HACs) coming to you from Crouse Hospital in Syracuse, NY.

With any luck, this meta-blog-carnival link will not create an irreparable tear in the fabric of the universe: Hold onto your hats while I commend to your attention the Festival of Lights edition of the Health Wonk Review recently hosted by Hank Stern at InsureBlog.

A jumble of greetings to everyone, some late and some early: Shubh Deepavali, Eid Mubarak, Merry Christmas, Habari Gani, Hanukkah Sameach, and a Happy New Year. Here’s to balance, and to a step back from burning the candle at both ends.

HealthCare SocialMedia Review has information about the next edition’s host and instructions on how to submit your posts for review in future editions.

David Harlow
The Harlow Group LLC
Health Care Law and Consulting