How Twitter changed the life of this physician executive consultant

by Kent Bottles, MD

Every morning at 5:30 AM, I am at my computer scouring the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and other news sources for articles about health care and wellness.

These articles are then summarized in 140 characters with a link to the original article and tweeted. As of today there are 3700 followers of my informal aggregated health care news service, and I hear about it if I am late or slack off on the job. My Twitter community depends on me, and I depend on them.

Twitter has transformed my professional life as an independent physician executive consultant-keynoter who advises health systems and medical groups. Twitter is the main tool I use to monitor the latest developments in the world of health care delivery, payment reform, and physician integration.

I follow about 1,000 health care professionals on Twitter, and I often learn about developments in real-time long before they hit the newspapers and journal articles.

via kevinmd.com

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amednews: Social media the latest tool for health care fraud investigators :: Feb. 28, 2011 ... American Medical News

As social media sites have grown more popular, so has their use by insurance companies that want to know more about the people they insure.

Disability, medical liability and workers' compensation insurers now regularly use Facebook and Twitter to investigate potential fraud, experts say.

• See related content

And health insurers are using online profiling during the underwriting process. That includes looking at Facebook and Twitter posts or geolocation services such as Foursquare to see where current or prospective members go and what they do, said Owen Tripp, co-founder and chief operating officer of Reputation.com, a Redwood City, Calif.-based firm that helps people and companies monitor and manage their online profiles.

"Insurance companies and representatives of insurance companies are using social media to get an edge on their competition in understanding the risk profile of the insured," he said.

via ama-assn.org

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7 Best Practices For Hospitals and Social Media | Hospital Financial and Business News

Kevin Troutman is a partner at Fisher & Phillips LLP in Houston and serves as the chair of the firm's Healthcare Practice Group. Additionally, Mr. Troutman has more than 17 years experience in healthcare management positions, once serving as the senior HR manager for 22 hospitals in five states. Mr. Troutman outlined seven best practices for hospitals to consider regarding social media and hospital employees.

1. Update your policy to include social media. Roughly one-third of employers have enacted policies that address employees' use of social media sites, says Mr. Troutman. While this number is growing, employers still aren't catching on as quickly as expected, especially since sites such as Facebook or Twitter will never phase out but only evolve. "Hospitals need to address social media — they can't just proceed as though they don't exist," says Mr. Troutman. He said most hospitals already have strong confidentiality policies in place, but these need to be amended to include specific parameters for social media use.

2. Decide how much restriction employees will face while at work. Some hospitals have enacted prohibited social media policies for employees, while others have restricted their use all together. While this decision may vary from hospital-to-hospital depending on the work environment, Mr. Troutman shares some general advice. "Encourage employees to minimize the use of personal websites or personal activity while they are on work time. You have to recognize that, once in a while, employees will need to send a personal e-mail. But generally, the policy should be this: while at work, you do work. "

3. Train supervisors so they don't inadvertently create problems. In the ambiguous realm of friending, private messages and wall posts, supervisors need to anticipate potential problems regardless of their intention. For instance, a supervisor sending a friend request to a lower level employee could set up potential claims of fraternization, harassment, or — in extreme cases — stalking. Mr. Troutman shared an instance where a supervisor signed into a Facebook account under another username to look up an employee's social media activity, which could be considered defrauding the employee or invading his/her privacy.

via beckershospitalreview.com

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5 Ways Social Media Can Help Nurses - Nursing Link

1. Learn About Industry Trends and Breakthroughs

Social media is largely about learning. While some of us are leveraging social media as marketing or micro-blogging tools, many nurses are banding together and sharing important information about trends happening in their industry today.

Great ways to learn about what’s happening in healthcare now:

• Follow and fan professional organizations like the CDC, Mayo Clinic, or ANA for reliable information. You can usually find links to their social media profiles on their homepage.

• Follow and fan your favorite nurse bloggers to see what they are saying online. Chances are they’re offering their expertise and perspective on what’s happening in the profession today.

• See what nurses are saying in the Twitter chats. You’ll find everything from new ideas to opinions about hot-button issues.

via nursinglink.monster.com

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Internet in Medicine: 2000 vs 2010 « ScienceRoll

Whenever I talk about using social media in medicine to doctors, they seem to think there are more cons than pros regarding this issue. Well, I like reminding them about some major differences between 2000 and nowadays.

What would I do if	in 2000	Now
I need clinical answer	Try to find a collegue who knows it	Post a question on Twitter
I want to hear patient story about a specific condition	Try to find a patient in my town	Read blogs, watch Youtube
I want to be up-to-date	Go to the library once a week	Use RSS and follow hundreds of journals
I want to work on a manuscript with my team	We gather around the table	Use Google Docs without geographical limits

Here is what Web, MD looked like in 2000 and what it looks like now:

via scienceroll.com

Think you can ignore social media in your practice and workplace? Maybe. However you could embrace, utilize it and enhance your performance too.

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Nursing and Social Networking - Think Twice About What You Write

With the ever-growing popularity of social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, the lines become less clear between what is public and what could potentially be a violation of patient privacy.

With social networking becoming an integral part of our daily lives, the boundaries between social conduct and professional misconduct are becoming increasingly difficult to navigate.

 

This social connection between patient and healthcare provider can open a myriad of breaches of patient privacy.

 

Pictures of patients posting comments regarding care provided, or even a simple “don’t forget to take your medicine” to a patient on a social media network, could be a violation of patient privacy and conflict with HIPAA rules and regulations.

 

HIPAA, (the law that protects us all against unauthorized disclosure of protected health information) can result in fines up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment. The discovery of a “nurse-patient” relationship via Facebook or other social-network could be considered a violation of protected patient or health information.

 

In June of this year, Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside CA fired five nurses for allegedly discussing patient cases on Facebook. 

via nursetogether.com

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Hospitals should not ban access to social media

by Howard Luks, MD

“Instead of focusing on treating him, an employee said, St. Mary nurses and other hospital staff did the unthinkable: They snapped photos of the dying man and posted them on Facebook.”

What can you say about an article like this? I bet there is not a single physician or nurse who are not reasonably conversant about the basic tenets of the health care privacy laws under which they practice.

Stupid is as stupid does. Perhaps more appropriately, stupidity is demonstrated by the actions of the one — or in the case, the many.

It still amazes me that people do not realize what the implication of hitting the “Enter” or “Post” or “Like” button is in our connected global society. In the health care space it is obvious that there are still a handful of doctors, nurses, orderlies, and ancillary providers who still don’t get it.

But what should an institution’s policy be? Ban access on the network? Perhaps naive, but my answer to that is a resounding no. Most people still have smart phones with WiFi or 3G access and can just as easily post to Facebook or Twitter and I doubt that the hospital’s liability is diminished.

Hospitals need to embrace social media, develop a comprehensive social media engagement policy, educate their staff, set acceptable parameters, track or monitor usage, remain vigilant and continue with the education process in perpetuity as social media is fluid and evolving and changing everyday.

Education, clarity, transparency and engagement is the key.  Not banning access.

Howard Luks is an orthopedic surgeon who blogs at The Orthopedic Posterous.

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