It doesn’t take much effort to see the impact social media is having on almost every avenue of our lives, both professionally and personally. Platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, just to name a few, are changing the way and frequency in which we communicate. It should be no surprise, then, that even Health IT would find itself impacted by the influence and immediacy that social media provides.
Interesting articles are populating online journals, magazines and blogs that describe social media’s growing impact on healthcare and health IT. The following is a collection of interesting articles and perspectives on the role and impact social media is having on healthcare:
- Recently, John W. Sharp of eHealth wrote an interesting article entitled, “Social Media at HIMSS 2010” on the growth of the bloggers meeting at the 2010 Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society annual show.
- Phil Baumann is a registered nurse who writes about how technology influences our lives. In January 2009, he wrote a blog post titled, 140 Health Care Uses for Twitter.
- George Van Antwerp wrote, “Using Twitter For Health Care” on his site, Enabling Healthy Decisions.
- A recent article on the Healthcare IT News blog asks the question, “Is Facebook the up and coming Health IT application?” In it, Joseph C. Kvedar, MD dissects the concept of connected care and applies its principles to today’s social media capabilities.
There is certainly no consensus yet on what role (if any), or impact (positive or negative) social media will ultimately have on the health IT or the delivery of care process. One thing, though, is certain. Scores of medical and technology professionals are working tirelessly to look for ways to employ the newest technology to improve process, workflow, communication and most importantly, patient care.
Give us your thoughts. Take our current poll on social media in health IT, and let us know what tool(s) you use. Scroll down, and the poll is located in the right hand column of this site. We will publish the results in a few weeks.
(4.60 out of 5)
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