Healthcare Listings: People or Hashtags?

July 11th, 2012 by Jon Mertz Print Friendly

There is a contest, of sorts, underway. It is the #HIT100 list (Health IT top 100 people on Twitter). It is facilitated by @theEHRGuy, and his work and voice are very valuable in health IT circles. Just as @techguy points out in Health IT List Season – A List of Lists, building these lists takes on a character of its own. Right or wrong, putting them together is a challenge in so many ways.

I always feel conflicted on whether to participate or not, but I did participate. I did because there are so many wonderful voices in our health IT social media communities. The people behind these voices spend valuable time contributing great content and adding comments and insights on the hard work of the many health IT professionals in hospitals, imaging centers, labs, and clinics everywhere.

The better approach to these lists may be to focus on the hashtags rather than the individuals. Why? The reason is two-fold:

Point 1: Hashtags in Twitter provide a quick way to see current conversations and content on defined areas.
Point 2: When reviewing hashtags, you see the content and the people participating. Essentially, we get two key elements in one action.

Symplur has undertaken a healthcare hashtag project.

Today, the top healthcare hashtags include:

#HITsm

#hcsmca

#mhsm

#hcsmeu

#BCSM

#hcsmin

#doctors20

#eldercarechat

#himss12

#ICEM2012

There are many, many other healthcare hashtags listed on the Symplur, so check it out to find the segment applicable to your needs.

I appreciate the efforts of @theEHRguy. Whether it is the right approach or not, it is a perspective to be used as a resource. It is a point of reference, just as a list within a blog is.

My advice would be to engage the healthcare hashtags to get a full perspective of content and people. More importantly, get involved in the health IT conversations through your comments, blogs, tweets, and good ol’ fashioned conversations.

Thank you to the health IT community for all you do!

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Posted in #HITsm, Social Media

http://twitter.com/techguy John Lynn

Jon,
Thanks for adding to the discussion. I think we need to do more of this (as I said in my blog post).

I agree that the list is just a point of reference. It’s not worth getting all worked up about, but it is worth bringing to light that it is just a point of reference so that’s not used as more than one.

I’m still pondering my participation in the #HIT100. If I do, I’ll want to find a unique way to honor and recognize those I choose to mention. Hmm…that gives me a good idea.

I really enjoy hashtags as well. Although, I think we have to be careful to associate volume with value when it comes to hashtags. Many “spam” certain hashtags, but that doesn’t mean much necessarily. I do love hashtags for finding new people and for what Michael at HIMSS calls “community.” I think that’s an apt description.
http://twitter.com/jonmertz Jon Mertz

Agree, John. I guess there isn’t a perfect solution, but getting engaged in the conversations is the best thing to do. If hashtags, blogs, or #HIT100 lists do that, then all is good. Michael (@theEHRguy) and you, both provide great insights, and we need to keep bringing more into the activity. Thanks for your comment and for your blog post, too! Thanks! Jon
http://twitter.com/ShimCode Steve Sisko

Symplur (Audun
Utengen – @audvin)
raised a topic that I think is
very salient with this topic of “rating.” Here’s the post and comments thread:

http://www.symplur.com/shorts/can-we-measure-the-quality-of-a-healthcare-conference-twitter-stream/

I think there has to be some sort of rating as to the following:

1. “Topic
knowledge level” – How pertinent, germane, “useful,” etc. is the tweet topic to
sender and receiver?

2. “Perceived
authority level” – What is the level of skill, experience and “authority” of
the sender and/or receiver?

I’m
not a huge fan of Klout or PeerIndex but perhaps some sort of combination of
hashtags as jon mentions and a “influence score” comprised of “activity,” “audience”
and “authority would be a good way to go.
The API’s that Twitter, Klout and PeerIndex offer shouldn’t be too hard
to use to obtain these scores for “voters” and “candidates.”

Just
a thought.
http://twitter.com/jonmertz Jon Mertz

Agreed, Steve. I know there is some “controversy” around Klout, and there is Kred now, too. When we did the #HITsm top contributors, we used Klout as one element. It would be great to have one way to pull this all together, but it seems it will take a community to provide the perspective!

Thanks, Steve!

Jon
http://twitter.com/tmlfox Thomas M. Lee

As co-founder of the Healthcare Hashtag Project at Symplur, I’d just like to emphasize Jon’s last point in these comments, “… getting engaged in the conversations is the best thing to do.”

At Symplur, we’re trying to provide a means of discovery. To get people connected, excited, and engaged. And we believe that the use of hashtags is a tremendous way to accomplish that. Also, while we attempt to identify individuals who are worthy of attention in specific healthcare related subject areas, we recognize that the most important thing is what resonates with each of us as individuals. So we provide a variety of measuring sticks. Different ways of assessing conversations, individuals, and ultimately discovering connections that are meaningful.

So when I look at Michael Planchart’s (aka @theEHRGuy) #HIT100 list, I think it’s another measuring stick that’s inviting discovery and engagement as well.

All of this is a “good thing”, and that’s the biggest take-away for sure.

Healthcare Listings: People or Hashtags?

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