3 Reasons Why Healthcare Professionals Cannot Afford To Give #hcsm a Miss

Practicing medicine is a very personal  experience. Patients don't go to hospitals to buy medicines but to access healthcare services. Healthcare professionals don't deliver a product, but a high quality personalized service.

Current hospital practices have resulted in patients in India classifying any contact with a hospital / Healthcare delivery institute as an anxiety-inducing activity. Hospitals (and doctors) who can overcome this 'communication issue' and engage patients in improving their health are considered better than others.

After Printing Press --> Telephone and Fax --> Internet, digital technologies are now positioned as the most powerful tool for 'Word of Mouth" marketing as well as medical communication campaigns. Social media is an underutilized but very very powerful tool for healthcare professionals. It seems to be another channel of communication ( like Fax and Telephone were once) destined to be rubbished and ridiculed before being accepted by all as a routine practice.
Here are three practical reasons Healthcare professionals need to use social media.

.
Why Healthcare Professionals Need To Use Social Media

View more PowerPoint from Neelesh Bhandari

Web 2.0 services like Facebook, Twitter, Blogspot, Linkedin and YouTube  are common starting blocks for most hospitals and healthcare service providers. If you are looking for a specialized Healthcare Social Media professional team comprising of doctors, coders and designers to handle your online ecosystem, send us an email at info@digmed.in.

5 Trends Which Will determine the Future of Healthcare ecoSystems.

A new report on www.csc.com looks at the 5 trends they believe will shape the future of healthcare  ecoSystems. Increasing use of collaborative tools, better data analysis and improved clinical practices will change the current business models for providing healthcare.

1) E-Power to the Patient -- Patients take on a larger, more active role in managing their wellness and health. In this new world, the patient is in charge of his or her care management on a daily basis, with “shared care” between patient and provider; the patient and primary care provider lth and wellness plan together and pull in resources as needed.

 2) Earlier Detection -- Earlier detection maximizes options for successful treatment, leading to a speedier return to good health. Detection starts with the patient – a person knows when something is not right  health-wise. Now armed with a library of medical content written especially for nonclinical professionals, many people start on the Internet with sites such as iTriage, WebMD and ADAM.

 3) High-Tech Healing -- New technologies can significantly boost outcomes and quality of life.Advances in the science of medicine using technology are leading to new treatments that improve health outcomes and quality of life with remarkable and even near-bionic capabilities.

4) Resources: More, but Different -- Solving the healthcare resource puzzle requires new players and new care models. Distance monitoring devices, Tablets and apps, Evidence databases have thrown up new resources to improve healthcare quality.

5) Global Healthcare Ecosystem Emerges -- More information, more connected, leading to better care and better research. The growing number of nations turning to electronic records will gift us an abundance of data. Better connected healthcare will let us utilize collective data better.

If you believe these trends are worth watching for, you should consider joining us on Facebook.

Health IT Initiatives at USF Health

University of South Floria Health Center has made good use of the health IT stimulus money to push the campaign to go completely Paperless. And then some more.

So now work is done with touchscreen pads and electronic prescribing systems. You can play, view, and download lectures, news, seminars, music and other USF Health-related media on your iPod, Mac, PC or MP3 player. New talent is recruited online via the Center for Transformation and Innovation

A video report on Tampa Bays leadership in Health IT with the Paperfree initiative

.

• USF Health News Center

• USF- Health on Social Media

                    

Mayo Clinic and Social Media : Success Stories

Mayo Clinic has a long history of Innovation. The clinic started as a single, small outpatient facility, and later became America's first integrated group practice, and currently integrates the practice of over 1,700 medical doctors.

In 2010, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, was ranked as the #2 overall hospital in the United States by U.S. News & World Report . The hospital maintains an exhaustive informational website and a very helpful patient portal.

The institution uses Social Media extensively. The Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media, a first-of-its-kind social media center focused on health care, builds on Mayo Clinic’s leadership among health care providers in adopting social media tools. See below a presentation by Lee Aase, Director for Social Media at Mayo Clinic to view a few case studies in the use of Social Media by Mayo Clinic.

CME and Social Media

View more presentations from Lee Aase.

Also see :
How Mayo Clinic Uses Social Media
 

Related articles

• Facebook stories and scandals: Mayo Clinic deals with them (scienceroll.com)
• Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media Launches Global Social Media Health Network (eon.businesswire.com)
• Mayo Clinic launches global social media initiative (medcitynews.com)
• Mayo Clinic's Social Media Health Network (medicineandtechnology.com)

Using Computer assisted health risk assessment tools

Describing a Computer-assisted Health-risk assessment tool-

In a computer-assisted health-risk assessment (HRA), patients complete a computer survey before seeing their clinician. The interactive program then prints an individualized risk report for the clinician and a recommendation sheet for the patient just before the medical consultation. The intention of such computer-assisted health-risk assessment is to facilitate face-to-face consultation with the provider and not to substitute for patient self-care

This is a small study to enhance understanding about computer-assisted health-risk assessments from physicians’ perspectives. Ten Physicians were interviewed on their experience with  Computer assisted health-risk assessment, after completion of a trial at a Canadian, urban, multi-doctor, hospital-affiliated family practice clinic.

The key benefits identified include-

• Tool to open dialogue

• Improved time efficiency, by asking questions on health risks prior to the
  consultation and triggering patients’ self-reflections on the risks

However, they were unconvinced about the suitability of such risk assessment for all visits to detect new risk information. In terms of feasibility,  physicians displayed general acceptance of the risk assessment tool but  considered it most feasible for periodic health exams and follow-up visits.

Participants perceived computer-assisted  health-risk assessment as a useful tool in family practice, particularly for identifying psychosocial issues. Physicians displayed a general acceptance of the computer tool and indicated its greater feasibility for periodic health exams and follow-up visits than all visits. Future physician training on psychosocial issues should address physicians’ concerns by emphasizing the varying forms of “clinical success” for the management of chronic psychosocial issues. Future research is needed to examine the best ways to implement this program in diverse clinical settings and patient populations.

Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00385034; http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00385034 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/5pV8AGRgt)

Read the study here.

Related articles

• Social Networking & Education for Hospitals (medical-communication.blogspot.com)
• Lowe's Launches First Mobile Health-Screening Tour Exclusively for Employees (eon.businesswire.com)