There have been a half dozen or so articles over the last year which really hammer home the true potential of the intersection of social media and healthcare.
We witnessed patients who were been able to tweet from their hospital room to help the docs arrive at the correct diagnosis…
We saw a patient receive a kidney donation from someone he did not know on Facebook…because of a post of his.
The BBC this week published an article that simply ads fuel to the fire, so to speak. In this article a Facebook friend, who happened to be a doctor or surgeon sent his friend to the ER immediately upon reading his posts. The diagnosis… a ruptured appendix. Another life saved. Might have traditional medicine worked… sure. But here it was the issue of Nudges that I speak about often in modifying behavior… this wasn’t a gentle nudge… but it was a nudge nonetheless! :-)
Social media is here to stay… and its position and power in health care is ever expanding as well.
Get on board… the train is being loaded.
We are all patients !!
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We are all patients. Too bad we’re not all patient. Imagine the wonderful world we’d live in if that were the case.
I’m ever amazed at the power of what social media can offer. This year will be even a bigger year for these kind of healthcare related success stories in healthcare.
I agree completely… that why I frequently have posts like this that creep into my blog stream… http://goo.gl/pNEc8 . But every time I post something like that I am reminded by others of the progress that we have made. Adoption rates are increasing. Medical conferences are hosting social media how-to’s, etc.
At least we appear to be moving in the right direction?!?!?
Thank you for your insight. I am so glad to see social media has success stories in health care. I have recently jumped on the social media health care bandwagon and truly hope to see it grow and flourish. As a Registered Nurse and Community Health Advisor my role is to utilize social media to support family caregivers. The blog Caring@Home is dedicated to helping family caregivers provide care, cope and get through another day. I am always looking for input; feedback and suggestion. Please feel free to join me http://www.nursejackiehickey.blogspot.com.
Sincerely,
Jackie
http://www.twitter.com/JackieHickeyRN
http://www.facebook.com/nursejackienurse
Hi,just wanted tto tell you, I loved this blog post.
It wwas practical. Keep on posting!