Social Media University, Global (SMUG)
Suus Non Ut Difficile • Home of the SMUGgles
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I’m attending a conference in Bloomington, Minn. this morning, called “Closing the Gap: Innovative Strategies to Patient Involvement,” sponsored by ICSI, Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement. I’m doing a presentation on…you guessed it: Social Media.
Here are my slides:
I’m encouraging participants in the conference to get involved with the discussion through the #ICSIgap hashtag on Twitter.
I’m honored to be leading a conference call this afternoon with representatives from local chapters of the American Heart Association, discussing how they can use social media to spread the word. The conference call runs from 1-2 p.m. CST, and we’ll be using the #AHAchat hashtag for discussion.
The slides for my presentation (which will be about the first half or so of the discussion) are embedded below. They’re based on my 35 Theses, but I’ve incorporated some examples from AHA and their existing use of social media, and I’m not including the Octogenarian Idols section. If you want to contribute to the discussion via #AHAchat on Twitter, I’m sure you’d be welcome. Otherwise, please feel free to join in the comments on this post.
If you’re not sure how to participate in a Twitter chat, check out Twitter 115 and Twitter 116 for tips.
Here is the Twitter search widget so you can track the conversation, even if you haven’t yet joined Twitter:
At the Healthcare Internet Conference in Las Vegas earlier this month, I got to hear about some innovative projects being implemented by other hospitals and systems. One of these was shared by Owen DeWitt of Las Colinas Medical Center in Irving, Texas.
Owen is Director of Marketing for this hospital, and he wanted to be able to provide text message updates to family members waiting for information about a loved one having surgery. In the video below, he describes how he went about getting the system established, using a freelance programmer:
This seems like a really nice service, and I like the way he went about getting it set up. I think sometimes internal IT staff get an undeserved bad rap as being obstructionist or foot-draggers, but in reality they need to focus on the institution’s priorities. A text message update system is a “nice to do” but things like the electronic medical record (and the payroll system) are essential activities.
So it makes a lot of sense to hire a freelancer to work on these extra projects, and the Las Colinas group should be commended for understanding that and enabling Owen and his team to work with outsiders to provide this service to patients and their families.
I’m delighted to be in Oklahoma City today for a presentation with @EdBennett and David Harlow (@Healthblawg) on use of social media in healthcare. I’m excited that we have this case study going on even while the presentation is happening. I will be inviting the Oklahoma tweeps to join the #wristpain twitter chat, as a live, hands-on experience with social media and synergy with mainstream media.
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This post is part of a series related to my 35 Social Media Theses, in which I will discuss and amplify upon each of the statements I believe define the social media revolution, particularly as they relate to healthcare. This relates to my example of Thesis 33, which is being demonstrated as I write this.
Even though I firmly believe in Thesis 4:
Social Media are the third millenium’s defining communications trend
…that in no way diminishes my appreciation for the power, influence and purpose of mass media. That’s why I have stated Thesis 9 as follows:
Mass media will remain powerful levers that move – and are moved by – social media buzz.
One example of this from my personal experience is, of course, the “Octogenarian Idols” story of Marlow and Frances Cowan, whose YouTube piano-playing video at Mayo Clinic has been seen 5 million times, and led to a story in the Des Moines Register and their appearance on Good Morning America and a spoof on The Tonight Show. These mass media features exposed at least another 5 million people to this special couple and their 62-year (so far) love affair.
I’m excited to be able to share another great story of social media synergy with mass media, and how it may help thousands of patients find relief for debilitating wrist pain. And it’s happening as I write this.
USA Today has a story this morning about Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Jayson Werth and his comeback from a career-threatening wrist injury. You can read Jayson’s story as written by Mary Brophy Marcus (@BrophyMarcUSAT – it’s also in the print edition), and for more background on the injury you can see Jayson’s Sharing Mayo Clinic story and the post I wrote on our Mayo Clinic News Blog when he hit two home runs to help send the Phillies to the World Series for the second straight year.
A big part of being able to do those posts was the Flip video camera, which I used when I was in Philadelphia earlier this year, to interview Jayson about his experience. And with those posts and having Jayson on video, Mary (and her editors) saw both the significance of Jayson’s comeback and how this is an injury that affects not just elite athletes, but everyday people.
It’s hard to know exactly how many people have a split tear of the UT ligament in their wrist, because most doctors don’t know about this type of injury. As Dr. Richard Berger, the Mayo Clinic orthopedic surgeon who discovered the injury type, has said, the MRI scans for these patients would typically be interpreted as normal because the ligament isn’t completely severed: it’s split lengthwise. So it may be as common as an ACL tear, but patients keep having to deal with wrist pain for which their doctors can’t find a cause.
That’s why getting this story in the mass media, in this USA Today article, is so important: it will alert many patients and doctors about a wrist pain cause they may not have considered. That’s why we scheduled a Twitter chat on #wristpain for Thursday, November 12 from 4-5 p.m. EST. Dr. Berger (@RABergerMD) will be available to answer questions and talk about the UT Split Tear injury and how it’s treated.
But this is where the real synergy comes in: Mary and her editors only had 30 column inches to devote to the story (believe me, we’re thankful for all the space they did find!) but they realized that people who think they might have a split tear will want much more in-depth information. And so they helped make it more likely that those people would be able to find the additional information, by adding this widget on the USAToday.com site:
For our part, we did this blog post about the Twitter chat that also includes a list of surgeons Dr. Berger has personally trained, so patients can come to a surgeon closer to their home. We also included a link to a scientific paper Dr. Berger has published on the subject, as well as a TV story about a bowler with the injury and an in-depth audio podcast with Dr. Berger.
The focused Twitter chat this afternoon will be great, but the other neat part about having the social media component is that it can continue long after the one-day run of the print story. People can continue to ask questions by tweeting @RABergerMD or using the #wristpain hashtag, or may leave longer questions on the wrist pain post on our Mayo Clinic News Blog.
I hope you will pass this information along to everyone you can (especially if you know of someone with wrist pain), via Twitter, Facebook or old-fashioned email. I will keep you posted on some of the results we’re seeing from this social media/mass media synergy.