Strategy on Bringing the Social Media Revolution to Health Care


Last week our Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media released Bringing the Social Media Revolution to Health Care, a collection of essays on various aspects of health care social media contributed by members of our External Advisory Board and others who are members of our Social Media Health Network.

The book includes a Foreword by our Mayo Clinic CEO, Dr. John Noseworthy, and a special section on legal issues from our Mayo Clinic attorney, Dan Goldman. Our Center for Social Media Medical Director, Dr. Farris Timimi, wrote the Preface. With ideas and insights from 30 thought leaders in health care social media, this book will help you make the case for using social media in your organization.

You can get it on Amazon, or go to our Center for Social Media site for significant discounts on multiple copies. It’s a quick and easy read, perfect for starting a discussion in your workplace.

In addition to working with Meredith Gould on the overall project, I contributed an essay for the Strategy section. To give you a taste of what’s in the book, here is my essay:

Seven Thoughts on Social Media Strategy
Lee Aase
@LeeAase
Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media

  1. Start from business priorities and goals. Social media isn’t something to do for its own sake or because the tools are shiny and new. Think about what you were hired to do or needs you see in your organization and how these tools can help. In my case, social tools supported our media relations, my first job at Mayo Clinic.
  2. Become personally familiar with the tools. Develop deep familiarity with basic social media platforms by using them. Set up personal accounts before creating any for your employer to help you see how to best apply them for work.
  3. Start by watching and listening. Listen to what others say about your organization. Watch how others use the tools.
  4. Ask for help. People in online communities are generally welcoming of new members, particularly those who approach with a sense of humility.
  5. Pay attention to community norms. If you watch and listen and approach online connections with humility, it’s unlikely you’ll become “that guy.” Don’t act in ways wildly outside community norms for a community if you want to become a trusted member.
  6. Don’t be snowed by the purists. My friend Andy Sernovitz talks about “bloggers who blog about blogging,” for whom any deviation from what they consider the “right” way to engage online is viewed with contempt. They aren’t your audience. Don’t let purists’ opinions keep you from doing what’s right for your situation and organization.
  7. Planning is more important than plans. Think about priorities and why you’re engaging in social media, but keep the planning horizon short. Plan early. Plan often. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. The content of any plan isn’t as important as the thought process that informed its development. Our Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media works on a 100-day planning cycle. Don’t be afraid of having a similarly short planning cycle.

Strategy in social media isn’t appreciably different from other types of business strategy. You’ll address the same questions: What resources do I have? What tools are available? What could I accomplish with additional resources?

Still, here’s one key way social media business strategy is different:

Altruism pays. Social tools have dramatically reduced the cost of sharing knowledge, and the resulting relationships can be much more valuable than the knowledge itself. Keep costs low and you’ll be amazed at the benefits you’ll realize from sharing freely.

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Bringing the Social Media Revolution to Health Care: The Book

Bringing the Social Media Revolution to Health Care is the title I’ve used for many of my presentations over the last few years. Now, it’s a book, thanks to the contributions of 30 good friends who are members of our Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media Advisory Board, Social Media Health Network and our Mayo Clinic staff. See the Mayo Clinic news release and the blog post announcing the book for more information.

I listed the contributing authors in a post on our Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media site, but I want to particularly recognize Meredith Gould for her contributions. She wrote a couple of the essays, but her editing and publishing experience was essential. And she is, after all, a great humanitarian.

I will have more on the process in some future posts, but for now I hope you’ll read the book and tell me what you think of it. You can get it on Amazon (it qualifies for the 4-for-3 promotion, too), or we have bigger discounts for bulk purchases if you get them directly from the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media. All net proceeds go to fund scholarships for patients and caregivers to attend our conferences.

iPhone 5: “A whole extra row of icons”

That’s how my good friend Reed Smith deadpanned on the “amazing productivity improvement” he’s seen with his new iPhone when he was in Minnesota for our Social Media Week at Mayo Clinic.

That reminded me of some video I shot comparing my iPhone 4s with our #MCCSM Medical Director’s new iPhone 5:

Looks nice, but not worth breaking my contract that still has a year to go.

Rooting for the Nats

I’m settled in for a fun night watching the fifth and deciding game of the National League Division Series, and I have a definite rooting interest since Jayson Werth hit the game-winning home run in the bottom of the 9th last night.

Jayson thought his career was over in 2005, but Mayo Clinic Orthopedic Surgeon Richard Berger, M.D. helped make his return to baseball possible.

Dr. Berger had discovered the kind of ligament tear Jayson had suffered in spring training in 2005. it is called a UT split tear and involves lengthwise split of the ligament, like a celery stick, as opposed to a complete rupture. Before Dr. Berger’s discovery of this type of injury, patients would never recover mostly because the injury doesn’t show up well on an MRI. It looks “normal” unless you really know what to look for.

Here is that story, as told on our Sharing Mayo Clinic blog, from when he was with the Phillies in 2009.

I met Jayson in 2009 when I got to interview him in Philadelphia:

That post led to a big story in USA Today when the Phillies went to the World Series again in 2009. It resulted in our first Twitter chat in collaboration with USA Today, in which Dr. Berger answered questions from readers, which led to one of those participants coming to Mayo Clinic for surgery by Dr. Berger for the same surgery, because she had a split-tear too. And that led to another USA Today story.

Two years ago in December, Jayson signed with the Washington Nationals, perennial cellar dwellers. Here’s a story about it in the New York Times, which gets into a lot of his Mayo Clinic story.

It’s neat that in just two years, Jayson is again playing post-season baseball. If my Twins can’t make the playoffs, I’m rooting for the Nationals.

And just in the time since I started writing this post, the Nats are off to a 3-0 lead in the first inning, as Jayson led off with a double and scored the game’s first run.

Go Nats!

Update 10/13/12: The Nats built a 6-0 lead early, but collapsed in the 9th inning, giving up four runs for a 9-7 loss. Bummer.

#HCSM Review – Oct. 3 Edition

The HCSM Review is a peer-reviewed blog carnival for everyone interested in health care social media.

As the Director for the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media, I’m focused on demonstrating practical benefits of social media for patients. So in my call for submissions, I asked for posts testifying to the ways social media has helped patients.

Some of the submissions related more to devices than social media directly, but here’s an interesting roundup:

A Dose of Reality

After 14 hours of beating myself up, I realized I wasn’t to blame for being the F-patient…

“I realize there is a lot of huzzah and hurrah about the e-patient out there—perhaps among those who have the skill or leisure to be so well connected to social media. At times, I believe I’m one of the fold. But what about the f-patient? The well-meaning, diligent user of social media who finds herself inexplicably … well, the most accurate way to put it is … “f’d” by the health care system?

“In a one-night stay at my beloved local hospital, I found myself – seasoned cardiac patient that I am – misconstrued as a narcotics monger, migraine patient, and generalized neurotic, gaseous female.

“I had my smart phone. But, no charger. As the hours progressed into double digits and I realized my predicament, the best use of my phone was to call my internist and cardio, because no one at the hospital had bothered to do so. I suppose I could have accessed facebook at some point and drained battery, but to what end? Would it have furthered my progress? Doubtful. And besides, I was preoccupied with my roommate’s ongoing constipation/diarrhea issues on the other side of the curtain.

“So, I battled my way through that hospital stay by enlisting the nurse, technician, charge nurse, and eventually, the cardiologists, to get some attention and eventual data. Upon returning home, bruised, battered, and covered in residual EKG/telemetry stick’em I realized my truth: F-patient. Or at least until I had some free time on my hands to google, facebook and tweet.” – Katherine Leon

Editor’s Note: I got to meet Katherine last year when she attended our Social Media Residency and participated in our Social Media Summit at Mayo Clinic. Read her story here in the Wall Street Journal. I was one of the co-authors of the Mayo Clinic Proceedings article about how she helped instigate rare disease research through social media. And I’m proud that through Social Media Residency we helped her start her blog.

Health Care Decision Aids

“Following is an interview with Dr David Arterburn of Group Health Research in Seattle, Washington.  Dr Arterburn and his team have implemented Decision Aids that help patients make important choices about medical and surgical procedures.  They have also done a study showing that these Decision Aids reduced costs for the hospital.  You can read more about decision aids and the study here.” – Joan Justice

Cell Phones to Screen for Hearing Loss

Sana AudioPulse, developed by the Sana international team of students from MIT and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), Harvard, Northeastern and the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) in Brazil, allows healthcare personnel to screen for hearing loss with cellphones interfaced with specialized hardware.  Data is then securely transmitted  to a central database where a  trained audiologist will analyze it and store it in an electronic medical record.” – Joan Justice

Turning a Smartphone into a Healthcare Advocate

“So what does a family do when they need help and a private patient advocate isn’t an option? Currently, they might look for help from a community program, do some online research, or turn to their family and friends for answers….

“With your help, there will soon be another option: Grab your smartphones, or go online, and find help from the Pathfinder’s Virtual Advocate (PVA).” – Linda Adler

Happiness in the Real World

“So if you are not coping well what do you do to improve your ability to be resiliant and bounce back to at least a shadow of your former self?  How do you cope with pain, medications, numerous doctor appointments, and the feelings of guilt that you have for “letting people down” because you can no longer fill all of the roles that you could before?

“One place that you can find suppport is by talking to people who have similar problems to yours and these  days it is very easy to find them online, especially if you have a rare or less common disease.  I have been a member of a traditional online group for 7 years now and I get a lot of support and encouragement from the other members.” – Annette McKinnon

Also check out David Harlow’s roundup on Healthcamp Boston 2012.

The next HCSM Review host? SocialButterfly.