Social Media and Health Care (at SxSW)

As I blogged previously, I've been at South by Southwest Interactive these past few days. For me, one of the most valuable sessions was "E.R. 2.0." The session featured a facilitated conversation about how hospitals and health care providers are using new media and social networking software to support their primary objectives — treatment, research, education and outreach, and patient-provider communication.

Three panelists steered the discussion:

• Ed Bennett, Manager of Web Operations at the University of Maryland Medical Center
• Aimee Roundtree, Assistant Professor at the University of Houston-Downtown, where she teaches courses in medical and science writing, hypermedia and technology, web publishing and accessibility, visual design, and technical communication
• Jen McCabe of Contagion Health

Challenges

The room included a fair number of participants from hospitals and other medical settings. It wasn't difficult to itemize their challenges:

• Concerns about lawsuits (Tweets are admissible in court!)
• Regulations
• Security and patient privacy
• Lack of comfort with social media by administrators as well as staff (doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals are not always anxious to engage with patients in this manner)
• Expectations of R.O.I.

Findings 

Discussion participants shared a number of interesting findings and perspectives based on their experiences. Here are few participant observations that stood out to me:

• R.O.I. isn't always paramount: When hospitals ask for R.O.I., ask them to show you the R.O.I. of the hospital's clergy. Patient comfort and satisfaction is a huge benchmark for health care providers, and it is also often difficult to measure.
• User comments are helpful: Overwhelmingly, comments on content are positive or neutral, and there are very few complaints: " The unexpected outcomes of social media for hospitals will be positive, because we’ve anticipated all the negatives" – Lee Aase, Mayo Clinic.
• Social media aid support networks: Reflexively, many institutions block social networking sites for their employees. But some have now opened it back up after realizing that blocking such sites, especially Facebook, at hospitals for employees also cuts patients off from their support networks.
• Social media is excellent for crisis communications: Only a few weeks before the shootings at Fort Hood, Scott & White Health Care established its social media policies. This enabled them to use Twitter (@swhealthcare) to push out announcements during the crisis. (Here is one of their early tweets from the day of the shootings).
• Look to global health: Right now, most innovations are happening in global health. U.S. hospitals need to learn how to learn from the global use of low-cost, effective (often mobile) tools in Africa and elsewhere .
• Privacy issues are situational: Privacy issues are a real concern, but it depends on the context. For example, one hospital now tweets updates from the operating room with patient's written permission.
• Hire leaders: One way to spur adoption is through hiring. Find physicians and nurses who are already blogging. Recruit leadership that will set an example.

Additional Resources

• Session notes by Alex de Carvalho
• A Twitter list of session attendees by Ed Bennett (request to join)
• Use the Twitter hashtag #er20 to continue the conversation

What challenges or findings have you found in your health care setting? Let me know in the comments.