Month: September 2014

Secure Physician Network: Brainstorming for Cures

One of the most frequent topics in healthcare social media is how to have a meaningful dialog between physicians about medical cases. Twitter has severe character limitations, Facebook groups don’t have strong enough privacy controls and hospital internal programs may not include enough specialist experience. Realizing the need for a secure communications network to engage their orthopedic surgeons and physicians, Duke University Medical Center developed a secure physician network to to allow intercollegiate conversations.

forMD screenshotIn 2011, the platform was spun off as a med-tech startup called for[MD]. The platform is specifically designed to facilitate peer-to-peer medical discussions in affinity networks like alumni groups or medical specialties. On for[MD], physicians are connected to a private, HIPAA compliant network of their peers. Organizations receive a community management tool where they can increase member engagement, enable their physicians to exchange with each other in a secure environment, and manage their membership directory. Physician members receive access to the larger, secure physician network where they can reduce information deluge, exchange with their peers and subject matter experts, and solve professional problems quicker through the social power of community. for[MD] is now working with over 60 associations, organizations, medical specialties and university medical centers.

Get Social Health sat down with co-founder Greg Chang to discuss the for[MD] platform and the innovative thinking it inspired.

Visit our resources page for more valuable (and free!) resources on social media and digital health:

for[MD] website

Greg Chang LinkedIn profile

Co-Founder Michael Gagnon’s LinkedIn profile

Co-Founder Dr. Chad Mather’s LinkedIn profile

for[MD] Blog post: “Crowdsourcing Medical Advancements”

Social Media Tips for Radiologists

social media for healthcareIt is a pleasure to welcome former Get Social Health podcast guest to the blogger’s seat today. Sara has provided an insightful article on social media tips for Radiologists however they are excellent and apply to any physician. Thanks for contributing Sara!

Working in radiology marketing for three years now, I’ve learned the in’s and out’s of the industry, become well-versed in radiology specific terminology, learned more about Toshiba and Hitachi technology than I can fathom and found out how to use various forms of marketing to attract patients and referring physicians. The biggest lesson I have learned though is how to bring the actual radiologists to the table for marketing success.

A joke in our niche industry is that radiologist physicians chose their specialty because they, in fact, don’t like patients and would rather sit in a dark room all day powering through their work than ever have to see a single patient. It makes sense; being that radiologists are compensated for the number of interpretations they get through, rather than their amount of daily positive patient interactions. As a result, the radiologist is not normally well known for exquisite bedside manner.

That being said, many imaging centers and radiology departments end up marketing their centers the same way. Using crutch-terms like “24-hour turnaround time” and “ACR accredited” plastered all over their advertisements and signs, doing nothing to stand out against their competition. By finding unique ways to actually market your radiologist, you can take the road less traveled in radiology.

So what can you do to market a physician that rarely interacts with patients and referring physicians?

  • Build an online persona for your physician through LinkedIn and Twitter
    • Share posts and become a thought-leader in radiology by posting valuable content, studies and blog articles. As a marketing pro, you can help extend the radiologist’s reach through these two social mediums.
  • Patient-focused ghostwriting.
    • Write original content for patients from the perspective of your radiologist, advising them on the differences between procedures, how to prepare and how to understand diagnoses.
  • Brand journalism for your radiologist.
    • Take the ghostwriting a step further and reach out to local media and industry publications to explore whether they need an expert in radiology to consult on medical news and healthcare changes.
  • Video interviews and how-to’s
    • If you’re lucky enough to have a radiologist that wants to get involved with your efforts and feels comfortable being filmed, you can package short videos of the doctor explaining their services. Video content is great for SEO and is much more manageable for patient education than long white papers and jargon-riddled blog posts.

To discuss some ways to transform your practice’s marketing, shoot me an email. I’d love to share my ideas! To reach me via email use: [email protected] or give me a call at 813-284-2002.

 

 

Dr. Anonymous – Blogger, Podcaster, Early Adopter

Dr. Mike Sevilla, a practicing family practice physician, has one of the best known names (and voices) in social media. One of the original physician bloggers, Mike started blogging in 2005 under the nom de plume of “Dr. Anonymous.” As Mike recounts, pre-HIPAA physician blogging was generally under the radar using pseudonyms to allow physicians the ability to speak their minds and “rant” against the system. His perspective on the birth of healthcare social media is unique because he has established a presence in a number of media platforms including a personal website, a blog, a radio show, a podcast, Google Hangouts on air, Twitter and Facebook.

Links:

Grunt Doc Blog

Example of Grunt Doc rant from 2002: Consults and Pain

Dr. Anonymous’ first blog post: “Does this thing Work?”

Dr. Anonymous post from 2006: Safety of Anonymity

Dr. Anonymous’ blog feature on the FOX News Website

Dr. Mike SevillaFollow or Contact Dr. Mike Sevilla:

LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook

Dr. Mike Sevilla: podcast

Dr. Mike Sevilla: website

Tweet Chats:

Breast Cancer Social Media Twitter Chat #BCSM
Meets Mondays 9pET
Medical Education Twitter Chat #MedEd
Meets Thursday 9pET
Hospice and Palliative Medicine Twitter Chat #HPM
Meets Wednesdays 9pET
Diabetes Social Media Chat (mainly patient twitter chatters) #DSMA
Wednesdays 9pET

Visit our resources page for more valuable (and free!) resources on social media and digital health.

 

From Corporate Stress to Wellness Entrepreneur

Population health discussions often revolve around breaking the chain of illness by focusing on wellness. Many innovations in patient wellness are being driven by entrepreneurs and startups. One such entrepreneur is Farnoosh Brock. She recently served as a judge at Triangle Startup Weekend Health where we caught up on her entrepreneurial journey that led her to her founding her company Prolific Living.
To drop in on specific parts of our conversation, refer to the time stamp below:

social media for healthcare00:00 Welcome
00:43 Introduction to Farnoosh Brock
01:30 Judge for Triangle Startup Weekend
02:40 Holistic Health
03:02 Wellness concepts
04:02 “Too busy to be well?”
04:50 “If you don’t make time for wellness now, you’ll need to make time for illness later.”
05:58 Look at your life – What can you eliminate?
07:00 Transition from corporate world
08:20 Juicing
09:10 Publishing “The Health Juicers Bible”
10:00 Building an online community
11:10 BlogWorld (Now NMX – New Media Expo)
13:35 Engaging with online community
15:08 Relationships were key to building online business
16:45 Dealing with patient/health questions
20:00 Victim mentality helps no one.
22:18 Positive thinking and health outlook
24:00 Love yourself first
24:45 Social Media Tip: Dr. Gia Sison “Responsible Tweeting”

Visit our resources page for more valuable (and free!) resources on social media and digital health:

 

Entrepreneurs Hacking Healthcare

Many health-related projects are getting millions of dollars in venture and angel funding.  But do you ever wonder where some projects get started? Startup Weekend is a global network of passionate leaders and entrepreneurs that create an environment to share ideas, form teams and launch startups – all in a 54 hour weekend! Startup Weekend hosts over 1,000 weekend events annually around the globe focused on a mission to inspire, educate and empower individuals, teams and communities.

TSW OrganizersRecently I have the opportunity to be on the organizing team for a Startup Weekend held in the Triangle of North Carolina (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill) with a theme of “Health.” The Startup weekend experience is a full weekend from Friday at 5:00 pm to Sunday at 6:00 pm. The Triangle Startup Weekend runs a few hours shorter than other Startup Weekends. Why? It’s a mystery. A “traditional” Startup Weekend will have about half the participants with technical or design backgrounds and the other half will have business backgrounds.

Beginning with open mic pitches on Friday, attendees bring their best ideas and inspire others to join their team. Over Saturday and Sunday teams focus on customer development, validating their ideas, practicing LEAN Startup Methodologies and building a minimal viable product. On Sunday evening teams demo their prototypes and receive valuable feedback from a panel of experts.

What made this weekend different? By organizing under the theme of “Health” the event brought together a different mix of participants and the structure of the weekend added a few new twists.  Our group was a little bit smaller than the typical event due to the summer weekend and the specialized theme of the event. Demographically we had an interesting mix including;

  • 29 Men & 15 women on teams (Does not include volunteers, mentors, judges and audience) With 34% of teams having women that’s much higher than the 10-20% usually seen at Startup Weekend.
  • Normally you would have three categories of participants: Developers, Designers and Business (non-tech). In the case of our health event we also had 16 medical professionals – 32% of our participants.
  • Triangle Startup Weekend also had a high percentage of PHDs among the participants – 21!
  • Five of the teams were led by women including the team that won the “Best Overall” – Aura.

TSW_Health_600-184

Throughout the weekend I was able to capture the experiences of the a number of the participants from the organizers to volunteers, mentors and judges. Let’s hear their reactions to their Triangle Startup Weekend Health experience.

  • Global Startup Weekend Facilitator: Shashi Jain
  • Participant: Tia Simpson
  • Participant: Michael Brown
  • Participant: Mike McNeill
  • Mentor: Dr. Michael Cousins
  • Organizer: Jon O’Donnell
  • Participant: Leo Alonzo
  • Participant: Christina
  • Volunteer: Dr. Dexter Louie
  • Presentation Coach: Andy Roth
  • Judge: Farnoosh Brock
  • Mentor: John Austin

 

Global Social Media – TweetChat Pioneer

Dr. Gia SisonDr. Gia Sison is a physician who recognizes the potential of social media to share content among fellow physicians and educate patients.  Unusual? Maybe not in the US but as a practicing physician in the Philippines so is more than an early adopter, she is a social media pioneer. In our conversation we discuss how she started her social media journey by participating in Tweet chats happening in the US (12 hour difference). Dr. Sision joined with 3 other physicians in social media to promote the use of  Twitter to engage her nation in healthcare advocacy.

In our conversation we discuss how she found Twitter through Stanford’s #MEDx chat and then joined the #HCLDR and #HCSM chats to engage colleagues around the world.

To follow along, here is a time stamp of our conversation:

00:00 Introduction
00:10 EHR 2.0 Advertisement
00:51 Opening
01:16 Welcome
01:52 Hey – Dr. Sison is in the Philippines!
02:26 Maritime health care & tele-medicine
04:00 How do you perform health care at sea?
05:05 Is there a similar HIPAA law in the Philippines?
06:00 What is the state of social media in the Philippines?
06:33 Help from @NurseFriendly & #healthxph
06:50 #HCLDR chat – #HCSM chat
07:30 Are you encouraging physicians or patients to enter social media?
08:05 Who is involved in Philippines Tweet Chats?
09:30 Are you using Twitter to teach health education or about using social media?
10:05 Are all your Tweet chats global?
10:48 WHO project
11:40 Youth and social media in the Philippines
12:40 What other social media platforms do you use?
13:06 How do you manage to be involved in so many US Tweetchats?
13:38 MEDx at Stanford
13:55 Social media used for physician promotion?
15:00 Using Facebook to educate about Ebola
Ebola Symptoms17:02 Closer to Ebola in NC than the Philippines
18:00 Dr. Sison’s breast cancer journey
18:53 Patient privacy and social media. “A Culture of Shyness”
20:32 Mental Health Stigma
21:30 Social media goal – to drive in-person engagement
22:58 Dr. Sison “walks the walk”
23:20 Stanford’s MEDx program
24:35 Social Media is a great tool for learning
26:17 Social Media Tip from Theresa Robinson of Express Mobile Solutions “Keep it short and Sweet”
26:46 Close

Visit our resources page for more valuable (and free!) resources on social media and digital health:

Contact Dr. Gia Sison:  LinkedIn, TwitterBlog

Stanford’s MEDx program

#HCLDR Chat

#HCSM Chat

Ebola Facebook page

Nurse Friendly – Andrew Lopez

Philippines colleagues in social media:

Dr Iris Isip Tan @endocrine_witch
Dr Remo Aguilar @bonedoc
Dr Narciso Tapia @cebumd