At this point, we’ve all heard of Twitter in the office, at the gym, and even on the movie set, but the latest Twitter scene is sure to surprise even the most avid tweeters. Good Morning America (GMA) recently revealed a trend toward tweeting from the OR – that’s right, hospitals across the country are embracing social networking as an ME tool, citing the value of Twitter in reaching a new generation of tech-savvy medical students and residents. According to GMA, more than 100 hospitals currently have Twitter accounts, and speculators agree that the number will increase significantly over the next several months as more physicians and hospitals strive to keep up with the Jones’.
For an industry historically known for its resistance to technology, this is a pretty big feat. Twitter only recently gained national attention, as well-known personalities like Oprah, Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears announced their active presence on the site. As “average joe’s” tried to understand the benefits and inner workings of this uncharted territory, some of the most prestigious medical centers quickly recognized a valuable role for Twitter in their medical educational efforts, and incorporated the technology into their everyday practice.
Mayo Clinic, for example, prides itself on its position as one of the first centers to truly embrace social media, eventually hiring a full-time employee solely dedicated to social media. Mayo has even developed a “tweet camp,” designed to bring MDs and nurses up to speed on Twitter. And a physician with Aurora Healthcare just recently provided live updates via Twitter during a knee-replacement surgery, in hopes of both educating physicians on the technique and alleviating any patient fears on joint-replacement surgery.
Naturally, this unforeseen adoption begs the question – are hospitals truly using Twitter and other social networking sites for educational purposes, or is there at least a small element of brand marketing in that strategy? With a competitive marketplace out there, hospitals would be smart to leverage new technologies to help create stronger brand awareness and defined differentiators. But I do believe that at the end of the day, physicians are genuinely looking to better patient care and improve efficiencies, and Twitter is just one of the latest and greatest to help make that happen.
This week’s World Health Care Congress has put healthcare reform at the center stage. Today, an impressive panel of Nobel Laureate Mohammed Yunus and Frank Rijsberman of Google met to talk about the sustainability of healthcare. The audience was able to hear Yunus’ view of reforming the healthcare in developing countries and ways to increase access to healthcare providers. Rijsberman provided his thoughts on improving the distribution of healthcare data, a space that Google has already made moves into. Further reporting on the panel can be found on the Healthcare Congress blog.
Additionally, X PRIZE has announced its latest contest with funding from WellPoint, seeking ideas “to create an optimal health paradigm that empowers and engages individuals and communities in a way that dramatically improves health value.” Written entries will be accepted over the next 18 months and five entries will be selected for a three-year experiment. The model will have to work across a community of 10,000 people and improve health by 50% in this three- year period. The winning entry will receive $10 million.
Will you be submitting or have thoughts about how this could be executed?
Yesterday the Daily Mail reported that the volume of online content, driven by social media, could have long-term damaging effects on the emotional development of young people’s brains. The author, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, a researcher at the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California, said: “For some thoughts, especially moral decision-making about other people’s social and psychological situations, we need to allow for adequate time and reflection”. It seems the constant flow of real time information from Twitter, FriendFeed, and Facebook is too fast for people to process effectively. According to Mary Helen, this means that we’re never able to fully experience emotions about other people’s psychological states.
So, we’re able to sort through constant information streams incredibly quickly (a new skill in many respects), but we are not developing the deeper analytical skills needed for us to engage meaningfully. I guess the question is whether the good (broader social engagement, information flows and access to true communities of interest) balance the downside (rapid response ‘skimming’).That’s where the real debate should be.
Today marks the start of the 6th annual World Health Care Congress, a prestigious gathering of the nation’s movers and shakers in healthcare, with convergence across all sectors of the industry. This year’s meeting boasts presentations from a number of leading healthcare executives including Angela Braly, president and CEO of Wellpoint, George Halvlorson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Foundation and Carolyn Clancy, MD, Director, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. With all of the recent chatter and attention around the future of this $2.4 trillion industry, we anticipate a number of hot button items on this year’s agenda including:
• Health IT reform
• Economics in healthcare
• Personalized medicine
• Comparative effectiveness
• Consumer-centric healthcare
We’re eager to see the buzz generated from this week’s forum. Check back in for updates over the next couple of days!
Operation Dollar Bill, an FBI investigation into corruption in the Rhode Island state government, uncovered that Robert A. Urciuoli, former president of Roger Williams Medical Center had been bribing state senator John Celona to legislate in the hospital’s favor. At his sentencing, Mr. Urciuoli positioned himself as an innocent party faced with “shakedown artist” Celona getting the better of him.
“I never intended to commit any unlawful or illegal act,” Urciuoli said. “Anything I tried to do was in the best interests of Roger Williams Hospital.”
Now, Mr. Urciuoli faces 36 months in federal prison. His steep penalty is a sign that little leniancy will be granted to other conspirators revealved in Operation Dollar Bill.
This 6 year old investigation also uncovered that John Celona had accepted gifts from CVS and Blue Cross, Blue Shield.
After all this, maybe the answer is to bring back Buddy Cianci.
It’ll take more than an economic downturn to slow down this nation’s group of health IT professionals. According to preliminary figures, approximately 27,500 flocked to the Windy City this week for the annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) meeting. Although numbers were down by around 5% from last year’s Orlando-based meeting, show organizers anticipated a much higher drop-off in attendance, due, well, in large part to the current state of the economy.
Ironically, many said that it was the economy itself that drew the crowds, eager to learn more about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, signed into law by President Obama in February. Industry speculators have linked the stimulus package to more than $35 billion in federal dollars designed to spark spending on health information technology. So did the lure work? Survey says yes – attendees felt genuinely energized and excited by the administration’s marked commitment to reform and the anticipated positive effect on the industry as a whole.
But the administration wasn’t the only noisemaker at the show. A number of industry veterans, and newcomers, made some exciting announcements that clearly demonstrate the appeal of this fast-growing sector of healthcare. Some highlights:
• Dell, a company traditionally known for its customizable, personal computers, launched Ideastorm for Healthcare – a project designed to give a voice to the community in an effort to better improve healthcare equipment and processes.
• GE Healthcare and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are pairing up to deliver personalized public health alerts to EMR in physician’s offices. Want to learn if you’re at risk for a new strain of influenza based on your zip code? Your MD would receive a pop-up on his computer screen during your visit that would alert him to the risk.
• Even IBM is fully engaged – the company announced a partnership with the Mayo Clinic to launch a new, collaborative Website that can provide researchers and physicians with clues to and information on disease patterns.
So what are your thoughts? Did the HIMSS organization fully capitalize on Capitol Hill’s commitment to bolstering a field known historically for its resistance to technology? We’d love to hear from you.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place, or, in this case, patients and its’ organizational mission, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sided with the patients. Late yesterday Dr. Douglas Throckmorton, deputy director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, announced that a liquid form of Morphine, currently unapproved by the FDA, will remain on the market in limited supply.
Dr. Douglas Throckmorton
The surprise here for some physicians and patients? Not all drugs on the market are backed by FDA approval. For a list of drugs not approved by the FDA, click here.
Reasoning behind the ruling shed light on the FDA’s more compassionate side as it agreed with hospice and other health care organizations that many terminally ill patients would face significant ”hardship” without access to this powerful pain medication.
The decision is a concession of sorts as just last month the FDA sent a letter to nine pharmaceutical companies, warning them to stop making drugs where the therapeutic benefits remain unproven.
Some many feel that this move by the FDA is more of a PR stunt to gain back waning public trust after a number of premature approvals were forced through its backlogged system, but regardless there are thousands of struggling patients that can rest a little easier today.
The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Johns Hopkins has banned free drug samples and gifts from pharmaceutical and medical device companies. To ensure that these new regulations are met, the University is restricting drug and device sales reps from patient-care areas of its hospital and clinics.
There is no huge surprise here and this trend is expected to continue as the doc-rep relations comes under increased scrutiny. It is interesting that medical device and pharma cos are being lumped together under the same regulations. Historically, pharma cos have been at the tip of the compliance spear, with similar regulations then sweeping the med device industry.
Health care compliance is a growing area of interest for those in the industry. We’ll be sure to keep an eye out for other developments in this area.
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A colleague turned me on toGrassroot Soccer, a non profit that is driving to make a difference in the fight against AIDS and HIV in Africa. As soccer enthusiasts and communications pros we were drawn by the organization’s M.O. – using the the world’s favorite sport to teach youths across Africa about AIDS.
The spread and prevalence of HIV and AIDS in Africa has been well publicized yet for many it seems worlds away. For Tommy Clark M.D., the true impact that AIDS had caused hit home when he played professional soccer in Bulawayo, the second largest city inZimbabwe.Here he saw those left in the disease’s wake – an estimated 11.6 million orphaned African children annually.With the goal of fighting this epidemic and the vision to leverage soccer as the educational communications vehicle, he founded Grassroot Soccer in 2002.
For nine years the organization has worked to empower African children with the “knowledge, skills and support to live HIV free.”Today Grassroot Soccer and graduated more than 250,000 kids from its program and continues to grow through partnerships and funding from a number of sources including theBill and Melinda Gates foundationand Nike.
Grassroots Soccer offers a number of ways to get involved in its organization - check out the Lose The Shoes events – barefoot 3v3 soccers tournaments in cities in the US and Canada. For locations, dates and times check out the Grassroot Soccer’Facebook page.
