Yesterday’s piece in the LA Times created quite a kerfuffle in the social health infosphere.  When Facebook goes to the hospital, patients may suffer detailed some of the issues facing hospitals that have chosen to flirt with Facebook.  Stories of nurses posting images of dead patients.  Lawsuits and employee rights.  An interesting read.  It offered up a serving of fresh red meat for those health professionals looking to keep their heads squarely in the sand.

A couple of thoughts.

Blocking Facebook won’t stop stupidity. Read Paul Levy’s most recent post on the issue.  He reminds us that administrative legislation will not stop ignorance.  It’s the messenger, not the medium.  As healthcare administration’s most vocal advocate for social adoption, I’d recommend you check out Paul Levy.  His point of view is remarkable.

Good employees may not understand privacy. We need to go to the next step and address the fact that many hospitals have employees who don’t understand the privacy laws.  We still have a responsibility to protect patients from the misinformed.  While it’s suggested that you ‘can’t stop the conversation’, it’s important that hospitals take responsibility and educate their employees regarding what’s appropriate and what isn’t.  Many health professionals I know innocently believe that by simply excluding an individuals name you’ve protected their privacy.  We have work to do.

You can block but you can’t hide. The natural course of human conversation will occur whether or not hospitals block Facebook.  The adoption of smart phones has created avenues for conversation that were barely on the radar two years ago.  Tablets will soon be found in every purse.  WiFi is ubiquitous.  Technology will continue to become more accessible but the way health care employees understand patient privacy needs to stay the same.

The media never cared about patient privacy until Facebook came along. It’s interesting that privacy infractions were never a media concern until social media became sexy.  Sure the scale of Facebook exposure is greater that that of an employee sharing protected information on a cell phone.  But you have to admit that there’s a subtle element of schadenfreude surrounding these stories.  Be certain that Andrew Keen has this piece bookmarked for prominent mention in his next book.

I thought this was a generally fair piece but a little attention to social’s upside might have helped the cause.  My server isn’t big enough to hold the examples of how our connections have improved the way we see ourselves and our diseases.

Ed Bennett was quoted in the piece and amidst the chatter on Twitter yesterday afternoon suggested that we all stay calm and remain seated.  This too shall pass.

 

Last week I wrote about why doctors don’t use LinkedIn. While the post intended to break down why doctors weren’t inclined to use LinkedIn, I never meant to suggest that it can’t be helpful for practicing physicians. Enough people messaged me and commented (here and on Better Health) that I feel I should address the issues of doctors and LinkedIn with a broader perspective.

So how could LinkedIn be important for the average physician?

Dig your well before you’re thirsty. I remember reading Harvey Mackey’s book back in the day which suggested that you should always have options lined up in the event that things don’t work out. Times are definitely changing. Different practice environments and models of care may favor those with an unusual element to their background. The evolution of the health care environment may force you to change what you do. Think about your skill sets and what you’ve accomplished – how does that define you? LinkedIn is a good place to showcase that part of you.

LinkedIn is one element of your digital footprint that you control. Too many physicians are not concerned with their professional digital footprint. That is, the record of stuff that appears when you conduct a
vanity search on Google or Bing. In fact, it’s been suggested that Google has replaced the CV. When I search myself I find interviews and keynotes long forgotten that never made my CV. And unlike other searchable sources, the information on LinkedIn in in your control. Think about LinkedIn as home plate for your personal brand. If you don’t think of yourself as a personal brand, perhaps you should. LinkedIn will force the issue for you.

It’s a place to park your CV. Even if you’re not planning to go anywhere, hospital administrators, physician colleagues and other members of your world should have a place to go to learn a little bit about you. Even if you’re not a career climber, others need to see what you’ve done, where you’ve been, or what your into. If you don’t maintain any kind of digital property (blog, twitter feed), think of LinkedIn as your anchor online. (Note: While you can pull your Twitter feed into LinkedIn, I agree with Chris Brogan and don’t think you should do this.  Alot of our Twitter banter is unrelated to our careers – use LinkedIn status updates to keep your network aware of key speaking gigs or meetings you’re attending.  Then leave it at that.)

Patients might want to look. While I stand behind my assertion that LinkedIn is not a primary factor in how patients choose doctors, consider it a service for those who choose to look. And as suggested in the comments by Adam Nash, VP of the search/platform/mobile for LinkedIn, this could potentially serve as a new site for parking patient recommendations. That would be cool.

My reading list – a window to my soul. Okay, that’s a little dramatic. But one feature that I like about LinkedIn is the Amazon reading list. Over the past couple of months I have began compulsively tracking what I read with brief commentary on what I think about it. You can go there and see what I’m up to. Interestingly I think my list says a lot about what’s on my mind and how I’m thinking. I think it’s a professional way to be transparent while helping people understand who you are. I wish more people did this – I love to know what people are reading.

Remember, it’s a tool, not a game. While there are some who look to amass as many connections as possible, much like followers on Twitter, I use it as a place to collect and track the relationships I’ve developed or want to develop further. I can point to everyone in my network and tell you how I have engaged with them. If you randomly want to connect with me and we have not worked together, met at a meeting, served on a panel together or connected in a meaningful way in the social space, I probably won’t reciprocate. It’s just how I use LinkedIn.

Keep up with your professional world. My weekly summary tells me who’s doing what and speaking where. I typically scan over this when it arrives in my inbox. As the numbers of people in your real network grow, LinkedIn provides provides a great way to keep tabs on career moves.

So there you go. As you can see, I’m a huge LinkedIn fan and I think there are ways that every doctor can benefit from its growing popularity.

 

Apparently the New England Journal of Medicine was listening yesterday when I suggested to an audience in Chicago that the way to a doctor’s heart is through his smartphone. The NEJM This Week iPhone App went live this morning on iTunes and it’s worth a look.

The App offers four pages covering articles, images, audio and video. According to Toby Plewak, NEJM’s Manager of Product Development, the article page covers most everything available through the print/web version as well as all of the “online first” (early release) articles for the current week. The only articles excluded are those that can’t be delivered effectively on the iPhone.

I just listened to the NEJM This Week Audio Summary – beautiful (I know what I’ll be doing during my drives to the Texas Medical Center).

Unfortunately the App does not appear to include NEJM’s snappy Flash animations, timelines, infographics and interactive Medical Cases. We can only dream.

The medical images are cool, I might add. And beyond their educational value, I’m thinking they’ll have remarkable amusement value with my school-aged children (my fav this week: the rattlesnake bite).

And, as expected, it all renders really nicely on the iPhone.

I normally access NEJM remotely through the Texas Medical Center Library and that requires a couple of steps with WiFi or my Verizon card. I have to say that since downloading the app this morning I’ve spent more time reading NEJM than ever before. It’s simply a matter of availability. It’s remarkable what you can accomplish during 10 minutes of downtime.

For a limited time the NEJM This Week App is allowing free access. But at some point the party will be over.  Get it while it’s hot… or free.  Please feel free to comment here or send feedback to iPhone at NEJM dot org.

 

MDiTV announced its official launch today. This polished, stand-alone medical information portal will offer 24/7 health reporting by veteran anchors Andrew Holtz and Cathy Marshall, formerly of CNN.

When I picked this up today on Twitter I had to ask myself, “Is the infosphere really lacking in health videos?” Of course not. But what it does lack is quality, slightly-more-in-depth vetted programming that caters to an expanding population of educated e-patients. Network web reporting – too superficial and suited to a multitasking general population. Major health sites such as WebMD seem mired down in painful 1.0-like infrastructures.

MDiTV would appear to be positioning itself as the stand alone solution.

When I called MDiTV’s CEO Dr. Bobby Lazarra this afternoon, he promised me a ‘Web 3.0 experience with health news in real time.’ Fair enough. But while live operations pumped to iPhones may attract media chatter, I’m turned on by the simple prospect of quality video programming that I can recommend to my patients and peers.

What did catch my attention was their soon-to-be-released Second Opinion program which will offer a point-counterpoint dialog between two physicians on select health topics. I honestly think the public can learn a lot from publicly arguing doctors.

MDiTV’s development is likely a sign of the times – the spawn of a decomposing mainstream media growing in a niche unfilled by the amateur video ecosystem.

But time will tell. I’ll follow this one.

 

Hearst Newspapers has finally discovered that doctors make mistakes. Check out their latest collective project, Dead by Mistake, to witness journalism’s most recent boondoggle. The project’s site profiles stories of medical error for public review.  From Mother bleeds to death after delivery to From a broken leg to a vegetative state, it’s all there.

Any patient who suffers the complications of a medical intervention is a tragedy.  But how Dead by Mistake is newsworthy isn’t clear. This sensational repository of error serves to create fear, apprehension and unnecessary suspicion in the public eye. Perhaps it’s the charge of kicking an already battered group of professionals. Maybe it’s schadenfreude for a generation that feels disenfranchised by the medical profession.

But Hearst is late to the party. I might suggest that the gaggle of journalists roped into this project grab a copy of Atul Gawande’s Complications. The physician as less-than-perfect is old news. And e-patients knew long ago what the old media is just figuring out: To err is human and you’ve gotta do your homework.

 

Last year some 36,000 people died in the United States as a result of influenza. This year a new strain kills a few and the world is turned upside down. But swine flu hasn’t made it into history the way the media had predicted.

So far it appears that the only epidemic was one of hysteria created by the media – both online and off.  This week CNN’s hyped coverage did its part to keep viewers glued to their sets. From the furrowed brow of Anderson Cooper to the dramatic orchestral music used to tease segments, CNN recognized the story of swine flu more as an opportunity grab viewers rather than a chance to allay the fears of innocent viewers who didn’t know better.

On social media platforms the subject was equally seductive.  As a trending topic on Twitter last week, swine flu related topics represented 5 out of 10 trending buzzwords on Twitter. In the reverbosphere of the blog world, posts about swine flu won immediate attention.  And unfortunately, physicians were equally complicit in the gang-bang of new media hype that drove this story to stratospheric levels.

While there is a lot that remains to be learned about this strain of influenza, there’s more we need to learn about how we relay health information to one another.

On Twitter everyone’s a health journalist … unfortunately. And teasing reliable public health information from hype is something that very few have the capacity to discern. Anyone among us who re-tweeted, posted, speculated, or linked information that wasn’t directly from trusted sources such as the CDC was complicit in what’s been created.

There are very few among us who truly understand the myths and realities of a threat of this nature. Before we hit ‘update,’ we all should insist that it’s only those few expert bodies who should serve as the source of when to go on with out lives and when to stick out heads in the sand. All of us need to understand the impact of seemingly innocent reverberation.

While we would all like to believe that crowdsourcing is a viable means to good health information, the Aporkalypse is a clear example of how the mob and the media haven’t a clue.

 

I’m quoted this week in American Medical News on the subject of physician branding. I picked up on it this afternoon when someone in my Twitter feed suggested in exasperation that, “now we’re branding physicians…”

Actually, physicians have always had their own brands, we just don’t think of doctors that way. For the uninitiated, a brand is the indelible thought that comes to mind when someone thinks about a product, or a doctor. Think of it as a tattoo on the brain. For example, that bastardly vascular surgeon with miserable bedside manor, flawless starched scrubs and a reputation to never err in the OR has a brand defined by his reputation and skill. Physician authors establish a brand with their voice, style, and ability to clearly explain and empower patients.

I believe doctors need to spend more time thinking about what they represent and how they’re perceived.

While the article didn’t elaborate, my interview surrounded the tricky nature of promoting myself and my writing within America’s largest children’s hospital under the umbrella of a major medical school. Remembering who I actually represent on any given day sometimes can be a challenge. But fortunately all of my roles complement one another.