Stanford Medicine X in partnership with the analytics masterminds at Symplur have launched a brilliant competition designed to spark scholarly research activity in healthcare social media.  The Stanford Medicine X | Symplur Signals Research Challenge asks all healthcare stakeholders to submit proposals to improve our understanding of how public dialog is changing health care.

I love this competition. Here’s why:

• We need to understand how social channels are being used.  We don’t know enough about how our dialog impacts health and health delivery.
• We need input from people who understand the questions. Beyond physicians, The Stanford Medicine X | Symplur Signals Research Challenge puts raw data into the hands of med students, patients, nurses and others who may not have the resources to undertake this kind of work. Too many social media studies are conceived and penned by people who have never had the practical understanding of using these tools. In a way, this competition democratizes research and leverages the minset of Medicine X.
• You get to work under the hood at Symplur. You can roll your sleeves up and actually dig into the analytic workings of public dialog around health.
• It’s a free ticket to the greatest digital show on earth. The winner takes center stage free of charge. And if you haven’t experienced MedX you need to put it on your bucket list.

In addition to what Dr Chu and Symplur have promised, I’d be thrilled to profile your project here. I’ll be at Stanford MedX and will interview the winner to hopefully draw further attention toward this important type of research.  I love this stuff and more importantly I love meeting the people who dream about it.

And that’s why I go to MedX

I suspect that this is going to evolve as quite an event. So don’t be left out. Be sure to submit your application by March 15.