social media health care

Under the umbrella of socializing health care, I recently had the opportunity to interview Colleen Young, Founder of Healthcare Social Media Canada and Engagement & Community Manager of the Canadian Virtual Hospice . The topic was: “ What is the social activity in the health care space and how is it enabling our approach on health care?” I was thrilled that I could get into her schedule on two separate occasions to have this discussion. Below I capture 6 key highlights from those interviews:

1. Healthcare Is No Longer Paternalistic

People are no longer consuming health in a paternalistic way. The paradigm is shifting from a “transactional business”, where a patient receives instructions and /or a prescription, to an “outcome business”, where people are asking for more understanding or their health and health management regime [ Jamie Heyword, PatientsLikeMe ]. People are taking more ownership to stay in a state of good health and/or managing their disease state.

2. Enabling Healthcare Management

Enabling can take a number of forms that include both people and technology.

Technology

One of the key and critical enabler that has driven change is of course the social web. The Internet has provided significant access to information and social networks. Furthermore, the social web gives a broader access to a larger group of people. This is especially true for patients with a rare disease. Patients with a rare condition no longer feel they are totally alone, as the social web has given access to others living with the disease. Technology has certainly increased one’s resources and support when it comes to health care management.

People

People have always formed networks before the advent of the social network. A good example is of course mothers meeting to talk about the health and well being of their children. Today, people continue to network and enable health care management, bridging a number of forums that are available to us, whether it is in the internet- or in the physical- space. Another critical enabler in this category is that of a community moderator. A community enabler facilitates and creates environments that promote conversations and engagement within a community. A good example of this is demonstrated in the Canadian Virtual Hospice .

3. Participatory and Peer-2-Peer Health Care

Susannah Fox , of the Pew Research Center, coined the phrase Peer-to-Peer health care management. This describes the action of patients helping patients.

In her research she has shown that one in four Internet users living with high blood pressure, diabetes, heart conditions, lung conditions, cancer, or some other chronic ailment have gone online to find others with similar health concerns. This growing collaboration between peers and healthcare practitioners is know also known as participatory health care management.

4. The E- Patient

With the paradigm change in our approach to health and the drivers that help us to enable health care, it has given rise to what is known as the e-patient.

The term e-patient stands for a patient that is equipped, enabled, empowered and engaged in their healthcare decisions. The most well known example of an e-patient is e-patient Dave , David de-Bronkart. David de-Bronkart had terminal kidney cancer and was given 24-weeks to live. He joined the on-line, peer, cancer community ACOR (Association of Cancer Online Resources). When he could not find information from traditional, credible websites, the ACOR community advised him of a treatment that only sometimes works. He found a clinic that would treat him and successfully, his last treatment was July 2007. Today, David de-Bronkart is on the world conference-circuit sharing his story and driving participatory medicine on behalf of the patient.

5. Health Care Collaboration

There are pockets of excellent examples where health care practitioners/ professionals have collaborated with health care consumers. The following two examples demonstrates what opportunities can be had with such collaborations:

The Redesign of the Princess Margaret Chemotherapy unit, Toronto, Canada . The redesign included co-creation with patients. Patients were intimately involved in the design requirements of the unit to ensure a well-received patient experience. Clinical Trials of the Rare Disease, SCAD at The Mayo Clinic. Kathryn Leon and Laura Haywood both have the rare condition known as, spontaneous, coronary artery dissection [SCAD]. They were instrumental in persuading Sharonne Hayes, a Mayo Clinic Cardiologist, in conducting clinical research in SCAD. They used social media to identify other SCAD patients to be part of the trial. This was truly a patient-initiated research project that has led to additional work at the Mayo Clinic. 6. Healthcare Social Media

Health care social media communities are very vibrant and engaged communities in the social space. Its mandate is about people talking, making health care more open and connected for all. The first health care, social media community [#HCSM] was founded by Dana Lewis [the global founder] in the US. The second geo-chapter was launched in Europe [#HCSMEU].

The third geo-chapter was the Canadian chapter [#HMSCA]. HCSMCA was launched by Colleen Young, in September 2010 . This twitter community has had over 6000 members who have used the hashtag HCSMCA. Colleen further describes the Canadian chapter as a community of practice where people come together to problem solve, share ideas, make change and learn.

7. Public Health

Social media tools provide an excellent opportunity to monitor and track public health. A good example was the twitter-feed(s) used to detect the onset and spread of the cholera epidemic after the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Tracking these untraditional data streams have proven to be a very efficient method in providing public warnings compared to the current approach.

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social media health care

7 Key Highlights About Socializing Health Care

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