Molly Merrill
Foursquare, a location-based mobile platform, is the place to be for medical practices looking to "gain an online social edge" says one social media expert. Without it, he says, you won't be found.
Using social media as a physician isn't about filling your office with new patients, as one expert will tell you, but is more about the "moral obligation" that physicians have to provide their patients with accurate health information. Healthcare IT News interviewed Howard J. Luks, MD, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon and an associate professor of Orthopedic Surgery at New York Medical College, about how he incorporates social media into his practice.
While it is "critical that doctors, who have the best healthcare information to share, be part of the online healthcare conversation," says social media advisor Glen Gilmore, "there are definite precautions that should be taken to lessen the risk of social media missteps."
The 17 Beacon Communities, stretching from Maine to Hawaii, are celebrating their first anniversary. While much progress has been made, it is clear that this is "a journey of quality improvement that never ends," as one expert put it.The Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at Brookings, in collaboration with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, offered a one-year anniversary update on the Beacon Communities in Washington on Tuesday.
As more employees use their personal mobile devices at work, it is vital that healthcare organizations have a "policy to in place to keep their employees productive and their data safe," says one expert.Michael Maloof, chief technology officer for TriGeo Network Security, Inc., a provider of security information and event management solutions based in Post Falls, Idaho, says that in order for HIPAA policies to be maintained, it is critical that organizations' human resources and IT departments work together to educate employees on mobile device policies.
Consumers are tracking their own health data online, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project and the California HealthCare Foundation.The report, titled The Social Life of Health Information, 2011 by Susannah Fox, Pew's associate director, is billed as the first time anyone has reported, in a national consumer survey, how consumers are using the Internet for self-tracking of their health. Self-tracking
Hospital marketers predict that by 2013 traditional and digital marketing channels will flip-flop in terms of importance, according to a crowdsourced survey by Acsys Interactive. Acsys Interactive, an interactive marketing and digital development company based in Farmington, Conn., has released its 1st Annual Crowdsourced Survey on Emerging Marketing. The survey asked hospital marketers around the country what emerging marketing topics they wanted to hear about from their colleagues.
ROCHESTER, MN - A new mobile app links patients with an allergy database created and used by doctors at the Mayo Clinic to help patients make real-time decisions about products they buy, track their allergies and electronically share information with their physician.
Americans may not be embracing social media as a way to communicate with their doctor - and most doctors aren't using it, either - but experts say it still has value to doctors.
A physician in Rhode Island is being fined $500 after posting patient information on Facebook that "inadvertently violated confidentiality," according to a consent order given by the State of Rhode Island Department of Health Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline. The board has found Alexandra Thran, MD, a 48 year-old Emergency Medicine physician, guilty of "unprofessional conduct" by "revealing personal identifiable information to third parties."