May 16th, 2011 by Michael Sevilla, M.D. in Opinion
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I wasn’t able to attend the Annual Leadership Forum (ALF) and the National Conference of Special Constituencies (NCSC) meetings in person this year. This is an annual meeting in Kansas City put on by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). I know that it can be hard to believe that someone actually likes going to a meeting. However, for me, these meetings always re-energize me and connect me with people with a passion for Family Medicine.
In 2010, there were only a few of us utilizing social media tools like twitter and facebook (including my blog posts from Thursday & Friday). However, just a year later, there seems to have been an explosion of people utilizing these platforms to a point yesterday when I saw a bunch of people signing up for the first time during the meeting. Even members of the AAFP Board of Directors were creating twitter accounts yesterday. Wow!
I really believe that this year, 2011, is when the Family Medicine community will more fully embrace social media, not only as a means of socialization, but also as a means of advocacy for our specialty. Here are some other reasons why I believe that Family Medicine needs social media: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Family Medicine Rocks Blog - Mike Sevilla, MD*
May 13th, 2011 by Glenn Laffel, M.D., Ph.D. in Health Policy, Health Tips
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Like everybody else, physicians are expanding their online personal identities. At the same time, they are trying to comply with codes of conduct that help consumers trust them and their profession.
There’s no problem so long as the personal online activities of physicians don’t jeopardize their obligations as professionals, which means that there is a problem, unfortunately.
In a recent study for example, 17% of all blogs authored by health professionals were found to include personally identifiable information about patients. Scores of physicians have been reprimanded for posting similar information on Twitter and Facebook, posting lewd pictures of themselves online, tweeting about late night escapades which ended hours before they performed surgery, and other unsavory behaviors.
As I mentioned Monday, medical students and younger physicians who grew up with the Internet have to be particularly careful, since they had established personal online identities before accepting the professional responsibilities that came with their medical degree. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Pizaazz*
May 12th, 2011 by RamonaBatesMD in Health Tips
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Recently I attended a CME course entitled “Dealing with Difficult Colleagues.” It was part of my medical malpractice company’s risk management series to teach physicians/nurses how to lessen our risk of being sued.
This lecture was given by Linda Worley, MD who is a psychiatry professor at UAMS. She is a good speaker, easy to understand, engages the crowd, and knows her subject.
My only complaint would be that it focused only the “angry” or “frustrated” physicians who exhibit unprofessional behavior and did not include the ones whom you suspect might be difficult due to impairment (illness, drugs, alcohol).
Difficult colleagues can impact a team (in office, OR, or hospital) by creating low morale, high staff turnover, inefficiency, decreased patient satisfaction, increased risk for poor patient outcomes, and increased risk of litigation.
Here are some of the A-B-C-D strategies given for handling “horizontal” hostility (or hostility handed from one person to another to the next in the team): Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
May 8th, 2011 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Opinion
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Doctors are preoccupied with consumer review sites and the potential for bad press. Often the first impulse is to put the law on your side. Consider, for example, Dr. Kimberly Henry, cosmetic surgeon who last year initiated legal action against at least 12 reviewers from sites such as Yelp.com and DoctorScorecard.com.
While she may feel some sense of satisfaction in her quest for justice, I’m guessing many read the reviews to see what the fuss is all about.
Actions like these reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of modern reputation management. Physicians who react against patient dialog should understand the Streisand Effect. The Streisand Effect is an online phenomenon in which the attempt to remove or hide information is met with the unintended consequence of greater attention.
Instead of a prohibitive, reactive position against patient comments, doctors should consider a preemptive, proactive approach to dialog. Andy Sernovitz had it right when he suggested, ‘the solution to pollution is dilution.’ Work for good ink. It’s hard to get worked up about 10 poor reviews when you have 350 great reviews.
When physicians take action against patient reviews or even work to prevent reviews they raise a glaring red flag. We’re unlikely to win the battle against public dialog.
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
May 5th, 2011 by FredericLlordachsMD in Health Policy, Opinion
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The Spanish Twitter chapter of #hcsmeu (hashtag #hcsmeuES) held its first unconference on April 1st in Barcelona. For many it sounds like a convention of freakish fans of some cult science-fiction TV show (a group I’m also part of, by the way). But its actually a group of about 200 healthcare professionals from all over Spain who share their interest in social networks and their influence in this particular industry.
Many of those present were meeting face to face for the first time but all of them had previously been gathering weekly on Twitter for a one-hour discussion about the relationship between physicians, pharma, patients and ICT, just as other groups across Europe.
Nowadays even the most reactionary guy admits that both new technological advances and social networking are changing our world, and healthcare won’t be an exception. But these people saw it coming, they are ahead of their time.
In 2010, top searches in Google –in Spain– were for terms Facebook, YouTube, Tuenti(*) and Twitter, all social networks. An average Internet user typically spends 22% of his online time in social networks. Advertising expenditure declines on every media except the Web, where it keeps growing month after month. In fact, big brands have already detected a switch from direct influence –they get less visits to their websites– to mentions in social media: 63% of Spain’s Twitter users do use it to recommend products. 61% express their opinion about products and services. 84% don’t mind getting messages from brands, and many say that companies that make use of social media are outdoing their competition’s revenue and profit. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Diario Médico*
