April 3rd, 2011 by RyanDuBosar in News
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Patients may not want to discuss clinical matters via social media, but they’d gladly set pay their bills when reminded. Social media’s value in communicating with patients is limited to the administrative aspects of it.
Americans still want traditional ways of communication when they need a clinical consult. A survey finds 84% would not use social media or instant messaging channels for medical communication if their doctors offered it, according to the communications firm Capstrat.
Respondents were more favorable toward conferring with the doctor via e-mail (52%) than they were by Twitter and Facebook (11%), chat or instant messaging (20%) or a private online forum (31%).
Even among those 18 to 29 years old, 21% said they would take advantage of an online forum if their doctor offered it, while 72% would take advantage of a nurse help line if available.
Respondents said they’d take advantage of online appointment scheduling (52%), online access to medical records (50%), or online bill payment (48%).
“It appears consumers are willing to move administrative experiences such as bill payment and records access online, but when it comes to conferring with their health care providers, people still prefer more traditional communications,” said the firm’s president, Karen Albritton, in a press release. “The implications include a way for doctors to free up more time for their patients by moving the right interactions online, and an opportunity to forge stronger connections through personal interaction.”
Patients want the same convenience of online appointments and bill paying from their doctor that they get in other areas of their lives, reports a second survey.
73% of those surveyed would use a secure online option to get lab results, request appointments and pay medical bills. The first caveat is that this survey was done by Intuit. The company is best known for QuickBooks, but its health care division offers patient portals for doctor’s offices. The second caveat is that respondents were surveyed online, which would skew results to people digitally inclined anyway.
With those two caveats in mind, the survey also found that:
–Almost half would consider switching doctors for a practice that offered online access.
–81% would schedule their own appointment via a secure Web service and fill out medical/registration forms online prior to their appointment.
–78% would use a secure online method to access their medical histories and share information with their doctor.
–59% of generation Y respondents said they would switch doctors for one with better online access, compared to only 29% of baby boomers.
–45% of patients wait more than a month to pay their doctor bill, and when they pay, half still send a paper check in the mail.
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
April 3rd, 2011 by DavidHarlow in Health Policy, Opinion
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Health care social media continues to be a hot-button issue for hospitals and other provider types around the country. Health care provider organizations considering taking a first step into social media often articulate concerns about regulatory and legal barriers to the use of social media in health care. As regular readers of HealthBlawg know, I believe that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure — in the health care social media arena as elsewhere. Careful planning up front will help you avoid the potential liabilities and pitfalls you may otherwise face in implementing a health care social media program. I invite you to take a look at this quick compendium of rules to live by, which I compiled with Dan Hinmon of Hive Strategies, and follow the link on the last page of the embedded presentation to download an expanded version. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
April 1st, 2011 by Glenn Laffel, M.D., Ph.D. in News, Research
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Millions of people watch YouTube videos depicting teens injuring and cutting themselves, according to a new study. The authors conclude that the videos may serve to legitimize the behaviors as acceptable, even normal.
To assess the scope and accessibility of self-injury videos on the Internet, Stephen Lewis of the University of Guelph, and colleagues searched YouTube for keywords like “self-harm,” and “self-injury.”
They found that the top 100 most frequently viewed videos were watched more than 2.3 million times. Ninety-five percent of the viewers were female. Their average age was 25, although Lewis’ group suspects their actual average age was lower, since some YouTube viewers provide restricted content only to older viewers. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Pizaazz*
March 30th, 2011 by PhilBaumannRN in Opinion, True Stories
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Dear @Twitter,
I so totally know how this sounds to write to a service, but I must confess: your little wings have changed the trajectory of my life and – for the most part – I think it’s been for the best.
I’ve been around for over 40 years, have seen many things, met all sorts of people and have – mostly – enjoyed my life. But I think every several hundred years, a tiny and almost insignificant tool comes out of nowhere and changes the world – like the wheel and zero, both of which are truly “nothing” (both are each shaped the same way). And yet the each not only changed the course of civilizations but also created them. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Phil Baumann*
March 29th, 2011 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Opinion
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I frequently talk about the visibility of doctors in the online space. How can doctors make content, contribute to the broader dialog, and be more visible? Maybe I need to spend less time pushing the idea that every doctor needs to create. Most doctors, after all, just want to listen and watch. Maybe we need to be cultivating dedicated communicators.
There’s a role evolving where physicians are formally involved in the creation of content and the maintenance of dialog. Wendy Swanson at Seattle Children’s Hospital and Claire McCarthy at Boston Children’s Hospital come to mind as good examples. Both serve as models for how institutions can leverage the voice of an individual for a branded online identity while contributing to the common good. Both are evolving as conversation agents on social platforms and IRL. Call them medical conversation agents of new media. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
