Surgeon Pauline Chen MD wrote a moving piece in the New York Times recently on new opportunities and the possibilities of practicing medicine in the age of Twitter and Facebook. She briefly chronicles a patient ("Eddie") with Buerger's disease, which causes "clotting and inflammation of blood vessels in the hands and feet," she writes. The only way to slow the disease down is for the patient to stop smoking, but that's only if the patient is a smoker.
Eddie was a smoker and tried to quit numerous times. However, Eddie didn't have a support network to help him quit.
Do you have patients who could benefit from gentle reminders to help them quit smoking, take their medicine, lower their salt intake or go for their daily walk?
Twitter, Facebook and other social mediums could be that vehicle for providers to communicate and written nudges to patients -- hopefully, improving their care.
NOTE: There are still lots of liability questions out there, so give this some thought. As Dr. Chen writes, "For example, should doctors give out diagnoses or prescribe treatment on Facebook or a blog? If doctors and patients communicate on Twitter, is a doctor liable if she or he misses a patient's tweets about the acute onset of shortness of breath?"
You'll likely find that many of your peers use Twitter, and "tweet" by writing short messages to friends and followers in 140 character incraments. Dr. Chen recently sent this tweet message: "Very moved by fellow tweeps' response to column. This is an amazing community of patients, clinicians, caregivers, PEOPLE."
The Medical Group Management Association's (MGMA's) blog offers several tips to set up and use a Twitter account. I've been using Twitter (my account is http://twitter.com/cfiegl) for a couple months. I find that it's an affective marketing tool and it helps me keep current on a number of issues. So here are a couple of pointers and tips I've learned:
- Play around with Twitter, the only way I learned was just by diving right into it. I've made nearly 100 tweets and frequently read other Twitter-ers' tweets.
- Be careful. Just as there are scam faxes, telephone calls and e-mails -- there are scammers out there using Twitter. You never want to give away sensitive information using your Twitter account.
- Learn the lingo. Since you're limited to using only 140 characters, you'll find a lot of acronyms and code words easily deciphered by veteran Twitter-ers. Example: "RT" stands for re-tweet. If you see this, a user copied another Twitter user's tweet and reposted it.
- If you want to reply to someone's Twitter post, all you have to do is type @ and then the user's name (for example, @cfiegl). The person you're replying to will receive a direct message from you.
- If you receive an e-mail stating that someone you don't know is following you (meaning, they will receive your posts), know that YOU DO NOT HAVE TO follow them. If you're uncomfortable with someone you don't know receiving your tweets, there is a block function you can select.
- There is an option for tweets to be sent to your cell phone, iPhone, BlackBerry or other personal device. I'm pretty selective with who I want to receive tweets from because I don't want to be bombarded with hundreds of messages on my phone. In general, I review tweets online with my Web browser.
Feel free to add me or tweet me @cfiegl. If you have any questions, you can always contact me the old fashioned way -- e-mail: cfiegl@decisionhealth.com.