15 Minutes a Day

I remember during my Bachelors program, sitting in my academic advisor’s office looking at all of the books on her shelf and thinking to myself, “How can anyone want to read so many boring looking books?” This week I was reading books like Empowered: Unleash your employees, energize your customers, transform your business, The Delphi technique in nursing and health research, and a U.S. government-issued report entitled Crossing the quality chasm: A new health system for the 21st century. What was even more strange was I found myself fascinated by their contents! Back then I really wanted to pursue a doctoral degree, but didn’t think I’d ever be allowed to do so. Now that I’m here, I have to chuckle at that young woman who couldn’t imagine spending hours reading boring, professor-type books, much less enjoying doing so!

I spent much of the week getting to know more about the Delphi Method that I am now planning to use. I have learned about its strengths and limitations, but no matter how much I learn about it, the one phrase that keeps going through my head is “This sounds like FUN!” I can’t wait to get started on the recruitment process. However, first I need to get through the proposal approval process. One step at a time…

References:

Bernoff, J. & Schadler, T. (2010). Empowered: Unleash your employees, energize your customers, transform your business. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.

Keeney, S., Hasson, F. & McKenna, H. (2011). The Delphi technique in nursing and health research. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons.

National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine, Committee on Quality of Health Care in America. (2001). Crossing the quality chasm: A new health system for the 21st century. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

I did quite a bit of reading about business models today. One of my books (Chesbrough, 2006) suggested that a business model or an adjustment to an extant (my word for the day) corporate business model may be necessary to accomodate the use of social networking. So I found several journal articles on social networking and business models.

You know, I think this was my first research-induced tangent! I think my brain is tingling now!!!

References:

Chesbrough, H. (2006). Open innovation: The new imperative for creating and profiting from technology. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Image Credit: Found on I Can Be Right, or I Can Be Happy: The Ever-Changing Philosophy of a Recovering Control Freak

This is my first week back to school after taking six months off due to health issues. I am glad I took the time off, but I have missed this incredibly. I have continued my reading and research and have decided to change the direction of my dissertation. In Doc722 I was planning to do a case study of Sutter Health – the organization that I work for – and how they are using and not using social networking tools. Because of several experiences I have had over the past few months and some resources that I have found and others I’ve read, I’ve decided to do a case study of the US Healthcare Industry instead of concentrating on one organization. Now, the revisions to chapter one have started.

Dr. Holley (my dissertation mentor) has pointed out some issues that need to be addressed. Most notably, why would any leadership care about my study? I think that leaders should always care about how their customers (patients) and employees are communicating with each other and how they are communicating with management. Social networking presents problems for old-style corporations or organizations that have always maintained tight control over what is said within and by and about their organization. Such control is lost when social networking tools are used. However, on the potentially positive side, social networking can also open the lines of communication between patients and clinicians and between employees and management. Such openness has the potential of reducing confrontation and increasing collaboration between employees and management (Chesbrough, 2006; Levine, Locke, Searls, & Weinberger, 2001; Tapscott, & Williams, 2008). I am also planning to do some research on how social networking could affect the cost of healthcare and productivity for both patients and clinicians. I am eager to see if there is an affect.

References:

Chesbrough, H. (2006). Open innovation: The new imperative for creating and profiting from technology. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Levine, R. Locke, C. Searls, D. and Weinberger, D. (2001). The cluetrain manifesto: The end of business as usual. New York: Perseus Publishing.

Tapscott, D. & Williams, A.D. (2008). Wikinomics: How mass collaboration changes everything. New York: Penguin Group.

P.S. My new word-of-the-day is winsome. I was called this by someone I work with. What do you think?

In preparing to do my dissertation project (I have not submitted my proposal yet) I have been gathering information on hospitals and medical systems that use social media as a way to communicate with the public or internally. I found a resource blog called Found in Cache that has a Hospital Social Network List including current data charts. California has one of the longer lists of hospitals using social media tools, however in looking at the list I have noticed that they are only listed as individual hospitals rather than as systems. I know this because I found several Sutter Health hospitals listed as individual facilities rather than members of a system.

Disclaimer: I am a full time employee of Sutter Health – the parent organization of Alta Bates Summit Medical Center. I work in the Human Resources Information Systems department on the Employee Intranet Team. My dissertation may include Sutter Health as one component of the study, but I will be using publically available information or information released to me through the inquiry process similar to those followed by other investigators.

Is any of the information I’ve provided so far important to my study? I don’t know yet. But it’s something to consider and keep in mind…

Alta Bates Summit Medical Center is actually a mini-system in-and-of-itself. It was created with the merger of Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, CA and Summit Medical Center in Oakland, CA. They are practically next door neighbors in the grand scheme of California. Both were members of Sutter Health and were merged into one company as a way to streamline care and reduce operating costs. “Together, Alta Bates and Summit make up the East Bay’s largest private, not-for-profit medical center with three campuses, two acute care hospitals, birthing services, and a full array of the most advanced specialty services (Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, 2010).”

From both the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center (ABSMC) web site and the Hospital Social Network List, ABSMC is currently using Facebook and YouTube as their social networking tools. A cursory examination of these two accounts shows that each is an extension of the organization’s community outreach efforts – a “look what we’re up to” effort rather than a two way communication effort. There are listings for events and classes, but there is nothing scheduled as an online interactive event and YouTube does not offer any regular video or audio podcasts that patients can subscribe to on a daily or weekly basis. Also, there seems to be very little connectivity with the parent company’s Facebook or YouTube accounts.

One of the reasons that I chose to study how healthcare is using social media tools is because healthcare seems to be a late adopter of this new technology even though studies show that interconnectedness and communication make individuals and communities healthier (Zarbock, 2009). It will be interesting to watch and see how this organization’s use of these tools evolves over the coming months.

Does your healthcare provider use social networking tools? If yes, who are they and which tools do they use? Do you have a favorable impression of how they use social networking tools? If no, why not? I look forward to your comments and insights…

UPDATE on 11/17/2010: The above blog post was intended as a snapshot of what I see ABSMC doing right now in the social media arena. This was not intended as criticism. I know that Sutter Health, as an whole organization is adopting social networking and is learning how to use this new tool. This is one of many reasons that I enjoy working for this company.

I have spoken with Stacey Wells  and received a comment from Amy Green (see below), both from Sutter Health East Bay Region Communications Department. I welcome their feedback and am looking forward to seeing what they will be doing in the future. I do want to offer an apology to them for not letting them know ahead of time that I was doing this before I hit the publish button. While I was following the company Social Networking Policy, I should have also considered the Media Policy and reached out to them for comment and feedback. I will incorporate this into future profiles of both Sutter Health affiliates and other organizations as well. Ms. Wells and Ms. Green were both very gracious in their responses and I appreciate their assistance in this learning process for me.

References:

Alta Bates Summit Medical Center. (2010). Our history and our work. Retrieved from http://www.altabatessummit.org/about/history.htmlhttp://www.altabatessummit.org/about/history.html.

Zarbock, S. (2009). Making connections: Good for PAs, and for patients. JAAPA : Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants, 22(8), 8. Retrieved February 12, 2010, from http://proquest.umi.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/pqdweb?did=1838471311&sid=2&Fmt=3&clientId=13118&RQT=309&VName=PQD.