Social Networking in Medicine…Good Idea? Bad Idea?
It has been another interesting and enlightening week for me. My dissertation project seems to constantly occupy a significant portion of my brain (awake or asleep) even while I am doing unrelated activities. I seem to be finding examples of how Web 2.0 (another name for social networking) is impacting my work and life in general. I’m also finding areas where I wish it would have a bigger impact.
For example, since I had my medical incident in December of last year, I find that I have information I want to communicate to 4 different physicians. Three of those physicians are on an electronic health record so, in theory, if I can tell one, two of the others should know about it as well if I find a way to ask them to look. I may have just come across a way to do that using a new patient messaging system. I can leave a message for specific physicians (I think). However, they cannot answer in kind. I would need to go see them or request a return phone call. I know there are patient privacy issues (HIPAA) involved, but having to print out things and physically deliver this information in order to inform them when an email would suffice seems highly inefficient and unproductive. Especially when my employer (a large healthcare network) is also a) three of my physicians’ employer and b) my insurance provider. Something that should take five minutes for me to send and another five minutes for each physician to read instead takes four man-hours to communicate because I have to visit each of the three physicians for a consultation. The fourth physician is an independent physician and pretty much out of the loop anyway. He’s a whole different kettle of fish and about to lose my business for other reasons…
What are your thoughts about using social networking technologies – or even just email – in a medical setting as communication between patients and physicians? Please share!
Image Credit: This T-Shirt is a product offered on Zazzle. I plan to purchase one for myself (because I think it’s cute), but am not (at this point) endorsing this product or Zazzle in any way.
