TECHNOLOGY FOR CHANGE

Social Media and Health Care: Can Twitter Reform America's Medical System?

Stephen Wellman | Date: 08-27-09 | Comments

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• Social media juggernaut Twitter is emerging as a potential real-time tool for physicians and health care industry professionals. Can social media give the health care industry more tools with which to reform itself?

• Doctors, hospitals and health care organizations are increasingly looking to Twitter to communicate both with patients and others in the health care industry. Many doctors are using Twitter to communicate important updates, like medical emergencies, with large groups of other physicians and health care service providers.

  In addition, many doctors are looking to Twitter as a way to better stay in touch with their patients. Here is a look at this trend from ScienceDaily:

  Twitter applications are available to help patients find out about clinical trials, for example, or to link brief news alerts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to reliable websites that provide more detailed information.

  The use of social media and Internet-based outlets such as Twitter to communicate medical information requires a high degree of caution, however, to preserve confidentiality and patient privacy in the clinical care setting, and to ensure that information sources are accurate, reliable, and current.

  What do you think? Can Twitter help the U.S. health care industry improve quality of service and cut costs? Is this another example of mobility's potential to change health care? Let us know.

  
  

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