The Internet of Things (IoT) has the power to make our lives easier. Healthcare is one industry in which IoT could affect positive change. There’s plenty of buzz about how IoT could help boost the efficiency of healthcare. It could reduce emergency room wait times and tracking patient and inventory data. There is also hope that artificial intelligence (AI) could someday assist doctors with cancer research, detection, and care. I argue that together AI and IoT can improve cancer treatment.
Opportunities in Diagnosis and Treatment
As machines and devices grow better at communicating with each other, AI technology like IBM’s Watson, as well as robotic surgeons, are helping doctors treat cancer from diagnosis to care. For now, however, AI and IoT don’t work together in the cancer treatment space. In general, the earlier a doctor can recognize symptoms, the more quickly they can reach a diagnosis and begin treatment.
A variety of early-stage cancer symptoms are vague and unrecognizable, so it’s understandable that cancers may initially go undiagnosed. Therein lies the point: AI and IoT can improve cancer treatment, but they should work together.
IoT systems that work in tandem with AI platforms will be capable of deciphering cancer risk markers and acting upon them. They’ll be able to do so for less serious conditions and in more ambiguous diagnostic environments. Such an advanced fusion of technologies will be especially useful when it comes to rare diseases and those with poor life expectancy in later stages.
For cancers like mesothelioma, it’s vital to recognize symptoms as soon as possible to ensure a better prognosis. Mesothelioma, which develops over a period of decades after inhaling or ingesting asbestos fibers, is often difficult to detect because early symptoms may manifest as a cough or discomfort in the abdomen or chest. With the help of AI, connecting these symptoms with vast troves of aggregated patient data could allow patients to receive treatment promptly, thereby lengthening life expectancy.
I’ve never been a big fan of prefixes. You’re either “anti” this or “pro” that, “under” or “over,” “pre” or “post.” And if Apple comes out with another “i-“ it’ll be all too soon!
And here’s another one. As we in healthcare IT move towards a technological future where universal access to medical records becomes the expected norm, get ready to be inundated with the prefix, “Tele.”
Tele-what?
Telemedicine, telehealth—what do they actually refer to, and which one should you use?
Both terms describe the remote delivery of healthcare services using telecommunications technology. Often used interchangeably, telemedicine tends to mean the delivery of remote care between provider and patient, whereas telehealth is a bit broader, encompassing a variety of digital technologies and methods for delivering virtual medical, health, and education services (i.e. information swapping and mentorship among providers).
The concept of telehealth or telemedicine is not new—the World Health Organization reported that its history can be traced to the nineteenth century. But in the ever-evolving mobile telecommunications landscape of today, the concept is expanding in scope and size. More than ever before, healthcare organizations are exploring telehealth strategies or programs that generate cost savings while maintaining (and even improving) the quality of care.
Here now, our list of the top five trends in telehealth.
Whatever our individual perceptions of life in the future, every part of it is likely to be aided, facilitated, moderated and serviced by a form of artificial intelligence (AI). Voice activation is a good example. Shopping and entertainment are now more convenient for hundreds of thousands of consumers, thanks to Alexa and Co.
Today’s young people, meanwhile, are digital natives: they have no notion of a time before mobile phones, will never have seen a cassette tape, and soon may not even need to pass a driving test to get behind the wheel of a vehicle. Any question about them not fully embracing intelligent technology is a moot one. Of course they will: they already are. They both accept and expect it.
If voice activation is developing, then so is the infrastructure to support it. Its integral place at the heart of our lives means that the system knows when we get up, leave the house, which route gets us to work, and who we know on a business or personal level. The services suggested to us will come automatically, and we will simply choose to opt in or out.
The point is, technology is already changing our ways of life. The only thing we can be sure of is that this change is ongoing. In May, for instance, the prime minister announced that she wants AI to be a “new weapon” to transform the way diseases like cancer, diabetes, heart disease and dementia are diagnosed by 2030.
Biased and limited by experience
When we experience ill health, we generally see either a specialist or generalist healthcare professional. Most will have trained for many years. But however many conferences they attend, books they read, journal papers they write, and patients they treat, their experience, intuition and perceptions are biased by context. And limited by it too.
Logically, a machine that sees patients can store clinical knowledge, assimilate patterns of behaviour, confer with other machines, and draw from a far broader range of data than any individual doctor. Presenting symptomatic data to a machine – that also analyses vital measurements and can refer to a global network of previous experience – must give it a better chance of arriving at an accurate diagnosis than a human.
And if it were possible for someone to be diagnosed with a condition without reference to a formal medical facility, then why not use machines to prescribe treatment regimens as well? Can a strictly-monitored, highly-regulated and financially punitive system survive when patients find a new way of interacting with the market?
The Internet of Things is impacting on many industries, including healthcare. Each industry presents different challenges. A new survey offers advice for those working in the healthcare sector seeking to brig connected technologies on-line.
The so-called Internet of Medical Things is designed to transform the way medical equipment operates. This has been enabled through most hospitals having both wired and Wi-Fi enabled equipment, from intravenous-pumps to X-ray machines; and from telemetry monitors to hand wash detectors.
By exploiting the Internet of Medical Things, healthcare professionals can segment and monitor devices in real-time. This allows for systems to be checked that they are secure; to assess if they are working properly; and to collect data relating to patient health and treatments.
According to analysts Hit Consult, the big challenge for healthcare arises because most “organizations are learning the hard way is it’s difficult to stitch together cloud-based solutions with hard-wired legacy devices and systems.”
The analysts offer five strategies to make the development of the Internet of Medical Things easier. These are:
The so-called Internet of Medical Things is designed to transform the way medical equipment operates. This has been enabled through most hospitals having both wired and Wi-Fi enabled equipment, from intravenous-pumps to X-ray machines; and from telemetry monitors to hand wash detectors. By exploiting the Internet of Medical Things, healthcare professionals can segment and monitor devices in real-time. This allows for systems to be checked that they are secure; to assess if they are working properly; and to collect data relating to patient health and treatments. According to analysts Hit Consult, the big challenge for healthcare arises because most “organizations are learning the hard way is it’s difficult to stitch together cloud-based solutions with hard-wired legacy devices and systems.” The analysts offer five strategies to make the development of the Internet of Medical Things easier. These are:
1. Focus on Network Infrastructure First
Many healthcare organizations make the mistake of seeking to establish an Internet of Things ecosystem at the wrong place, which is often with application-related initiatives. Instead IT departments need to understand the ins and outs of the network and how each device will operate within it.
2. Use Device Visibility and Data Analytics
All too often organizations do not have the visibility necessary to know where the connected medical devices are in the network and how they are functioning. A review the basics is necessary, such as knowing whether a new device is operating properly and what data is it transmitting. Therefore, visibility and intuitive data analytics are critical.
3. Secure Your Network via Segmentation
The security of healthcare Internet of Things is a very important requirement to preserve the privacy and safety of patients. To protect systems from an external attack it critical to structure your network to prevent security breaches. This is best achieved by segmentation or partitioning of the network.
4. Make Monitoring a Top Priority
Routine observation and tracking of devices connected to the network is important and this means monitoring all the devices and applications on the network continuously.
5. Unify Your Onboarding Approach
A core strategy for Internet of Things success is to avoid disjointed approaches, especially those arising from multi-departmental initiatives.
Media reports over the last couple of years indicate that fake news on WhatsApp has claimed about 25 lives in the country, Jinesh P.S., a health activist, has said. But he is unsure of the number of lives lost or are under threat due to completely baseless information on health issues that get passed on as authentic news on the personalised messaging platform.
Co-founder and administrator of the Facebook group, Info Clinic, Dr. Jinesh said there was no accounting for how forwarded ‘health’ messages made people discontinue their regular medication and take unauthenticated health tips masquerading as alternative or traditional medicine.
While his group tried to give answers to a number of queries that landed directly on their page, the reach of the WhatsApp messaging platform was far greater, he said.
The main aim of fake news creators is to attack modern medicine. Diseases such as cancer, psoriasis, cardiac ailments, diabetes and hypertension are among some of targeted diseases, for which modern medicine has evolved management techniques rather than sure-cure treatment methods.
Unvalidated and fake health messages had far-reaching consequences, said Hemant Radhakrishnan, the managing director of Anvita Tours2Health, an internet platform that tries to bridge the gap between patients and doctors. Most people are not inclined to even consider validating the authenticity of the information. The nuisance of fake messaging was that it kept circulating over the years, he added.
On the part of the government, an Arogya Jagrata programme has been launched to provide information through house visits. The State government had faced a tough time while implementing the measles-rubella (MR) vaccination programme last year.
ClassiAds is the best Classified Ads WordPress Theme on Themeforest. We know its a perfect choice for your business. Super flexible, Rich with features availability, Drag and Drop system with page builder and Top payment gateways and Classiads is fully 100% responsive wordpress theme.
While leading the health practice at Yahoo, Jack Barrette made a discovery that changed the course of his career.
In the early 2000s, Mr. Barrette — former president of a consumer health strategy consultancy and former health and medicine lead at an online marketing firm — was tasked with building Yahoo's health presence. As part of his effort to expand the company's healthcare reach, he jumped headfirst into Yahoo Groups, a platform where users convened to discuss issues ranging from music to politics to sports. He wanted to understand what made the search engine's users tick.
There, Mr. Barrette discovered thousands of online discussion boards dedicated to healthcare, where passionate users would steer discussions on medical conditions, provide health advice and offer support to one another. "I found a relatively small, but passionate, group of consumers who were helping thousands of others by leading health groups and answering questions," Mr. Barrette said during an interview with Becker's Hospital Review.
Mr. Barrette dubbed these users "patient leaders," and in 2007 he founded WEGO Health, a company centered on the idea healthcare organizations need these advocates to inform improvements to the care delivery process.
"A patient leader is someone who uses their health journey to educate others and raise awareness," explained Mr. Barrette, who now serves as CEO of WEGO Health. "We've been successful in recruiting more than 100,000 patient leaders to WEGO Health by demonstrating our commitment to building their visibility, getting them in front of the industry and ensuring they receive compensation for their time and expertise."
Today, WEGO Health connects its network of patient leaders with hospitals, health startups and drugmakers to ensure these organizations incorporate the patient perspective into the design, development and promotion of their products and services.
Mr. Barrette spoke with Becker's Hospital Review about why this patient-driven innovation is essential for organizations seeking success in today's healthcare landscape.
Editor's note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Question: What surprised you most about working in the healthcare industry?
Jack Barrette: The disconnect between the industry's goal to improve the patient experience and its failure to make greater strides. Health systems, in particular, have genuine incentives — financial and otherwise — to become truly patient-centered organizations. Getting there requires a commitment to human-centered design, yet most health systems continue to innovate for patients, instead of with patients. The key is to include patients throughout the development lifecycle — it's not enough to get their input at the beginning and then at the end.
Q: What are some challenges you've seen for hospitals looking to engage patients in their healthcare?
JB: A big challenge is doctors and care providers have too little time to connect with their patients, and that is only amplified once the patient walks out the door. Hospitals have struggled to put systems and tools in place that can bridge the engagement gap between visits. Patient portals help only marginally, if at all. We believe health systems could better collaborate with patient leaders to help on this front, especially with significant challenges in the industry related to self-management, medication adherence and behavior change.
Q: WEGO Health's work revolves around the idea of "patient-driven innovation." How do you define patient-driven innovation, and how can the concept help hospitals today?
JB: Patient-driven innovation is what happens when you bring patients to the table as peers, as co-creators and fellow collaborators. There's plenty of evidence to support the fact that hospitals uncover new solutions to improve the patient experience when patients are actively involved in a human-centered design process. At WEGO Health, we connect healthcare companies to our network of patient leaders, most of whom are hyper-connected through online patient communities and social media networks.
Q: What opportunities do you see for hospitals to include patients in the development of new programs and technologies?
JB: At WEGO Health, we see an opportunity for hospitals to involve patients in every phase of the process, from patient journey mapping and personal development to design sprints, user testing and content development. One of our hospital clients recently discovered unmet needs for its epilepsy patients by bringing a patient expert with epilepsy into the design thinking process very early on. The patient is now a member of the advisory board and is as integral to the design process as the clinicians, researchers and health IT team.
It's been a full decade since Apple introduced its App Store on July 10, 2008.
The initial marketplace, which comprised just 500 apps, has grown to more than 2 million, according to The Verge. At Becker's Hospital Review's time of publication, the No. 1 free app in the App Store's health and fitness category was "Sweatcoin," an activity tracker that incentivizes users to meet their step goals with digital currency.
Here are four ways Apple's online shop has tackled healthcare since 2008:
1. Health and fitness apps have surged in popularity during the past decade, according to a statement Apple released July 9. The Apple Watch, a line of smartwatches Apple rolled out in 2015, has driven some of this interest — downloads for fitness and wellness apps that track users' health goals rose 75 percent after the Apple Watch's launch.
2. To capitalize on its smartwatch's success, Apple isn't just working with third-party app developers like Nike, Dexcom and One Drop for the Apple Watch. In late 2017, the Cupertino, Calif.-based tech giant — in collaboration with Stanford (Calif.) University School of Medicine and American Well — launched the Apple Heart Study app, a research project that leverages the Apple Watch's heart rate sensor to detect irregular heart rhythms.
3. Apple also offers two software frameworks to help physicians, researchers and developers in the healthcare industry create apps that improve patient care: CareKit, a software framework that helps developers build apps focused on users' well-being, and ResearchKit, a software framework that helps scientists build apps to gather data for clinical research.
Physicians and researchers have used these two software tools for clinical studies related to autism, Parkinson's disease and postoperative rehabilitation, which have involved an estimated 3 million patients. In late 2016, a team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore worked with Apple's CareKit to create Corrie, a healthcare resource app for heart attack survivors.
4. In one of the company's most ambitious healthcare projects to date, Apple in January revealed plans to integrate patient health records into its Health app. In the latest iOS 11.3 beta, iPhone Health apps will include a "Health Records" section that enables patients to organize medical information, such as immunizations and lab results, from various hospitals and health systems.
Compared to the advances in technology outside of health care, digital health has lagged behind other fields. The Gartner Hype Cycle is a helpful way to describe the life cycle of technology within health care (Figure). The first phase, innovation trigger, is a proof-of-concept that generates a potential breakthrough with technology. That breakthrough leads into the second phase, the peak of inflated expectations; in health care, a lot of people are excited about what digital health can do and are trying to create the next newest and greatest device that they believe will change the way health care is delivered. The field of health care seems to have been in this phase for the past few years. However, recently, there have been an increasing number of studies, including some by our research group at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, reporting that digital health is not “moving the needle” on important outcomes in the clinical setting. These early studies are also finding that many patients are not open to using these technologies and that digital health currently is not the panacea that clinicians were hoping for. Thus, we have transitioned into the third phase of the hype cycle, which is the trough of disillusionment. To bring us into the fourth phase of the hype cycle, the slope of enlightenment, investigators need to better understand how to develop and successfully implement digital health technologies into the clinical setting. Investigators are now beginning to understand how to improve these technologies to make them more user-friendly and how to better integrate digital health into clinical practice in order to increase adoption by both patients and doctors. The fifth and final phase is the plateau of productivity, in which digital health technologies become mainstream and patients start to adopt the technologies as part of standard health care delivery. However, in order to get to this phase, the approach to digital health needs to change.
It’s been just about 15 years since Facebook brought social networking to the mainstream, and like a lot of teenagers, it’s having an identity crisis. Data breaches, electioneering scandals, and privacy concerns are buffeting the platform, along with its offshoots and competitors.
With all this going on, hospital leaders may be wondering: is using social media still a sustainable strategy for connecting with patients?
The answer is an unequivocal yes. But as social media comes of age, so should health systems’ relationship with it. Lee Aase, Director of the Mayo Clinic Social Media Network, recently shared some advice on the subject in an issue of BoardRoom Press.
Here are three of his tips to help your organization find a mature social-media strategy.
ClassiAds is the best Classified Ads WordPress Theme on Themeforest. We know its a perfect choice for your business. Super flexible, Rich with features availability, Drag and Drop system with page builder and Top payment gateways and Classiads is fully 100% responsive wordpress theme.
FOR many it is a reflex as unconscious as breathing. Hit a stumbling-block during an important task (like, say, writing a column)? The hand reaches for the phone and opens the social network of choice. A blur of time passes, and half an hour or more of what ought to have been productive effort is gone.
For any medical practice, reaching success requires a steady stream of new, and returning patients seeking treatment. And just like every other business that is looking to expand its market base by gaining new customers, medical practices also face many challenges while trying to gain new patients. You will require the latest techniques and tools to make your practice stand out from the crowd of thousands of healthcare practitioners operating in the US. SEO for doctors is one of many methods that you can use to promote your practice. You do not have to worry about learning new tricks as reputed organizations such as Crystal Clear Digital Marketing specifically offer services to create SEO strategies for medical practices.
How Times Have Changed
Before the internet, marketing your medical practice only required you to place an ad in the Yellow Pages. Today, things have changed with the internet. Potential patients turn towards search engine pages to look for local healthcare providers. SEO for doctors was never more important as it is right now. A study shows that only 10% of potential patients under the age of 35 use the Yellow Pages to search for a local medical practitioner while nearly 54% turn towards search engines. Further, 27% of people between the age group of 55 and 64 embraced search engines while looking for a medical practitioner. This states that even the older generation is getting comfortable using search engines.
Search engine optimization (SEO) has become a necessity to get patients today. It is important for every medical practice to invest in this to stand out and stay ahead in the marketing landscape. While searching for doctors, over 80% of individuals do not go past the first page of Google results. To ensure that potential patients become aware of your medical practice, you need to appear on the first page, ahead of your competitors. With strong strategies involving SEO for doctors, you can ensure that potential customers can easily find your website and feel compelled to visit it.
How Can SEO Benefit a Medical Practice?
Potential patients can locate you easily if your practice lists among the top three names in Google search engines. For instance, if a patient types ‘physician in downtown Omaha’ in a Google search, then your website should feature in the first three listings. That said, it is impossible for every practice to find a place in the top three spaces. Hence, it is imperative you invest in extensive SEO practices to become more visible. This will marginally increase chances of a potential patient booking an appointment with you and becoming a repeat patient.
How Important is SEO for Medical Practices?
You can bring qualified leads and patients to your medical practice with the help of compelling tactics applied in SEO. Traditional marketing techniques such as TV and print media provide a lower ROI than SEO as shown by studies. Hence, SEO not only provides a higher ROI, but also increases credibility, traffic, visibility, reputation, and branding.
SEO for doctors is the key to attracting new patients irrespective of the size and specialty of a medical practice. By implementing a strong SEO strategy, you stand to gain an online reputation and increased visibility.
Online Visibility
Today, searchers trust Google, and by appearing on top of a search listing, you provide a strong endorsement to your medical practice. Potential patients tend to trust a practice more when it appears high in search engine rankings.
Reliable and Credible
Keywords entered in the search engines unconsciously register in the minds of potential patients. They might not realize it, but they automatically lend credibility to those websites that have a higher ranking. The vote of confidence of a patient can often be directly linked to the Google rankings. Potential patients trust Google, and they believe that a medical practice that features on the top is more credible.
Spend Less On Acquiring New Patients
Usually, the money spent on gaining new patients does not reflect in the revenues businesses bring in. However, with effective SEO techniques, you can stay true to your marketing goal of gaining new patients while reducing the overall marketing expenditure. This is mainly because other forms of advertising are more expensive than digital marketing. Also, with digital marketing, you can easily streamline your goals while being flexible enough to reach targeted customers.
Increased Online Traffic
Setting up a practice on a backstreet in Iowa will not make you money. However, setting up shop on a busy street might bring you more customers which, in turn, will make you more money. Following the same line of thought, online traffic will not make you money. However, by marketing yourself to more people, you increase the chances of attracting potential customers. Further to this, visitors who come to your website are qualified leads as they have already shown an intent to avail services at your practice or at a similar one.
Increased ROI
SEO is essentially an inbound marketing strategy that focuses on qualified leads that have an interest in your services or something similar. This allows SEO for doctors to provide a higher ROI than other kinds of marketing strategies or advertisement options. In other forms of marketing, an advertisement can interrupt a favorite TV show or take up expensive space on a magazine. With SEO, all you need to do is show up in the search listings when people are searching. In fact, it is not even necessary to convince a target audience to try your services. All you need to convey is that your practice is best for their requirements.
Profitable
SEO is among the most cost-effective strategies to target a potential audience. There are other proven strategies such as cold calling, which can provide leads. However, these leads can be 61% more expensive than the ones provided by digital marketing. Also, leads provided by SEO are better qualified than other marketing techniques as potential patients are already searching for a practice similar to the one you have.
What are the Various SEO Best Practices for Medical Practices?
Efficient SEO strategies should allow for growth to evolve with the ever-changing healthcare industry. Good SEO for doctors keeps in mind patient expectations while making allowances for Google’s algorithm updates. A strong healthcare marketer such as Crystal Clear Digital Marketing will allow for flexibility in the strategies to stay up to date with the healthcare industry.
Complacency is dangerous for any medical practice with a goal to survive and grow in modern marketing as it can destroy ranking. Search engines result in 93% online experiences, which makes SEO a critical factor to make any medical practice successful.
You can improve lead quality and can build valuable relationships while improving online reputation if you successfully implement SEO best practices. Medical practitioners can also benefit by making use of SEO for doctors to increase online presence while garnering a better understanding of their target audience.
Following are five essential best practices that can help improve your SEO strategy in 2018 and beyond:
Choose Keywords That are Relevant
By choosing more relevant keywords, you improve the chances of getting more qualified leads. Choosing relevant keywords is more difficult than it looks. You would have to understand the way your potential patients think. SEO for your medical practice will begin with selecting the most relevant keyword that a potential patient might use to find a doctor in your area.
Make Your Website Load Quickly
Another element to making your SEO strategy effective is decreasing the loading time of your website to just a few seconds. A quick loading website is the key to making your SEO efforts successful.
Publish Only Original Content That is Informative
You can damage your SEO ranking as well as your reputation if you copy content from other websites. However, rewriting content is acceptable if it keeps your patients engaged. The best strategy is to be different and create unique content. You can even increase search engine rankings by hiring an SEO expert or implementing a sound SEO strategy.
Title Tags Should Be Accurate
Title tags are short descriptions of a webpage and play a critical role in SEO. They show up on external websites, browser tabs and results pages of search engines. Every webpage should have a descriptive and accurate title tag with the keyword in the beginning as most search engines display only the first 60 to 70 characters.
Website Optimization
You need to ensure that your website is optimized for mobile users and that it adheres to basic quality standards.
Final Thoughts
A digital marketing plan for your medical practice is incomplete without a sound SEO strategy. Every medical practice should focus on improving online presence with the help of a website, paid advertising campaigns and social media management.
The environment in which we live affects whether or not we are able to lead healthy lives. ‘Public health’ is about understanding the factors that influence people’s health, and finding ways of improving it [paras 1.6–1.7]. The emphasis of public health policies is prevention rather than treatment of ill health.
We're dedicated to delivering the most convenient GP service available on the NHS. Learn more about how our free service works and download the app.
See a GP from wherever you are
When it’s time for your appointment your doctor will call you through the app, so there’s no waiting around.
The doctor will discuss your symptoms with you and may ask you to show them some things on camera, such as a skin rash, or perform simple checks, like feeling the glands on your neck.
You’ll need to make sure you’re in a private place with a reliable internet connection. If for any reason the connection drops, your GP will call you back.
Monitor your health
Keep on top of your health by tracking your test results, exercise and health information in the app.
The babylon app lets you keep tabs on your health using a Monitor tool that integrates with over 150 existing health apps and wearables
Healthcare consumers in a digital transition | Rock Health | We're powering the future of healthcare. Rock Health is a seed and early-stage venture fund that supports startups building the next generation of technologies transforming healthcare. | We're powering the future of healthcare. Rock Health is a seed and early-stage venture fund that supports startups building the next generation of technologies transforming healthcare.
Check out World Laregst Classified wordpress theme.You are at the right place to asking for classified business websites with awesome Classiads – Classified ads wordpress Theme.
For something as important as heart health, it’s amazing how little you probably know about yours.
Most people probably get their heart rates measured only at doctor visits. Or maybe they participate in a limited study.
But modern smartwatches and fitness bands can track your pulse continuously, day and night, for months. Imagine what you could learn if you collected all that data from tens of millions of people!
That’s exactly what Fitbit (FIT) has done. It has now logged 150 billion hours’ worth of heart-rate data. From tens of millions of people, all over the world. The result: the biggest set of heart-rate data ever collected.
Fitbit also knows these people’s ages, sexes, locations, heights, weights, activity levels, and sleep patterns. In combination with the heart data, the result is a gold mine of revelations about human health.
Back in January, Fitbit gave me an exclusive deep dive into its 6 billion nights’ worth of sleep data. All kinds of cool takeaways resulted. So I couldn’t help asking: Would they be willing to offer me a similar tour through this mountain of heart data?
They said OK. They also made a peculiar request: Would I be willing to submit a journal of the major events of my life over the last couple of years? And would my wife Nicki be willing to do the same?
Social media is here to stay. If you’re a business competing in the social area, it’s getting more and more difficult to stand out from the rest of the crowd. This holds especially true in medical marketing, and sometimes, medical practices find themselves getting online attention for all the wrong reasons.
In our latest video, CEO Ryan Miller discusses some of the bigger implications of social media and how it can positively (or negatively!) affect your online reputation. You’ll learn what has the potential to cross the line, and how to leverage social media best practices to help safeguard you and your medical practice.
Video Transcription
Hi again, it’s Ryan Miller with Etna Interactive and it’s good to be back with you today because we’re going to be talking about a somewhat serious and timely topic. We’re going to talk about the appropriate use of social media in the medical practice environment. By now, I think many of us are familiar with Dr. Windell Davis-Boutte, known as the “dancing doctor” in the popular media. Obviously, she was after her 15 minutes of fame when she began publishing videos of her singing and dancing while patients were anesthetized in her operating room, and has received a tremendous amount of criticism. Not only that, very recently she reached an agreement within her state which agreed to the suspension of her medical license for about 2.5 years.
Now, some of you are saying “Ah, you know, Ryan, that’s not me. I would never make such a huge mistake. I have much better judgment. Does this really apply?” And the answer is yes. Because if you joined us just a couple of months ago for our HIPAA webinar, you recall that there’s actually been a spate of similar disciplinary actions for things that were published on behalf of staff or on behalf of agencies that are working for medical practices. So we’re taking a broad look today at the appropriate use of social media for anyone that might be publishing on behalf of the practice because we have a couple of fairly existential questions that we have to be thinking about.
Where do you draw the line?
As marketing is moving from more traditional media or traditional online media towards social media, what do we have to do today to stand out? And it may be this question that’s driving people to ever more sensational postings. At the same time, we have to recognize that it may be your medical license that’s at risk, but the posts are very often today coming from members of your staff or agencies that you’ve hired. And I think on a much broader level, we have to step back and ask: What do we really feel is appropriate as it relates to social media postings from medical professionals, and do the postings of the few have a negative reflection on our medical specialties as a whole?
RealSelf Study
Now, why is it? What’s the drive that’s pushing us all towards social media? As far back as 2015, I think the data was fairly clear. RealSelf did a study and asked patients directly what were their preferences and their interests as it related to connecting with doctors on social media. Well the Huffington Post came out with this story titled, Nonsocial Doctors Are Terribly Outdated.
Now, where that was coming from really was inspired by these two data points: 95% of patients expected their physician to be at least somewhat active on social media. Although the majority, 66% said: “I’m not likely to actually connect with you”. We call this cyberstalking, right? The patients want to see what you’re doing. They’re interested in what’s happening in the practice and in order to fulfill that wish, to share with them what’s going on, we need to step back and we’re going to be taking a look at three things today.
Today’s presentation at a glance:
1. Common professional offenses on social media
2. Best practices for physicians
3. Steps to protect yourself and your practice
Now, let’s pause for a second here. We’re going to go a little bit longer than our typical newsletter distribution because our hope is that this is going to be a resource. A resource not only for your own edification but for training your existing staff. Perhaps for using this as you onboard new members of your team who will be active in social media on behalf of the practice. Now, let’s dive right in.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, the research shows right now that infractions are abound, that we see more and more reports from both state medical licensing boards here in the United States and from the Royal Colleges up in Canada, that there is an increasing number of infractions that involved disciplinary action that relate directly to social media. So the problem is on the rise. The most common offenses that are reported that are resulting in disciplinary action are these:
Inappropriate contact with patients (e.g., sexual misconduct)
Inappropriate prescribing and inappropriate practice
Misrepresentation of credentials or clinical outcomes
Violations of patient confidentiality
Defamatory language or profanity directed at a patient or coworker
Depiction of inappropriate behaviors
Social media best practices for physicians.
Now, let’s pause here for a second again and think about the expansive nature of our advice. We’re not lawyers, so we’re not giving you legal advice, but this is applicable things that you’re doing on email, the content that you publish on your website, the text communications that you may be having today with patients, blogs that you publish, and of course, the broader and specific context that we’re talking about: the social networks.
Now, let’s go through some specific advice here:
1. Put your posts in context.
When we’re posting, we need to put our posts in context. If we have a bias, we need to share that bias inside the posts so that patients can understand how to interpret what they’re going to see as medical advice from you or from your practice. So if you have a financial, professional or personal conflict, be sure that you include it inside the post and be sure that you’re not representing your clinic, misrepresenting your clinical outcomes and overstating what you can realistically achieve.
2. Maintain your integrity.
We all need to be mindful of maintaining our integrity. I think the last thing we want is to be active on social media and have it undermine our own moral values. So, the basics of medical marketing are these: avoiding false, fraudulent and misleading statements are absolutely critical. Now, if you’re drawing upon scientific and clinical knowledge, we want to make sure that our content conforms to the standards of care, that we’re giving good medical advice.
Finally in this particular section, if we’re giving specific advice (which we generally recommend against), we need to be sure to indicate whether it’s based on scientific studies, expert consensus, or just your own personal and professional experience.
3. Protect patient privacy.
Now, a great example here of what can go wrong, especially when you’re sharing things without consent. This particular case, a story from the Tyler Morning Telegraph, about a plastic surgeon who shared some video of a patient without taking steps to protect that patient’s privacy.
Keeping in mind that the photos and videos that you publish on the web, things as subtle as the file names and metadata go out into the public web when you publish those assets. So if you have a picture of a patient that contains their last name and you publish that directly to Facebook, it’s not going to be de-identified. And you need to take the steps to do that yourself.
In addition to that, we always need to get express consent, specifically written consent, before we publish pictures or videos of our patients onto the web. Now, if your forms don’t expressly mention social media as one of the uses, it’s time to update those forms. Drop us a note, we’ll direct you to a great resource that’s provided by Medical Justice.
4. Avoid defamation.
Now, this is an actual post. It’s hard to believe, but this is a real post that appeared on social media and we see what’s happening as we kind of glance through the text here. We see one medical professional lambasting one of their colleagues for some decisions that were made, in this particular case, in the emergency room. Now, clearly bad idea in terms of both the defamatory nature of this post, but also the potential that this has for inciting a medical malpractice lawsuit. So we want to be careful that we’re avoiding defamation.
I think this hopefully goes without saying, but we don’t want to go after any of our colleagues. We don’t want to attack the reputation of a patient on the public web.
5. Be the professional.
Now, it’s not just an attack that might get us in trouble — complaining is a problem that’s fairly rampant as well.
In this example, also taken from the headlines, we see an OB-GYN complaining about a late patient. We see colleagues commiserating, all of them missing the fact that their discussion was visible on the public internet. There’s quite a backlash from the body of patients who had seen this practice. So those kinds of complaints we need to keep to ourselves and the basic advice there is simply to be professional. Act on social networks as you would in person and as if the people that we’re talking about are standing in the room with us.
Be sure that you set clear guidelines for yourself, that you’ve thought it through, and ideally that you’ve written guidelines as well for the members of your staff who will be participating on social media on behalf of the practice.
If you are publishing before and after photos or if you’re publishing videos of procedures, be sure that you’ve got some guidelines for you and for your team on how to de-identify that information so that we’re protecting patient privacy.
We have a specific recommendation for those doctors who have both personal social media profiles and professional profiles and that’s that you get used to politely declining social connections from patients on your personal profiles and that you can guide those people to connect with you on your professional social media accounts.
6. Maintain proper boundaries.
Maintaining boundaries is really just an extension of that same idea. Obviously, you should not be initiating a doctor-patient relationship with someone that you’ve never met. So don’t be practicing on strangers on social media.
Be mindful about the details of your own personal life, details as subtle as what’s contained in the photos that you place on your social media accounts. Be mindful about what you reveal there.
And of course, avoid any online relationships with current or former patients, right? Not a good idea to get too close personally on social media with someone that you’re also treating.
Protect your person and your practice.
Now, let’s talk about protecting, as we wrap up here, both your person and your practice.
Take care with privacy settings.
We’re recognizing that if you’re the Medical Director of a center, you’re responsible for everything that’s published in the name of that practice. So, let’s be sure and be aware that with privacy settings, they’re not as transparent as they should be despite what I think are the best efforts of the major social media players. It can be quite complex to control and clearly understand who’s seeing what you’re publishing. So, understand how you can configure privacy settings to protect your information and assume that everything that you share is going to become publicly available regardless of how you’ve set those privacy considerations.
Consider the destiny of your data.
Recognize as well that once it’s shared, it may be shared forever. Don’t plan on being able to delete anything that you publish online.
Now, for those of you, especially those of you that are either younger inside of a practice, or just getting started on professional careers and you aren’t your own boss: If you ever hope to be hired, it’s a good idea to assume that your future employer is likely to perform a background check of some kind. They’ll be taking a look at your activity online and they’ll be considering the quality of your posts and the style and types of the nature of the connections that you form on social media.
Assess yourself online.
To check yourself, we recommend you simply begin by Googling your full name. Look through all of your old social posts, look through your social connections in the groups to which you belong, and ask yourself, “Are my employers likely to object to anything that’s out there?” You may want to consider making edits or revisions to your public profile.
We do also recommend that practices consider formal policies. It’s important that you check here with human resources lawyers that you work with inside of your practice in your state because from one state and province to the next, the laws about what you can regulate for your employees different.
Consider formal policies.
We definitely recommend that every practice protect their passwords. Unfortunately, we’ve seen far too many cases where a practice separates from an employee only to find that the passwords and the user accounts for social media are attached to that departing employee who then has the control to edit or simply destroy the accounts that are built in the name of the practice. So, password protection is an important part of protecting your assets on social media.
Identify and articulate clearly to each member of your staff who’s actually allowed to participate on social media on behalf of the practice. Establish a clear HR policy that talks about what your expectations are and what the risks are surrounding their participation inside of social space. We also recommend for practices that have either staff or an agency publishing on their behalf that you have some clear protocols about when it’s required for members of your leadership team to approve text and content before it goes out.
Summary
Pulling all of those ideas together, we just need to recognize that disciplinary action for medical practice participation on social media — it’s on the rise. And it’s up to you to understand and adopt those best practices that are going to keep you safe.
In addition to just following best practices, some of those prophylactic actions that we recommended there that are intended to protect you and articulate in advance for the people who are participating on social media what they should and should not do, are really some of the best ways that you can protect yourself now and into the future.
And, of course, if you want to learn more, you can be sure that you’re subscribed to our newsletter so you receive our video broadcast each and every month. You can follow us on social media or maybe leave a review for the content on Facebook as well.
My name is Ryan Miller, and I welcome your questions directly at Ryan@etnainteractive.com. Thanks for tuning in today, we’ll look forward to seeing you next month.
Cyberbullying has become a common act nowadays and it is important for teachers to create an environment which helps and advises learners about the effects of abusing others on social media.
Michelle Rheault, MD Associate Professor, Division of Nephrology Objectives: 1. Describe social media platforms as communication tools in medicine 2. Compare Facebook and Twitter as medical education tools for patients and providers (journal clubs, disease specific interest groups, conferences, etc) 3. Understand how to use Twitter to establish your personal learning network and for academic advancement 4. Recognize privacy and ethical issues on social media for providers and patients
As a new generation advances through medicine, the number of physicians who use social media and online networks as primary vehicles for communication is growing.1 Of course, the young physician workforce was brought up with online networks, but more and more mid- and late-career physicians in academic medicine and beyond are also communicating with one another through these platforms.2 Social media can both facilitate near-instantaneous communication across states and continents and help support trainees and physicians of all genders, races, cultures, specialties, and institutional affiliations.
Female physicians have been vocal on social media about many aspects of their professional lives, including work–life balance. Their virtual discussions have led to an increase in awareness of issues related to gender parity in medicine. In 2017, for the first time, women accounted for more than half (50.7%) of incoming U.S. medical students,3 and social media may play a role in supporting these female students, just as it has begun to support women physicians at all career stages, helping them overcome traditional barriers to professional development.
Women physicians discuss a range of issues on virtual platforms, including sensitive topics that historically would have been shared only privately. More than a decade ago, Robinson described stereotyping of female physicians as complainers or “overly sensitive” if they voiced concerns, particularly about issues that were unique to them (e.g., lactation rooms at medical conferences) or that disproportionately affected them (e.g., slow rates of promotion).4 Robinson described stressors specific to women physicians, including workplace discrimination, lack of role models and mentors, lower compensation and fewer resources than their male counterparts were given, and role conflict between motherhood and professional roles — issues that remain relevant today.
In 2016, Jagsi et al. found that in a sample of clinician researchers, 30% of women and 4% of men reported experiencing sexual harassment.5 In her recent related Perspective article, Jagsi noted that after the study was published none of the women who reached out to tell her about harassment they’d experienced had reported those incidents to any leader in their organization: “They speak of challenging institutional cultures, with workplaces dominated by men who openly engage in lewd ‘locker-room conversation’ or exclude them from all-male social events, leaving them without allies in whom to confide after suffering an indignity or a crime.”6
We believe that virtual communities may offer women physicians additional coping mechanisms, provide new avenues for sharing information, and perhaps reduce stigma associated with sexual harassment, burnout, and workplace culture by allowing experiences to be shared and validated, perhaps lessening social isolation and feelings of loneliness or even self-blame.
Current Social Media Use
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are increasingly used by the medical workforce. Some studies suggest that both male and female physicians use online platforms for personal and professional purposes.1,7 A leader in this area, the Association of American Medical Colleges has been encouraging medical students and physicians to use social media for education and advocacy.8 One survey revealed, not surprisingly, that medical students have the highest rate of use (93.5%), but about 40% of practicing physicians also use these platforms.7 Logghe et al. have described surgeons’ “mass adoption” of Twitter, but more specifically, social media platforms are reportedly valuable for enhancing the mentorship of female surgeons, who may lack female mentors at their own institutions.9
In “virtual doctors’ lounges,” women physicians can have group discussions with their colleagues. People who start groups on Facebook have “administrator” status and can control access to the group and to its conversations — for example, to practicing physicians only — and female Facebook users tend to be both more concerned than male users about privacy and more likely to participate in support groups.10 Women may therefore be more likely to use a private or closed Facebook group than a public platform such as Twitter to ask questions about sensitive topics such as maternity leave policies, nursing an infant while on call, or where to seek new employment. Physician Moms Group (PMG), a private Facebook group for female medical students, residents, and physicians, has more than 71,000 members. A search for “women physicians” in Facebook groups identified more than 100 other groups, ranging from subspecialty groups to groups with similar interests (e.g., Women Physician Writers) to those focused specifically on women’s leadership in medicine. The popularity of such focused online groups for female physicians suggests that communities of women in medicine may be providing coping strategies for overcoming barriers and navigating roadblocks to professional advancement, including gender discrimination. As women physicians build community with like-minded professionals who share similar experiences, it will be important to study the ability of such communities to remove gender barriers in medicine.
Since social media are available 24/7, women can connect at their convenience. These virtual connections often evolve into live friendships, and many groups that have formed online have later convened in person at medical conferences to support members’ professional development. Indeed, there are even examples of live conferences dedicated entirely to supporting women in medicine that have evolved from online communities such as those sponsored by the PMG and Females in Emergency Medicine (FemInEM).
Beyond the small group of people who discuss a particular topic on social media, there is usually a much larger group “listening in.” In this case, the listeners may be trainees, who can thereby gain early insights about problems encountered by women in medicine, or they may be leaders or researchers whose work can be informed by the online discussions. Indeed, women physicians have already begun using virtual communities to conduct research on gender parity and to engage colleagues in advocacy for gender equity. Advocacy stemming from virtual interactions has similarly begun to make its mark; for example, a conversation about greater inclusion of female speakers that began with tweets from the 2017 annual meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiology has led to grassroots efforts to make representation at future meetings more equitable.
Platforms such as Twitter are also used for communicating key educational messages about research or other topics. Twitter use by physicians has grown dramatically over the past few years as a means of promoting education and linking physicians with common interests.11-13 On Twitter, women physicians use various mechanisms to find one another and establish loosely affiliated virtual communities. For example, medical students often use the hashtag #GirlMedTwitter, and surgeons use #ILookLikeASurgeon14; these hashtags may be used in conjunction with specialty-related ones (e.g., #diabetes, #PlasticSurgery) or the Twitter handles of formal groups that support women physicians (e.g., @WomenSurgeons, @womenMDinanesth) to find like-minded or similarly situated colleagues with whom to share insights.
Women in Academic Medicine
Women physicians continue to face many barriers in promotion and compensation, speaking opportunities, recognition awards, and more.15-18 Especially in aggregate, disparate treatment such as being hired into lower positions or being given less respect than male colleagues (e.g., being invited to give a lecture but not the plenary address) negatively affect women’s careers.19-22 Social media may provide female physicians with opportunities that previous generations lacked to express their opinions, insights, and vision for their specialty. Such platforms may also provide nontraditional but far-reaching avenues for disseminating their research, which may, in turn, lead to speaking invitations or other traditional career-enhancing opportunities. They may thus begin to level the playing field by offering increasing and evolving opportunities for women to build their professional reputations and disseminate their academic portfolios.
Social media dissemination of research may be of particular benefit to women, since it does not rely on mentorship or conference invitations — areas in which women tend to be disadvantaged.23,24 A recent campaign in Australia, “Catch a Rising Star,” designed to inform the scientific community and the public about the work of women scientists, used online platforms to increase visibility for female researchers — and its tweets from 18 women scientists garnered 600,000 impressions in 1 week.25
Women who publish in medical journals now have opportunities to glean insights about the dissemination of their research through alternative metrics, which are growing in importance.26 Using a journal article’s digital object identifier (DOI), such measures track the article’s reach online and provide real-time information about its dissemination. A company called Altmetrics calculates an overall “attention score,” the proportions of the overall attention gained on individual social media platforms, and numbers of mentions in conventional media and policy reports. Such alternative metrics complement conventional ones such as the H-index and citations, and there may be synergy between the two: interactive multimedia exposure of published manuscripts may lead to more overall citations and boost the impact of a journal article.27,28 Medical journals are increasingly focusing on alternative metrics and are investing resources in disseminating research by social media (e.g., developing visual abstracts and short videos), and some specialty journals have used their Twitter accounts to highlight the diversity of the specialty’s physicians or the work of female specialists.29 Interestingly, in 2016, the Mayo Clinic became one of the first academic medical centers to formally include social media scholarship in promotion criteria,30 classifying it as low-, medium-, or high-impact, and has published a conceptual framework and guidelines for other institutions that seek to follow suit.31
Social Media’s Downsides
For women physicians, there is reputational risk involved in publicly supporting gender equity or other diversity and inclusion efforts, and research suggests that female leaders who engage in “diversity-valuing” behavior may receive worse performance ratings, whereas men appear to avoid being penalized (in fact, their reputations may even be enhanced) if they engage in similar behavior.32
For better or for worse, social media also unflinchingly — and permanently — document unprofessional behavior, whether it’s public intoxication, use of profanity or discriminatory speech, or posting of confidential patient information.33,34 Obviously, social media platforms do not cause such behavior, but they do provide a forum where many other people can witness it. Some sources advise physicians to be respectful on social media, to avoid swearing and arguing, and to “be nicer online than you are offline.”35 Langenfeld et al. have recommended specific curriculum goals for teaching residents about professional behavior online.36
There is also a real risk of obtaining or spreading misinformation on these platforms.37 Kotsenas et al., however, recently argued that the onus of monitoring and correcting false reports and inaccurate interpretations lies on professionals: “The question is whether medical professionals and health care organizations will allow misinformation and disinformation to prevail or whether they will intervene to provide trustworthy, scientifically valid perspectives.”30 Online bullying, cyber stalking, and catfishing (luring someone into a relationship by means of a fictional online persona) may specifically target women physicians.38
Conclusion
Physicians of all ages are using social media, and many women are communicating on virtual platforms to connect with each other and with supportive male colleagues. The sheer number of women physicians participating and their robust engagement suggest that they value these online connections. Studies will be needed, however, if we are to determine whether social media will help to advance women in medicine.
Adverse events (a suspected reaction to the API or to the API in combination with prescribed medicines or environmental factors) are, naturally, a challenging situation for patients in a clinical trial and may, in rare cases, become severe or even fatal. For sponsors, contract research organizations (CROs), and logistics partners, early notification and accurate information is vital to understanding and responding to a suspected adverse event. What happens if the patient goes off protocol and turns to social media?
We live in a social world. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and a plethora of other media are becoming ubiquitous across all demographics, and, consequently, are available to virtually every participant in a clinical trial. U.S. smartphone penetration surpassed 80 percent in December 2016 and likely continues to rise. These social media channels are mobile-optimized and live with the patient, everywhere they go. Patients may be more likely to remember their mobile device than their medication when travelling to work, shopping, socializing with friends, exercising, etc.
If the device is ubiquitous and the channels are ever present, how patients (consumers, every last one of them) relate to each other and to healthcare providers will change. Rather than showing a friend a rash, might a trial participant post an image to Instagram or Facebook and seek guidance? Hopefully, someone in their network quickly directs them to their medical professional or clinic, but should providers rely on the network performing intelligently?
What if their post goes unanswered, or worse, is addressed by someone with non-specialist knowledge and results in the patient delaying or avoiding contact with professionals? Such are the risks of conducting patient trials in a social world.
Patient information sheets are always kept handy by patients, and emergency contact cards are always carried. Well, perhaps. But that is not to be relied upon. Even if it is carried, a reaction may not trigger use of the card. Instead, the patient may reach out to their network on social media first. Any medical professional will tell you that this is a poor choice; however, the industry needs to wake up to this actually being a preferred route for patients.
It’s clear what a patient should do, but what will they do, and how might sponsors, CROs, and the like better engage with the new consumer?
What does social alerting look like?
Social alerts may be entirely private, from one user to another, in which case the sponsor has zero visibility. An alert may reference the sponsor (or investigative site/clinic), in which case visibility is possible, if tracked and escalated (more later). It may refer to symptoms/observed effects, in which case it’s possible to have some visibility, but it’s probably unlikely unless a very particular symptom is listed and the sponsor’s social media monitoring team is playing its A game.
Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter represent three of the common networks that patients may turn to. Instagram and Twitter are open to a greater extent than Facebook, and message visibility is higher. For most users, Facebook posts remain within a narrow set of individuals. For sponsors and CROs, calls for help made on Facebook are, unfortunately, likely hidden from view. In more open networks, access to user messages is possible. However, access does not equal visibility. Detecting pertinent messages in the Twitter deluge is not easy. Social media monitoring software is available to help with this task, including, for example, Social Studio, previously known as Radian 6. This allows for “proximal” searches, where a set of terms is searched and hits reported when the terms are close to each other in a post. For example, “trial” and “rash” could yield a positive hit for: “Just started a trial and I’ve now got a rash. Quite nasty, too. Great!” On the other hand, it would not yield a hit for “Downloaded some trial software for my new Mac and it’s super complicated — instructions are not great. May have been rash thinking I could get this running in a single weekend.”
In the first instance, the keywords are within six words of each other; in the second, they are separated by 16 other words. A proximal filter on 10 words or fewer would pick up the first but not the second example.
What might a workflow for social access, awareness, and action look like?
The following is a simplified list of topics from which a standard operating procedure (SOP) might be built, but it would have to be tailored to the particular requirements of each organization and regularly checked for suitability.
Setup and testing: getting monitoring software installed and configured for your protocol
Monitoring: running the system and picking up appropriate alerts
Filtering: examining possible hits and picking up the ones that need following up
Escalation: getting medical staff to urgently review highlighted cases
Action: Do something! Do you need to unblind? Do you need more information? Who else needs to know?
Follow-up: What can be fed back into the protocol, into the monitoring scheme, and into the onboarding packs for future studies?
Are There Any Challenges With This Approach?
There are many challenges to address, and they are evolving.
Identification. If @tim_martindale is picked up by monitoring software and the profile includes a proper name and a specific location, great. Researchers have a good chance of matching the person to a trial participant list. However, what if @big_tim_260473 is picked up and the profile includes the name Big Tim and a non-specific location? Trying a direct message may not yield a response for a few hours or days, if ever.
False Positives. Whenever an organization starts a social listening project (regardless of industry), there is a flurry of hits. Filters are usually quickly applied, but even then, volumes can be surprising. Lots of possible hits need to be checked, and this raises resource issues.
Privacy. Patient safety is driving this initiative, and that’s a universal good that all can agree on; however, it may not trump privacy issues, particularly with legislation such as GDPR strengthening users’ right to privacy.
Language Coverage. If the trial covers multiple territories, are all pertinent languages covered by the monitoring software and by the review and escalation team?
Emergency Unblinding. What rules govern emergency unblinding, and how does the escalation process get appropriately to action?
Unsocial Hours Coverage. Monitoring software runs 24x7. Set up your keywords, filters, and constraints, and off you go. But what about the monitoring team? Where do hits go on a Sunday evening?
All of these challenges can be overcome through process management, data management, good operations practice, tactical outsourcing, use of technology, etc., but the right choices for each organization may be different. In a future article, we’ll look at some of the strategies organizations can use to limit the impact these challenges and how to embed these strategies into day-to-day operations.
About The Author:
Rob Innes is head of consultancy at Wyoming Interactive. In this role, he manages consulting engagements for the firm’s life sciences clients, helping to drive business transformation in response to industry challenges.
Castells broadly defined digital divide as “the inequality of access to the internet”. Scholman defined digital divide as “the gulf between those who have ready access to current digital technology and those who do not”. This definition included the consequential “social or educational inequality” that comes with this gap.
An approximate measure of determining the extent of “digital divide” in a country is the NRI ranking.
“The NRI is part of the World Economic Forum’s Global Information Technology Report 2015: ICTs for Inclusive Growth. The NRI identifies the capacity of countries to leverage Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), by assessing the overall political and business environment, the level of ICT readiness and usage among the population, businesses and government, as well as the overall impacts of ICTs on the economy and society at large.”
The Philippines ranked 77th, in the most recent, 2016 Global Information Technology Report by World Economic Forum. That’s a notch down from our previous 76th ranking. Detailed results and subcategory analysis of this NRI ranking can be found in this site. We scored worst in infrastructure but other indices are no better. This, despite the country being tagged as the sms and social media capital of the world. Around 87% of our adult population spends average of six hours on the internet per day. Our internet and mobile population penetration is increasing also. So while, infrastructure (physical access, internet speed and portals) seem to be the biggest obstacle up front, it cannot account for the digital divide occurring in sectors where physical access is not the biggest concern.
Health implications: While the greater portion of our general population is consequently denied physical access to internet because of poor hardware and network infrastructure, this is may not be true for the healthcare industry’s professionals such as doctors or nurses. Many healthcare professionals already have material and physical access to the internet. The recent Digital Asia report also showed many patients are are going to the internet for information regarding their health issues. Health information is increasingly made available over the internet . Healthcare professionals need more and more sophisticated skills to use electronic resources in improving healthcare services. This, despite the rising cost of accessing copyrighted, medical journals. This complicates the issue and resolution of digital divide. It places tension on patient- doctor relationships or collegial collaborations when either of the party belong to the opposing fences in this digital divide.
T1. Is there a digital divide within the healthcare sector? Please elaborate on your answer.
Scholman further subdivided digital divide in to mini gaps namely technological, content, gender and commercial divide. These mini gaps form many of the basis for surveys of the occurrence of digital divide among population. While this gives us an idea of how we fare in terms of our digital literacy with that of other countries, it does not account many other factors that contribute to digital divide other than infrastructure or physical access, like in healthcare.
Scholman’s mini digital divides are often good when identifying or characterising gaps. I find Jan van Djik’s relational views of digital divide relevant when looking for strategic solutions. Jan van Djik’s proposes a relational framework for understanding digital divide and coined a cumulative, recursive model and successive kinds of access to digital technologies. (See figure 1) .
Source: van Dijk (2005, p. 22) Figure 1: A Cumulative and Recursive Model of Successive Kinds of Access to Digital Technologies
When a sector of society went pass the motivational and material access problem, they are still faced with another level of obstacle to hurdle the “digital divide” -namely skills and then usage access.
T2. What’s most salient reason or contributor to this digital divide in the healthcare industry?
In my opinion, this is what the health sector (the academe to be specific) should deal with to narrow that gap or digital divide in healthcare.
T3. What do you think is the best solution to this type of digital gap in the health sector?
This is the main topic for our discussion this Saturday July 7, 2018 9:00PM Manila time. Here are our guide questions:
In your experience as a healthcare professional:
T1. Is there a digital divide within the healthcare sector? Please elaborate on your answer.
T2. What’s most salient reason to this digital divide in the healthcare sector?
T3. What do you think is the best solution to this type of digital gap in the health sector?
Closing Thoughts: Digital literacy and digital scholarship has been put forward by many strategist as a way to narrow this gap in medicine. As a healthcare professional, what do you think could be your biggest contribution to advocating or promoting digital literacy or scholarship in the field of medicine?
References:
Castells, Manuel 2001 The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society. New York: Oxford Univesity Press.
Schloman, B. (May 7, 2004). Information Resources Column: “The Digital Divide: How Wide and How Deep?” Online Journal of Issues in Nursing. Available: http://ojin.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/Columns/InformationResources/TheDigitalDivideHowWideandHowDeep.html
van Dijk, J. A. (2005). A framework for understanding the digital divide. In The deepening divide: Inequality in the information society (pp. 9-26). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781452229812.n2
World Economic Forum (2016). Global Information Technology Report 2016. Retrieved from http://reports.weforum.org/global-information-technology-report-2015/economies/#economy=PHL
Department of information and communications Technology (June 6, 2016).Department of ICT Law takes effect today. Retrieved from http://dict.gov.ph/department-of-ict-law-takes-effect-today/
The tumour is hard to miss on the scan. The size of a golf ball, it sits bold and white on the brain stem, a part of the organ that sends messages back and forth between body and brain. In many ways it is the master controller: from the top of the spinal cord, the brain stem conducts every heartbeat, every swallow, every breath.
For this young man, the cancer came to light in dramatic fashion. The growing tumour blocked fluid draining from his brain, triggering a huge seizure. Now doctors must work out the best way to treat him.
It’s a question John Barbieri, MD, was thinking about just after he created his account on the social media platform. The Dermatology chief resident decided to take the plunge and sign up with the goals of building a network, learning more about the latest from other researchers in his field, and promoting his own work. These specific inspirations were echoed by all of the doctors interviewed for this story as they started out on social media, but the challenges they face can be very unique to their profession.
Reputation is everything in business, and in today’s digital era this includes your online standing. When choosing a new healthcare provider, people have plenty of options, so many browse the internet to find the practice with the best reviews.
An overwhelming 82 percent of U.S. adults read online customer ratings or reviews before making a purchase decision, according to 2016 data from the Pew Research Center. More than half (54 percent) focus on the extremely negative ones, so unkind words can actually hurt your practice.
If you’re trying to attract new patients, it’s time to take control of your online reputation. Here are four ways to generate reviews with an effective patient feedback system.
Send a Quick Survey
Your patients are busy people. They don’t have time to complete a lengthy post-visit questionnaire, so make giving feedback easy.
After each visit, send a short patient satisfaction survey via text or email. Serving as a post-appointment follow-up of sorts, promptly reaching out allows you to connect with them while the visit is still fresh in their mind.
The key to attracting new patients — and retaining existing ones — is finding out what people liked and disliked about their visit. Everyone won’t complete the survey, but automatically sending one to each person incites a higher response rate.
You strive to provide patients with the first-class service, but no healthcare practice is perfect all the time. In fact, 62.4 percent of providers have had at least one patient post a negative review online about their practice, according to our 2018 Online Reputation Management Survey.
When you have a robust patient feedback system in place, you’re able to learn about the problem before the person writes a negative review online. This allows you to manage the issue offline, so it doesn’t play out in a public sphere.
Taking the time to rectify the issue will make the patient feel valued. When it has been resolved, it’s possible they’ll write you a positive review that will help attract new patients.
Invite Patients to Share
People like to voice their thoughts and opinions. When patients have a positive experience with your practice, many are happy to write a review, but need a little push.
Results of the recent PatientPop survey revealed that 52 percent of healthcare providers ask patients to share their experience online. However, 71.3 percent of practices receive reviews from no more than 5 percent of their patients.
Clearly, most providers aren’t using an effective patient feedback system. Investing in a tool that invites patients to post reviews and makes it easy to do so will generate a higher response rate.
For prospective new patients, nothing weighs greater than the opinions of those currently under your care. Positive reviews build trust. If patients sing your praises, readers will be more inclined to call you, instead of a competitor without those reviews.
Feedback from existing patients is a fantastic way to attract new patients, so if you don’t succeed the first time, keep trying. Give people multiple opportunities to respond to your patient satisfaction survey, because their opinions matter.
Let patients know how important it is for them to complete the survey and how much you truly appreciate their taking the time to do it. Even those who truly intended to fill it out on the first try can easily forget, so a gentle nudge can make all the difference.
Getting a handle on your online reputation management is a must for attracting new patients. People put a lot of stock in online reviews, so giving current patients a voice can seriously boost your practice.
To get content containing either thought or leadership enter:
To get content containing both thought and leadership enter:
To get content containing the expression thought leadership enter:
You can enter several keywords and you can refine them whenever you want. Our suggestion engine uses more signals but entering a few keywords here will rapidly give you great content to curate.
Your new post is loading...
