Social Media trends, regs, and apps
Number Of Healthcare Organizations Using Social Media Grows Trend: More U.S. hospitals are implementing social media for better health outcomes. Out of 1,188 Hospitals, Mayo Clinic Leads in Social Media According to Ed Bennett, director of Web operations at the University of Maryland Medical Center, more than 1,000 hospitals (out of more than 6,000 nationwide) are using social media to reach patients and caregivers. (Editor’s Note: For more information regarding statistics of social media use by hospitals, visit bennett.org.) One of the leaders in social media is the Mayo Clinic, which was the first healthcare facility to engage with medical professionals and patients via social media, and recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of the Mayo Clinic Social Media Center. The Mayo Clinic has been involved with social media for about five years under the direction of Lee Aase, who now serves as director of the social media center. The center’s mission is to apply social media tools throughout the enterprise in the areas of education, patient care, research, and administration — both internally and externally — to foster greater collaboration and information knowledge-sharing, as well as building connections with key stakeholders, Mr. Aase says. This trend is growing, with hospitals recognizing that social media can create benefits for the organization as well as their patients. “There’s been a strong growth curve for social media adoption by hospitals in the past few years," he says. “Many organizations have become involved, and the industry is excited about what it can accomplish within a network." The Mayo Clinic embraced social media tools as a way to provide more channels for telling patient stories. “These tools provided new and better ways to tell our stories, whether directly to consumers and patients, or through intermediaries," Mr. Aase says. One of these patient stories involved baseball player Jayson Werth, who was injured in 2005 and was treated by a Mayo orthopedic surgeon. Although Mr. Werth’s split tear wrist injury was rare, he recovered fully and went on to play in the World Series for the Philadelphia Phillies in 2008, when his team defeated the Tampa Bay Rays and became World Champions. (Mr. Werth now plays for the Washington Nationals.) Mr. Aase says he pitched the story about Mr. Werth’s recovery in the traditional, old-fashioned way and had no success nationally in getting media coverage. But when he released a flip video of an interview with Mr. Werth and uploaded it to YouTube, USA Today took notice and published the story. “Having these social media tools enabled me to get a result that we hadn’t gotten previously," Mr. Aase says. The Mayo Center for Social Media has also established the Social Media Health Network, which provides access to tools, resources, and guidance for organizations and individuals wanting to apply social media in health and healthcare. The 80-plus members include companies, healthcare providers, foundations, and government agencies, and the network welcomes life-sciences companies and insurers to the table. { For more information, visit socialmedia mayoclinic.org/network/ { To upload videos, visit youtube.com/watch?v=r7DVzKk7RAI and youtube.com/watch?v=OHjFr5QieXU&feature=relmfu Jayson Werth MGH Free ER App Now Works on Droid, Blackberry In other hospital news, Massachusetts General Hospital has recently updated its free iPhone app to be compatible with Android and Blackberry systems. The app helps users find the closest emergency room to their location anywhere in the United States. FindER provides directions and additional information with a touch of the screen and uses a database of almost 5,000 U.S. ERs, which was developed by the Emergency Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and is reported to be the most accurate of its kind. { To upload video, visit youtube.com/watch?v=JnO-_aUnJgs Cancer Center gets 4,000 Monthly FB Page Views The Oncology Times recently reported that the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center is one of the most prolific sources of cancer-related information on the Web through its use of social media. MD Anderson faculty and staff maintain about a dozen Facebook pages, 50 Twitter accounts, and 5,000 LinkedIn accounts, along with blogs and online publications. In addition, the cancer center’s YouTube channel is mdandersonorg, and its podcasts and videos are posted on iTunes U. According to the article, the MD Anderson website gets more than 4,000 page views each month coming from Facebook, and while the number of visitors coming from Twitter is significantly lower, those individuals typically click through more pages on the cancer center’s website and stay on the site longer. { For more information, visit journals.lww.com/oncology-times and click “How they did it: How MD Anderson zoomed to the top of oncology social media." By the Numbers… 1,188 hospitals are using social media. The breakdown of use as of June 2011: » 548 YouTube channels » 1,018 Facebook pages » 788 Twitter accounts » 458 LinkedIn accounts » 913 Foursquare » 137 blogs » 3,952 hospital social networking sites Source: Ed Bennett For more information, visit [email protected]. TECH CHECK APPS / TWEETS / VIDEOS Apps and QR Codes… Study in QR Code Demographics comScore recently released a first look at QR and barcode usage from its comScore MobiLens service. The report found that more than 14 million Americans scanned a QR code on their mobile phone in June 2011, representing 6.2% of the entire mobile population in the United States. More than one of every three QR code scanners (36.1%) had an annual household income of at least $100,000, representing both the largest and most overrepresented income segment among the scanning audience. { For more information, visit comscore.com. UCLA and UCSF Create Open Source Health App One of the drawbacks to many healthcare mobile apps is that data collected from consumers becomes proprietary and most health apps are incompatible with other systems. To overcome this issue, developers at the University of California, Los Angeles and the Univeristy of California, San Francisco have created an open architecture for mobile health apps, along with a central database that collects the user health information. As part of the Open mHealth project, the apps are just a few of the steps the organization is taking to catalyze the transition of mHealth from a siloed to an open-learning ecosystem. Within this system, users have control over what data are captured and get to choose with whom the information is shared. The system allows hospitals, healthcare providers, and startup companies to design additional apps to draw on the data. The Open mHealth project has already launched five apps and related pilot studies. One app, designed for overweight new mothers, collects GPS and accelerometer data from their smartphones, in addition to self-reported information about diet and stress levels. { For more information, visit openmhealth.org. Diabetes App Aims To Boost Activity Levels Quantia has partnered with diabetes educator Gary Scheiner, who owns and operates Integrated Diabetes Services, to create a mobile exercise application called DailyCoach, available on iPhones, Androids, smartphones, tablets, and the Web. The free app provides coaching on how to increase activity levels. Mr. Scheiner’s advice is delivered in bite-sized pieces, in an interactive mobile viewing format, which includes voice, text, easy-to-understand graphics and images, and questions and answers. DailyCoach is one of a series of interventional mHealth applications, including EatSmart,? a diabetes application providing meal-planning tips. { For more information, visit dailycoach.quantiacare.com. YouTube… Pfizer Director Craig Lipset Discusses Virtual Clinical Trials Soon after Pfizer announced its first virtual clinical trial for a new drug, Craig Lipset, head of clinical innovation, development operations within worldwide research and development at Pfizer, was featured on a 40-minute interview by TheClinicalTrialsGuru team, Don Walters and Dan Sfera, who also serve on the South Coast Clinical Trials staff. Pfizer’s virtual pilot project uses mobile phone and Web-based technology to collect necessary data for the trial, negating the need for actual clinic visits. The study participation of the clinical trial will be managed entirely by using electronic tools. During the interview, Mr. Lipset says Pfizer went down the virtual road because the way of conducting clinical trials today is “largely unsustainable." “We can’t afford to do all the studies we want to do with the current method," Mr. Lipset says. “And we need more tools to collect all the data we need." { For more information, visit southcoastclinicaltrials.com or theclinicaltrialsguru.com. { To upload interview, visit: youtube.com/watch?v=HiXplxP3N8M NHS Seeks Input From YouTube Viewers On Health Apps The UK Department of Health is using YouTube to create awareness of its new effort to gather ideas for new health apps and to invite people to name their favorite health apps as part of its Maps and Apps project. The NHS Future Form is holding a competition for the best health application suggested and hopes to use the information gathered to create better patient access to health information. A judging panel will select the best apps among those nominated or created; the winners will be demonstrated at a showcase event in the fall. Participants can submit to the website below. Follow @SR_disrupt on Twitter for updates. { For more information, visit mapsandapps.dh.gov.uk/ Dr. Shaibal Roy of the NHS Future Forum explains the Maps and Apps project. Send us your favorite industry apps, Twitter feeds, YouTube videos, and Facebook links to [email protected].
