Social Media in Health Care: Empowering #Therapists Worldwide

 

Via http://ht.ly/k6doB

 

Enter e-mail address of recipient:
Please enter one or more recipients
(Use a comma to separate multiple e-mail addresses.)

Enter your e-mail address:
Please enter your email address.
Message to attach:

We use this address only to tell the recipient who sent the message. We do not save or re-use it in any way.

Send Email Cancel

By: Melissa Page

Social media is now a very important part of today’s society. Aside from bringing light to the business sector, this digital platform, social media, has changed the landscape of health care as well. In fact, many therapists agree that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Flickr and many other social media sites did a great deal in helping them grow professionally.
So how exactly does social media empower therapists?

• It strengthens therapist-patient relationship.
  
  Communication between patient and health care team has evolved for the better, thanks to social media sites. At sites such as Patients Like Me, patients are able to share their medical condition to other patients and health care professionals around the world, thus allowing them to compare treatment procedures, discuss test results and learn from each other. Instead of reading medical articles and reference blogs, patients can directly ask the assigned therapy professional and get answers to their queries real-time. This procedure keeps medical information transparent, true and fast.
  
• It shares industry breakthroughs.
  
  Nowadays, therapists no longer rely solely on magazines and journals for learning. Instead, they turn to social media sites to gain insight on the health care industry’s new and upcoming trends. Following professional sites tells therapists what’s new in the medical sector and offers them reliable information. Following their favorite bloggers can also give them an insight on what’s happening in the health care profession.
  
• It spreads awareness about public health issues.
  
  Social media becomes an important tool especially during emergencies such as Hurricane Sandy. By retweeting posts on Twitter or posting links on Facebook, therapists are able to inform and promote the safety and well-being of individuals in the community. Therapists can also raise awareness for a certain cause through tweets, blogs and posts.
  
• It makes communication easier, especially for travel therapists.
  
  Before social media, travel therapists would have to send out or receive tons of letters for their assignments. Some instructions could not reach them while they were on the road. Now with social media, travel therapists only need to follow a Twitter feed, read a blog post, or check Flickr photos for instructions. Moreover, communicating to friends and family back home has become easier, thanks to social networking sites. Photo and video sharing to loved ones is also possible through Facebook and Flickr.
  
• It shares knowledge, expertise, and support towards fellow healthcare professionals.
  
  Sites such as PutMeBackTogether are avenues for sharing knowledge and expertise with other therapists. All one needs to do is to register an account and he or she is free to participate in forums and discussion boards, ask and answer questions, read related articles, and even get therapy job opportunities.
  
• It helps therapists de-stress.
  
  YouTube, Metacafe and other video sites can help therapists de-stress. Numerous videos are light and funny -- the perfect medicine after a tiring 12-hour shift. Social networking sites can also serve as the temporary escape from the daily grind.

Do you know other ways how social media can empower therapists and other health care professionals? Share them here!

About the author: Based in San Diego, California, Melissa Page is a social media contributor who has been writing about the importance of social media on various blogs. She currently works with My Life, a revolutionary platform that allows you to manage your social network updates and email messages securely and conveniently on one dashboard. When she’s not busy writing, she’s out with her friends.

Twitter, There’s Nothing Wrong With Being A Social Network

Author: Robin Wauters
From Tech Crunch Magazine
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/16/of-course-twitter-is-a-social-network/

I just finished reading an interesting blog post by venture capitalist Bill Gurley about Twitter, a portfolio company of his firm Benchmark Capital. In it, he argues that there’s a misperception about Twitter in that people keep regarding it as a social network and pitting it against Facebook.

Gurley makes some good points, albeit ones that have been made in the past, about Twitter being an ‘information utility’, a ‘discovery engine’ and a ‘better RSS reader’ rather than a social network. Except I still think Twitter is a social network as well. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
What Gurley is saying is that Twitter isn’t a social network like Facebook is one, because there are some key differences, and both platforms are being used differently. Which is undeniably true, but that doesn’t make Twitter not a social network, at least not in my book.

I have certainly been using Twitter as a social network for years, to connect with friends and coworkers and people in this industry that I may have never met in real life. I engage with them publicly and through direct messages, I share media with them, and I use Twitter as an identity provider for a variety of third-party applications and services. More so than Facebook, even.

(I’ll also note that Twitter just became more like Facebook and its Ticker in many ways, too.)
As Gurley points out, Twitter is used by plenty of people to simply consume information and news without even signing up or actively using the service (“you don’t need to tweet to use Twitter”). But increasingly, that’s the direction Facebook is heading, too. I don’t see how that makes Twitter a pure-play information broadcasting service and no longer a social communication utility, because the company certainly attempts to convert every ‘lurker’ into an active, registered user at every turn.

That makes all the sense in the world, because these are the people Twitter can monetize down the line, and the company has to turn a profit at some point in the future.
So why the identity crisis? What’s the big deal with simply admitting Twitter is also a social network?
Writes Gurley:

For the vast majority of Twitter’s next 900 million users, the core usage modality will have very little to do with “tweeting,” and everything to do with “listening” or “hearing.”

All fine and dandy, but there wouldn’t be much to listen to when there wouldn’t be any users doing the actual tweeting. And slice it any way you want, most people – at least not that I’ve observed over the past few years – don’t treat Twitter exclusively as an information broadcasting utility, but use it to engage with friends, family, coworkers and yes, people that they may not know in real life.

Twitter is not just about musicians sharing their tour experiences and work, politicians sharing their views, and getting news and insights from news organizations (or straight from journalists or field experts). There’s an army of users communicating in close-knit circles, and they shouldn’t be brushed off simply because Twitter doesn’t like being pitted against Facebook in the social networking category. Let’s see Twitter taking away the ability to send direct, private messages to other users because it’s an inherently ‘few-to-few’ (or even one-to-one) social activity.

Users would revolt, and justifiably so. Also, Twitter, read this attentively.
Gurley’s point reminds a lot about the time when MySpace was so busy trying to convince people that they weren’t a social network like Facebook but rather a ‘personalized entertainment destination’ or whatever they tried to call it. That always confused me, because MySpace was so obviously a social network, but one that desperately tried to reposition themselves because they could sense they would lose the ‘king of social networking’ title to Facebook. The attempt was unsuccessful.

So yes, dear Twitter management and investors, we realize full well Twitter is different from Facebook, and that you’re not necessarily head-to-head rivals. But the fact that you don’t appreciate your service being called a social network doesn’t mean there’s no significant functionality overlap lurking in the places you’re both heading to. You are both ‘leaders in social networking’.

I suggest you play to your strengths and let people call Twitter a social network if they believe that’s what it is, to them, rather than trying to fight those nasty ‘misperceptions’ out there.
Lord knows you’ve got bigger fish to fry.