Social Media for Health Care, Headed to the Cloud?

 

Oracle, in a move that m ay portend the future of social media in medicine and health related industry, is marketing a  cloud solution that involves social media  integrated into business cloud offerings. Their business model is explain in their data sheet on cloud social media.

Oracle’s offering has the advantage of being secure, unlike public social media platforms.

I predict that EHRs will also incorporate secure social media, whether client/server based or on the cloud.

Facebook already has a secure API, at Registerpatient.com which provides a secure HIPAA compliant feature.

Health Train Express will be surveying numerous vendors as to their plans for social media. Social media is present on numerous Health Information Exchanges as a messaging service.

Evident is the increase in physician use of  Twitter, and the popularity of physician bloggers, talk radio, and Facebook. Blogs have been around for a long time. Health Train Express began in 2007, or thereabouts as an heir of Riverside Health Information Exchange’s newsletter.

Blogs seem to function as an outgrowth of the ‘journal’, a diary of thought delivering a stream of consciousness for whomever is writing. Much of the material is excellent and  written by credible sources.  For those in the ‘know’ missing some blogs is a bit like not having your morning newspaper with coffee.

For some of us the daily social media read and/or tweet has become a necessity and may contain important information for the day’s clinic or a sudden change in  schedule.

The utility of mobile applications magnifies what social media is for users. The hand-held device, be it a smartphone, tablet pc or some iteration thereof combines a ready reference source, calendar, email utility , or as a social media client.

If you understand twitter hash tags twitter offers a means of following meetings, such as #ASCO12 the meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology for 2012.

Symplur offers a complete directory of known popular medical hashtags. It is an evolving list. The most recent important addition is  #medsm. There is no official body with authorizes or certifies hashtags, however perhaps  one will develop in a clearing house to avoid confusion, as occurs sometimes.

It would be a simple matter to include # tag search in any electronic health record system…demand it.

Ultimately the physician must take into account:

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