The Impact of Social Media in Healthcare: Rhetoric versus Reality

Peter J. Murray

Wordle from text of: Paton, C., Bamidis, P.D., Eysenbach, G., Hansen, M., & Cabrer, M. (2011) Experience in the Use of Social Media in Medical and Health Education - Contribution of the IMIA Social Media Working Group.Special Section: Towards Health Informatics 3.0. IMIA Yearbook 2011: 21-29

Peter J Murray PhD MSc RN CertEd, FBCS CITP

CEO, International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA)

Disclaimer: views expressed are generally personal; and should not be taken to be any official IMIA view or policy

A bit about me

Registered nurse

Coronary/cardiac specialisation

Qualified nurse teacher (plus MSc Nursing)

Informatics 'professional' (mainly self-taught)

Web and social media user, developer, etc.

Outline/format

Presentation and discussion on some key areas and others from participant interest/experience:

About IMIA

Health/care organisations and social media

Some international examples

Codes of practice

Looking forward – what might being 'always on' and 'always online' mean for health, interaction, etc?

My aim is to agitateand disturb people.

I’m not selling bread, I’m selling yeast.

Miguel de Unamuno, writer and philosopher (1864-1936)

IMIA

An 'association of associations'

- a 'bridging organisation' to bring together the members of the global health and biomedical informatics communities (primarily academic, research, scientific)

- almost 60 Member Societies – contacts in over 85 countries

- Academic and Corporate Members

- represents over 50,000 people in health informatics

Nurses have always been well-represented.

www.imia.org

IMIA

IMIA

The basic aims of IMIA:

- to advance international cooperation;

- to stimulate research, development and routine application;

- to move informatics from theory into practice in a full range

of settings; and

- to further the dissemination and exchange of knowledge,

information and technology.

IMIA and Nursing Informatics

IMIA-NI (Nursing Informatics) SIG - one of the most active parts of IMIA.

NI Congress every 3 years since first in London (UK) in 1982:

1985 Calgary, Alberta, Canada

2009 Helsinki, Finland

2012 Montreal, Canada (June 23-27 - www.ni2012.org)

2014 Taipei

IMIA in Canada

Members include:

University of Victoria, Health Information Science

COACH: Canada's Health Informatics Association

National Institutes of Health Informatics (NiHi Canada)

University of Waterloo

My interest in nursing/health use of CMC(computer-mediated communications)

MSc research 1993-95 (discourse analysis of NURSENET list; what was said, how, why, by whom)

PhD research 1995-2001 (reflection on practice in informal list discussions)

Evidence of some interactions, discussions around and reflection on practice issues.

Many lurkers/readers, few frequent and consistent active contributors to discussions.

My interest in nursing/health use of social media, Web 2.0

Moved more to use/development of online communities of practice and virtual interaction around conferences (eg via blogs)

What more/different could be offered?

Collaborative models of blogging (international group) and readership – virtual participation in events.

Latterly, more use of Twitter than blogs (many archived).

Claims made for social media and Web 2.0 (the rhetoric)

Applications will provide benefit to the international health,biomedical and nursing informatics communities

- will allow users to interact with a dynamic, multimedia, and engaging Web platform

- will foster interaction, communities, etc.

- will change the way we work

- will change healthcare, medicine, nursing, informatics, etc.

The 1% Rule

The 1% rule - if you get a group of 100 people online then one will create content, 10 will "interact" with it (commenting or offering improvements) and the other 89 will just view it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/jul/20/guardianweeklytechnologysection2

How much is REALLY interaction via social media, as opposed to continuing to broadcast/consume?

- is this a real problem/dichotomy?

The 1% Rule

http://gigaom.com/europe/bbc-1-percent-rule/

Social media – the growth of interaction(?)

Web 2.0 – coined late 2004Twitter – launched July 2006Facebook – launched 2004LinkedIn – launched 2003

Blog (weblog) - emergence and growth of blogs in the late 1990s coincided with the advent of web-based publishing tools that facilitated the posting of content by non-technical users- term coined late 1997 – widely used from around 2002/03.

Health professionals blog

Patients blog

IMIA use of blogs

www.imia.info

http://socialmedia.mayoclinic.org/2012/04/05/a-twelve-word-social-media-policy/

http://ebennett.org/hsnl/

http://www.smich.ca/?page_id=12

Caveat: no update since early 2011

http://hospitalseu.wordpress.com/

From Ed Bennett, presentation at 'Connecting Healthcare + Social Media' Conference

http://ebennett.org/connecting-healthcare-social-media-presentation/

http://www.slideshare.net/edbennett/a-common-sense-approach-to-social-media

Lessons:

Our patients are ahead of us (they expect more than we deliver). Hospitals etc need to keep up with patients' expectations.

Social media is more than the sum of its parts

http://www.ihealthbeat.org/data-points/2012/what-social-media-websites-are-health-care-providers-using-for-professional-networking.aspx

iHealthBeat - Wednesday, April 11, 2012

What Social Media Websites Are Health Care Providers Using for Professional Networking?

Which do you use? - and why?

There are multiple/duplicate channels

Not a case of 'either/or'

Often many used for same purposes - eg reposting from Twitter to Facebook or vice versa

Codes of conduct and guidelines on social media

Canadian Medical Association – Guidelines on social media for Canadian physicians

http://www.cma.ca/advocacy/social-media-canadian-physicians

Nursing & Midwifery Council UK – Advice based in NMC Code of Conduct

http://www.nmc-uk.org/social-networking-advice

Are they all 'thou shalt not' – or do they take account of chaning practice and expectations?

http://thecourse.webicina.com

Please feel free to follow up

peterjmurray@gmail.com

@peterjmurray

imia@imia-services.org

Final version of presentation:

www.slideshare.net/drpeter/