Can online social networking by health care professionals be the catalysts for group action and change in the health care industry?Fellow friend and health blogger,Fard Johnmar,at Healthcare Vox explores this question and more in his post, "Sermo Docs Launch An Online Health Reform Movement: Will It Matter?". A current effort social networking campaign lead by the physicians who participate in the physician-only social network Sermo (think Facebook for doctors).
The online effort - called "Doctors Unite" is an open letter to Americans to highlight the challenges physicians face in delivering appropriate patient care and targets three industry groups: insurance companies, government and malpractice attorneys. The counter currently shows over 5,200 signatures by Sermo physicians. You can click on the tabs "Our Story" and "Why Sermo" for more of the back story on the effort. Also check out the Sermo press release.
This effort will be interesting for those involved in the health care industry to watch develop. Will this be the grassroots social networking effort that drives change from the bottom up?
4 comments:
Thanks for the heads up. Although physicians organizing to protect their turf is not what I would call a "bottoms up" or "grassroots" movement.
Why wouldn't you call this a bottoms up or grassroots movement? In making that reference my intent was to recognize the social networking approach rather than traditional channels of organizing.
When looking at the health care ecosystem I think physicians are often viewed on the bottom of the rung with much more powerful interests above them.
Nice blog
rubbish, this is just a PR attempt by sermo to register users and claim them as active site users. Its a sorry attempt at boosting their membership rolls before round 3 of financing. What's worse is the actual user number per month are < 15000, making their claim of the largest social network a little dubious
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