Bob Wachter on the Facebooking of medical records over at The Health Care Blog. Great thought provoking read for those in the health care world and who understand the powers of online social networking tools for communication.
Recently I just completed co-authoring with Jud DeLoss the feature article for the next AHLA Health Lawyers News on PHRs where we discuss what may be a major shift in health information gathering from provider-centric to patient-centric. Basically the rise of the PHR and what may be on the horizon for health lawyers with such change. Bob's example and analogy of the Facebook culture is a valuable one as we look at the pros/cons of such a shift. His thoughts on leveraging the value of collaborative social networking tools to reinvent the medical record system are valuable and should be considered as we look at ways to improve the bedrock of good medical care -- the patient history and record of care.
I'd take the ideas a bit further and provide another analogy. Think about the use of Twitter (or recently discussed and TC50 winner Yammer - Twitter for businesses) like solutions to allow access to a real time updates of the patient's condition in timeline fashion among those caregivers providing care to the patient. The providers would be the followers. If able, the patient could also participate in this stream of information. Sounds a bit like Dr. Wachter's synopsis program.
Just some Friday morning thoughts. Would be interested to hear from others in the comments.
3 comments:
Very interesting post, you do a great job on your blog. I will have to take a look at TC50 winner Yammer.
I just wrote a post on "Social Media For Health Care Professionals" would love to get your opinion on the post.
http://blog.business-bits.com/?p=12
Keep up the great job,
Jim
In the vein of the move away from the traditional, provider as master of the medical record, what we are really seeing underneath it all is the infiltration of consumerism into healthcare. A long overdue transition.
Thus, I personally have moved away from referring to "patient" to referring to the "consumer" as it drives home the point that as "patients" start acting like consumers in managing their health, we will see a proliferation of services (are we not seeing that already) to serve these consumers.
So, will you be at Health 2.0? If yes, be good to meet.
John@ChilmarkResearch
Thank you for sharing the information.
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