Sermo Physicians Launch Doctors Unite Campaign

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?

California HealthCare Foundation: Social Media's Impact on Health Care

The California HealthCare Foundation has issued a new report, The Wisdom of Patients" Health Care Meets Online Social Media, authored by Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, a health economist, management consultant and fellow health care blogger at Health Populi.

The report covers a lot of territory and provides a great overview of the quickly evolving and developing health care social media and health 2.0 movement. The report highlights how health care consumers are becoming empowered by social media and the overall impact the live web is having on patients, providers, insurers, etc.

Online health care is moving from one based on "health information retrieval" to patients and providers generating and sharing content online. This growing online collaboration is leading to unique approaches to care and a larger value proposition of harnessing the collective wisdom for other purposes including -- coordination of care, clinical insight, higher quality, prevention, etc. In the end, this may even lead to more cost efficient care.

A special thanks to Jane for interviewing me and acknowledging me in the report for my insight on some of the health care legal implications .

To borrow a quote from Secretary Leavitt courtesy of Fred Fortin who I have been following as he micro-blog via Twitter at the World Health Care Conference, "pong and Wii. We are just leaving the pong era in health care . . . "

For more on the new report check out CHCF's Press Release and a summary of the report (download full report).

HealthDot Interview: Health Care Blogging and Social Media

Earlier this month I attended and spoke on a panel addressing some of the legal implications for health care bloggers at the 2007 Health Care Blogging Summit.

During one of the breaks I had the opportunity with a couple of my health blogging colleagues, Enoch Choi, M.D. who blogs at MedHelp.org and medmusings and and Fard Johnmar of Envision Solutions blogging at Envision 2.0 and Healthcare Vox, to do an impromptu interview with Scribe Media who was capturing video content at the event.

We had some great discussion on the issues resulting from the growing use of blogging and social media by health care professionals and its potential impact on the health care industry.