Show Time, Friday, May 8 at 1:00PM Central Daylight Time US
The ideas of free speech and physician patient privilege come into play in our next Social Media Throwdown. This is a classic and complex issue facing patients and physicians. On one side of the issue is a simple case of a patient expressing their opinion of an interaction with a physician, no different than sharing their experience at a restaurant. In this issue, however, the topic isn’t chicken cordon bleu, it’s cancer, or any other of the thousands of aliments patients write about.
The trend in healthcare, as in other consumer experience areas, is to get as much information shared as possible. An informed consumer is a knowledgeable consumer, so the premise goes. That might be a stretch. Information does not in and of itself lead to knowledge. There are many websites, Patients Like Me, Healthgrades, Healthcarescoop.com, even Angie’s List, that encourage patients to blog about their experiences.
Innocent enough, you might think, however, medical treatment is more complex than a night out on the town. It involves many more variables, risk, and information, so putting it in the same context as a typical consumer experience maybe misleading. With all the complexities and emotion of medical treatment, the last thing a physician should worry about is a blog post that can last online forever, right? Some physicians are looking to limit blogging about the patient/physician relationship. Right behind this issue of unfettered patient speech is physician ratings on websites, with the major question do physicians ratings really illustrate performance?
On the patient side, blogging about their personal situations has been both helpful to others and in many cases therapeutic for the patient. While the negative post is something physicians dread, the more common post is both positive and enlightening. It’s a means for clinics to get immediate feedback and respond accordingly. As more hospitals and clinics move to patient-centered care, patient engagement will become the norm. Blogging about personal experiences is also part of the growing number of community sites built around aliments and diseases. One of the most popular around the world is Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong Foundation.
More money is behind websites that promote transparency and performance. Social Media Throwdown will present both sides of the medical blogging debate with Dr. Jeffrey Segal,MD and CEO of Medical Justice and Amy Tenderich, author of the blog Diabetesmine on Friday, May 8 at 1:00pm Central Time US. Dr. Segal is a nationally recognized authority on medical malpractice lawsuits and social media based assaults on physician reputations. Ms. Tenderich has received numerous accolades for providing valuable information and building a community around a disease that affects more than 24 million Americans.
It will be a live audio program over Blog Talk Radio, we will take questions from the audience. Call in to (646) 716-4882 NUMBER or listen live at the Social Media Throwdown with Albert Maruggi on Blog Talk Radio
Other interviews Albert Maruggi has conducted social media impact on healthcare on the Marketing Edge Podcast
This is a very complex topic that brings up a number of issues:
1. patient confidentiality: physicians are bound by law to protect patient information confidential. Isn’t a patient blogging about his or her experience at the doctor’s office is forfeiting his or her own confidentiality?
2. you correctly note that medical treatment is complex and cannot be reduced to some sound bits on a computer screen.
3. it behooves every physician to spend 2 – 3 minutes extra making sure that he or she provided excellent customer service to all patients – probably cost-effective in the long run even though it could add an extra hour of work a day in a busy practice.
4. Wouldn’t a simple rating system go a long way to promoting some kind of transparency (0 to 5 stars) without compromising the integrity of the physician – patient relationship and its (yes, again) confidentiality?
I’m a big fan of Dr Segal’s — he is doing heroic difficult work trying to make medicine a viable profession and stop doctors from walking away in disgust, while keeping the public naysayers happy with their rights too.
First, thanks for the RT Steve
Second Philippa, excellent points I’ll make sure to raise them during the conversation, hope you join us. Call in to (646) 716-4882 on Friday, May 8 at 1:00pm CDT