Health Standards

Healthcare & Technology Resources

  • Blog
  • Podcasts
  • #HITsm Chat
  • About
  • Authors

Engaging Conversations on Healthcare using Social Media

October 26, 2010 By Erica Olenski 7 Comments

It is no news that social media is claiming territory in the healthcare space.

Social media is personal; healthcare is personal. It should be no surprise that healthcare organizations have taken advantage of this opportunity and have begun to engage in conversations, using social media, with patients and customers that are willing to chat.

Given the personal nature of the content shared, the relationship between social media and healthcare has raised a few concerns regarding the disclosure of information. However, the true value of these conversations is immeasurable and changing the way we interact as patients and providers.

Ensuring privacy is a concern, therefore a number of organizations have taken the steps to provide others with a set of “best practices” for those individuals and organizations using social media to discuss healthcare topics.

This month, the Ohio State Medical Association (OSMA) developed and released a social media toolkit to guide the use of social media for physicians and other healthcare providers. According to the OSMA, the document is intended to provide examples of “how best to handle certain situations that a physician might encounter when using social media, including whether or not to ‘friend’ a patient” (Social Networking and the Medical Practice).

This document is one of many social media toolkits that have become popular with the help of content sharing sites like Twitter and Facebook. The Center for Disease Control also released a similar document defining specific online actions (The Health Communicator’s Social Media Toolkit).

Twitter is one social media platform, in particular, that is a leader for sharing healthcare content. Twitter makes it easy to follow topics and trends with the use of hashtags (“#”) that “tag” a topic in a post. Hashtags are user generated and are created daily to reflect changes in the conversations taking place, and these hashtags follow a fraction of the many topics discussed online.

Popular healthcare IT related hashtags to follow are:

#healthIT

#HITsm

#meaningfuluse

#EHR and #EMR

The Fox Group has also compiled a comprehensive list of hashtags used to discuss healthcare on Twitter. You can find their list by clicking here.

Social media is dramatically changing the way we discuss the care of our health as patients, providers, vendors and organizations. It is our responsibility to be educated on the resources available so that we can engage in the conversations taking place in a ‘meaningful’ way.

The following two tabs change content below.
  • Bio
  • Latest Posts

Erica Olenski

Erica V. Olenski currently serves as an account executive at Corepoint Health. She has focused her research and professional experience in healthcare communications and new media opportunities within the healthcare IT industry. Erica is a leader in the health IT social media community, serving as the VP of Communications for the HIMSS DFW Board of Directors for 2011-2012, and was the founder of the #HITsm (healthcare IT social media) tweet chat held each Friday at 11 a.m. CT. (For more information on the #HITsm chat, visit: http://ow.ly/536eu) For updates on healthcare IT and social media, follow her on Twitter: @TheGr8Chalupa.

Latest posts by Erica Olenski (see all)

  • Adding to the Team: Welcome, Chad Johnson! - August 30, 2011
  • How Much Would You Pay for Your Medical Record? - June 22, 2011
  • 2011 #HITsm Mid-Year Report - June 16, 2011

Filed Under: Social Media

  • Jennifer Dennard

    I would also add the hashtags #HIE and #ACO – two interconnected healthcare solutions that are making headlines everyday. For even more information-gathering on a daily basis, you can also put Google Alerts out for these terms.

  • Erica Olenski

    @Jennifer, those are also great hashtags to follow. Also, I was not aware of Google alerts for search terms on twitter.

    Thank you for sharing these resources!

  • Pingback: Tweets that mention Engaging Conversations on Healthcare using Social Media | HL7 Standards -- Topsy.com()

  • Pingback: Newly Published and Upcoming Resources for Healthcare Use of Social Media « Lovell Links()

  • Fox ePractice

    Thank you Erica for your link to the healthcare hashtags project.
    We try to lower the entry barrier for healthcare professionals by listing hashtags used by topics.

    Just wanted to let you know that we just released an updated version, now with an overview of the active healthcare tweet chats that takes place.

    http://www.foxepractice.com/healthcare-hashtags/tweet-chats

    Hope you like it!

    Audun

  • Erica Olenski

    The new version with the overview of tweet chats looks great! What a fantastic tool your group has organized. Very impressive, and extremely valuable. Thank you for your meaningful contribution!

  • Pingback: Healthcare and Social Media « Social Media and Health()

HL7 FHIR Resources

HL7 FHIR Resources

Connect

  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
Tweets by @HealthStandards

#HITSM Chat

[#HITsm chat 11.18.16] Celebrate Passing the #HITsm Torch

November 15, 2016

Moderated by Chad Johnson, @OchoTex, HealthStandards.com Editor and Corepoint Health Senior Marketing Manager. November 18th will be the last #HITsm chat under @HealthStandards. Celebrate ‘Passing the #HITsm torch’ to @techguy @HealthcareScene.

Passing the #HITsm torch

November 10, 2016

The first #HITsm tweet chat was held almost six years ago on Jan 10, 2011. Since that time, we have hosted approximately 280 #HITsm chats. While some of you may have participated in that very first chat (only 15 actually participated), I’m proud to say that the chats and the community have continued to grow […]

View More #HITSM Chat >

Podcasts

‘Hactivist’ Fred Trotter on the Cancer Moonshot, open source data in healthcare, and more

August 3, 2016

Artificial intelligence is a topic that isn’t going away in the health IT and medical community. One reason it’s come as far as it has is thanks to open sourcing, or shared data. Today’s guest, Fred Trotter, has a lot to say about the Vice President’s Cancer Moonshot initiative – which he was recognized for […]

Sue Schade on gender equality, CIO challenges, and value-based healthcare

July 27, 2016

View More Podcasts >

Copyright © 2021 Health Standards. All Rights Reserved.