Hospitals and health systems are utilizing Web 2.0 tools to improve staff communication, recruit for research, facilitate networking and build the hospital's brand. A number of hospitals are reporting that tools like YouTube (for Webcasts) can significantly increase traffic to the hospital's site. Mobile CIOs can stay in touch with IT staffs from the road by sending and receiving Twitter updates. Social media can break down hierarchal boundaries by making C-suite executives more easily accessible to others in the organization. Sites like LinkedIn and Plaxo can be a valuable tool for CIOs looking to fill positions or network with peers.
"Greg Matthews (@chimoose) at the communications firm WCG says he now follows more than 500 doctors on Twitter and has started profiling those who've pioneered digital and social media tools at MDigitalLife, a blog series hosted by his employer."
"You need to learn how to exercise mindful deployment of your attention online if you are going to become a critical consumer of digital media; productive use of Twitter or YouTube requires knowledge of who your public is, how your participation meets their needs (and what you get in return), and how memes flow through networked publics. Ultimately, the most important fluency is not in mastering a particular literacy but in being able to put all five of these literacies together into a way of being in digital culture."
"The Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media, a first-of-its-kind social media center focused on health care, builds on Mayo Clinic's leadership among health care providers in adopting social media tools, which began with podcasting in 2005. Mayo Clinic has the most popular medical provider channel on YouTube and more than 60,000 "followers" on Twitter, as well as an active Facebook page with well over 20,000 connections. With its News Blog, Podcast Blog and Sharing Mayo Clinic, a blog that enables patients and employees to tell their Mayo Clinic stories, Mayo has been a pioneer in hospital blogging. MayoClinic.com, Mayo's consumer health information site, also hosts a dozen blogs on topics ranging from Alzheimer's to The Mayo Clinic Diet."
All kinds of resources, from Twitter applications for physicians to visualizations of various categories of medical research on PubMed. Fantastic blog; do NOT miss it!