Social Media EMR Information

I’m interested to hear how others use social media to consume healthcare IT and EMR information. As most of you probably know, I’m a pretty avid user of social media. For me, it’s a combination of marketing my websites, getting new content and information for my websites, connecting with smart people, and just keeping a finger on the pulse of what’s happening in healthcare IT and EMR.

For example, many of you probably know about my two popular twitter accounts @techguy and @ehrandhit. My @techguy account is really my twitter account for everything and anything I feel like using Twitter to accomplish. It’s an interesting (at least to me) mix of healthcare IT/EMR, television, entrepreneurship, technology/social media, ultimate frisbee, and my other adventures in life. I love the freedom of that account since I’ll do and talk about most anything that I care to tweet about or people I care to connect with. @ehrandhit on the other hand is strictly EMR and Healthcare IT focused. I probably should give it a better voice than what it is now including more connecting with people and more thoughtful comments. Although, most of my best thinking becomes blog posts and then gets linked to that Twitter account.

I’ve also started this EMR and HIPAA Facebook page (You should all Like it). It’s seen some growth over time, but nothing like I expected that it might see. I’m not sure what people think of Facebook. Maybe most people go on Facebook to hang out and not necessarily talk shop. I can appreciate that. Although, when I see the number of people that have “Liked” other sites, I wonder if I’m just missing something about how I’m using Facebook.

I’ve become a big fan of LinkedIn. In fact, that’s why I recently started the Healthcare Scene LinkedIn group. I really love how people’s profiles are attached to the comments that they make. There’s something really refreshing about that approach. Plus, I love the conversations that happen after initially connecting in the group in a discussion about a specific topic. LinkedIn makes it really easy to connect with someone who you’ve been chatting with and extend a business relationship with them. It makes sense that the conversation is great on it since it’s such a business focused website.

While I love the above social media for finding and interacting with healthcare information, I’m still a bit surprised by the thousands of people who’ve signed up to receive the EMR and HIPAA email newsletter. Email isn’t technically social media, but it’s quite clear to me that email still plays a major role in our consumption of information and our interaction with others. Email is something we all use pretty much every day. So, I guess that makes sense why so many people want good information sent to their email. It’s convenient.

Then of course, I have a blog or two under the Healthcare Scene brand (check out the new headers I made for each site). Someone recently commented on my blog about the volume of misinformation that is out there. When I look at the list of blogs that I write and that I’m partnered with, I’m really happy to see the quality of independent information that’s being created to guide people in th EMR and healthcare IT industry.

I love how something as simple as blogging software can empower people to share their unique voice. Add in the above social media tools and the power of search on the internet and I think we can have a real impact for good on healthcare IT and EMR.

What tools do you use to consume information online? Are there tools that I haven’t listed that you love? How do you use those tools to make your and other’s lives better?