Healthcare IT Bloggers Unite

Jennifer Dennard, E-Media Marketing Specialist
June 10, 2010

The social media world is a hot bed of healthcare IT activity these days. Whether it's live tweets from industry events, comments on blogs, or lively Facebook discussions, the Internet is a wellspring of up-to-the-minute opinions.

An energetic, opinionated discussion recently took place on the HIMSS Facebook fan page regarding the attributes of a good healthcare IT blogger. The initial question, "What do you think is the number 1 skill a health IT blogger should have?" garnered 50-plus responses. Several common answers emerged:

Thoughtful conveyance of information, opinions and news
Passion
Being well-rounded/well-versed
Ability to provide both sides of the issue
Ability to convey hard, controversial opinions in a comprehensible manner
Appropriate comment moderation

As healthcare reform continues to make headlines, healthcare IT is impacting everyone these days. Healthcare IT bloggers should thus keep in mind that a more general audience is becoming interested, and hopefully actively involved, in what once were issues of concern mainly to those in the industry.

It would be ideal if blogs could help patients (i.e. everyone) understand that healthcare IT is a thread that runs throughout the entire supplier/vendor//doctor/patient experience. If used in a smart and effective way, these blogs can make the healthcare experience much better for everybody involved.

If blogs try to cater to more general audience, perhaps recent headlines like " Clueless: Americans and electronic health records" can be avoided. The HealthPopuli.com post summarizes findings from a recent Xerox survey on patients' knowledge of the impact of EMRs:

"Overall, 1 in 4 adults say they want digitized health records, and 1 in 5 don’t have any concerns about EHRs (relative to privacy, security, theft, or data loss).

These numbers demonstrate a fairly clueless population of Americans when it comes to understanding the importance and value of electronic health records in improving quality, access, and patient satisfaction with health delivery in the U.S. The Department of Health and Human Services plans to survey Americans on this topic. The sooner, the better — so that we can educate people on “ why EHRs,” and get on with engaging people with their health data to improve outcomes and quality for health citizens."

Let's assume that Americans don't want to be labeled as "clueless," and start (or continue) to write in a way that speaks to them, as well as to healthcare IT industry insiders.

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