How to Use Social Media to Advance Palliative Care

Christian Sinclair, MD, FAAHPMKansas City Hospice & Palliative Care

Presented at: San Diego Hospice & The Institute for Palliative Medicine

September 30, 2010

Disclaimer #1• Founding partner in KLX Media, LLC

– Social media consulting for health care

Disclaimer #2

This presentation was given to the staff of San Diego Hospice and The Institute for Palliative Medicine but none of the following material represents the above or their associated interests. Nor does it represent the policy of Kansas City Hospice & Palliative Care.

Please consult your own organizational social media policies.

Slide 3

Learning Objectives– Understand the definitions and potential impact of

social media and social networking on the palliative care field

– Develop a comfort level with social media and reduce risk

– Employ two social media platforms to advance palliative care knowledge among professionals and the public

200 Billion Hours/year

Photo by Flick user Rock Creek

What is Social Media?Internet-based tools for

creating, sharing and discussing information

Metcalfe’s Law

• Value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system (n2)

• Prior communication examples: – Telephone, fax, email

Source: Wikipedia

Rela

tive

Volu

me

of In

form

ation

Time

Opportunities• Start a conversation • Interact with your peers• Educate the public• Filtered search engine• Immediate feedback• Speak directly to your target audience• Get ahead of the competition• Build your brand online

Risks

• HIPAA violation• End a conversation• Make someone mad• Give out false information• Wasted time and effort• Risk your own privacy• Identity theft• Actual theft

Case Examples

• Pallimed• Palliative Medicine related blogs• Morphine concentrated liquid and the FDA• Twitter & AAHPM medical conference• Tweetchat #HPM

Pallimed

Pallimed

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Site Visits

Subscribers

Read Blogs(updated quarterly on Pallimed)

About Palliative CareAlive Hospice BlogBioethics Discussion BlogCancerDocCenter for Practical Bioethics BlogConfessions of a Young (Looking) Social WorkerDeath Club for CutiesDNR/DNIDoctor FisherGeriPalGoodbyesGrief HealingHospice and Nursing Homes BlogHospice DoctorHospice Foundation of AmericaHospice PhysicianLarry Beresford (@GrowthHouse)Les Morgan @ GrowthHouseLife as a Hospice Patient

Medical FutilityNHPCO UpdaterOnco-PRN (Oncology Pharmacist Resource Network)Pain Treatment TopicsPalliative Care Grand RoundsPalliative Care SuccessPallimedPallimed: Arts & HumanitiesPallimed: Case ConferencesReflectionsRevival Design (@GrowthHouse)Risa's PiecesSt. Christopher's BlogTexas HospiceThe Checkout LineThe Good DeathTranscend Hospice MarketingTwo Women Blogging

Twitter Stats for @ctsinclair

Bit.ly Link Stats

25

Ways to Use Twitter

• Finding new like minded contacts• Getting info out to self-identified fans• Take notes at a conference• Find breaking news• Get feedback• Help other people• Have open forum brainstorming

First mention on Twitter

Re-tweeted in one hour

Re-tweeted again in few minutes

1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64 67 70 73 76 79 82 85 88 910

50

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# of

Tw

eets

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r

2010 Annual Assembly

The Long Tail Effect

306

124 4 3 53 2 16 7 30 2 1

ctsinclair: suzanakm: amednews: Di-anaSe-bzda:

brimcmike: philbaumann:

mchwistek: rlbates: doclake: hvto: social-me-

dia247:

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1,374

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3,676 3,164

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23,80814,704

9,492 9,169 8,642 7,712 7,203 7,1705,616 5,487

Followers

Impact (Followers x Tweets)

Top 10 Twitter Users by Impact at AAHPM 2010

# of TweetsTwitter User:

Tweets Users Estimated Att. Days Tweets/

DayUsers/1000

attendees

ACC 10 1143 201 25000 4 286 8

AAHPM 2010 834 92 2400 3 278 38

AAHPM 2009 224 30 2200 3 75 14

Medical Conference Comparison

National Health Care Decisions Day

National Health Care Decisions Day

#havethetalk

“Decisions day”

Orgs likely to support

46 Users

385 Users

Tweetchat

Type your Tweet hereRT = Re-tweet

#hpm automatically added

Your own tweet

Someone replying to you

Lots o’ links!

Reply

Re-Tweet

Quick Use Buttons

Feature/Block

Favorite Tweet

Visual Example of a Tweetchat

Tweetchat

Tweetchat

Group of people begin to have a conversation around a single hashtag

Tweetchat

Using Tweetchat they can all see the same thread

Tweetchat

All the people following the individuals see only a few tweets with #hpm

Tweetchat

Tweetchat

Tweetchat

Passed on to 2,838 followers

SlideShare

Risks• HIPAA violation• End a conversation• Make someone mad• Give out false information• Wasted time and effort• Risk your own privacy• Identity theft• Actual theft• Risk if you don’t participate

Mitigating Risk

• Be professional• Be credible• Be responsible• If you pause, don’t publish• Don’t talk about cases, generalize• Don’t give specific advice

Social Media Tools to Know

• 1st Tier – Be familiar– Facebook– YouTube– Twitter– Wikipedia– Blogs

• 2nd Tier – Read about it– LinkedIn– Slideshare– Yelp– Foursquare– Delicious– Digg– Yammer– Flickr– Ustream

Summary

• Social media and networking is all around• Use tools to understand usefulness• Conversations are happening

– How are you involved?• Security and privacy risks can be mitigated• This is just the beginning

Acknowledgements• Drew Rosielle, MD

– For allowing me join Pallimed• Eric Widera, MD

– For the use of some slides from his social media• Ed Bennett and Lee Aase

– For great social media in health care content• Diane Meier, MD

– For showing even busy people can do social media

Christian Sinclair, MD, FAAHPM• Email

– ctsinclair@gmail.com• Blog

– Pallimed (iPhone app)• Twitter

– @ctsinclair– @Pallimed

• Facebook– Personal– Pallimed

• LinkedIn:– csinclair

• Delicious– ctsinclair

• Slideshare– ctsinclair

• Wikipedia– ctsinclair

• Digg– ctsinclair

• Foursquare– ctsinclair

• Yelp– csinclair

Let’s get connected!

Twitter Homework – Part One• Get a Twitter account (or reactivate a dormant one)• Follow and say hello to:

• @ctsinclair• @DianeEMeier• @CAPCpalliative• @Pallimed• @GeriPalBlog• @Doclake• @suzanakm• @ewidera• @abbrody• @equijada

• Use the hashtag #hpm to identify hospice and palliative medicine related material

Twitter Homework – Part 2

• Tonight at 9P Eastern• Go to Tweetchat.com• Enter room #hpm

– Hospice and Palliative Medicine• If you have a Twitter account

– Login and chat along• If you don’t have a Twitter account

– Read along and see if you don’t have something to say eventually.

Additional Resources

• Ed Bennett (Univ Md)- http://ebennett.org/• Lee Aase (Mayo)– SMUG (35 SocMed Thesis)• Mashable – General Social Media Interest

Highly-Recommended Reading

• Gladwell: The Tipping Point: How little things can make a big difference

• Christakis and Fowler: Connected: The surprising power of our social networks

• Shirky: Here Comes Everybody: The power of organizing with organizations