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
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
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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
per
Use
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:
100
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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
– [email protected]• 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