Twitter for Healthcare
January 18, 2009
Phil Baumann has posted 140 uses of Twitter for healthcare. He does preface the list with challenges including privacy and the oath to do no harm. Yet his main point is the true potential for innovation using microblogging in healthcare.
It reminded me that my hospital has used text paging actively for years through the phone directory lookup, anyone can send a text page. But with the growing pervalence of smart phones, email and twitter are becoming more prevalent.
Two-way paging never caught on. The transition to smart phones has mostly meant a greater dependence on email. How to make the shift to Twitter’s possibilities in an organization that blocks YouTube and Facebook? As with blogs, the innovation will need to be outside of the official channels with individuals as champions on new technology by demonstrating its usefulness.
Perhaps I’m as optimistic as Phil. The outcome remains to be seen.
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