Can Social Media Change Healthcare IT Landscape?
According to Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, it can. That was his message at the recent HIMSS conference in Las Vegas, NV. “The main critique of Twitter initially was that it wasn’t useful,” he told attendees. He then shared numerous stories of how Twitter allows a massive amount of people to communicate quickly and quietly, with significant impact. In one lecture, for example, he witnessed a large group of people leave in the middle of the talk, only to move to the next room where a more interesting talk was being given. This demonstrated the power of people communicating and acting accordingly. Imagine how quickly an outbreak or other health scare could be shared? Although Stone says Twitter “is a tool that allows people to come together as one,” he also asserted that more information isn’t necessarily more knowledge, particularly in the healthcare industry. “You need to have ‘understanding’ in there, too, and must be able to use the information to do some course of action,” Stone told attendees.