Social networks, Twitter, and the practice of medicine
I think I am behind the times. I just came across a social network for physicians—Ozmosis—that has been around for more than a year. I'm not going to undertake comparing it to Sermo, which is perhaps the best-known physician-only site. At least one other blogger has already done that. I stumbled upon Ozmosis while looking for something else, but what caught my attention was the closing line of another blogger's post: "Share this post with YOUR physician today; wouldn't you rather have a health care provider who is connected to a network that can help him provide even better care for you?" That sounds good in theory, but I wonder if it is true. I would be interested to see any research that indicates that social networks for physicians are likely to improve health outcomes.
A recent article in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, "This Sentence Easily Would Fit on Twitter: Emergency Physicians are Learning to 'Tweet,'" posits that the value of Twitter for the medical community, particularly busy ER docs, is that it can be used to send out relevant information in a timely way. We know, in general, that patients who use social media tend to trust "people like me"; why wouldn't physicians? So perhaps it comes as no surprise that one of the doctors interviewed commented that he is more likey to review a medical journal article if a trusted colleague tweets about it. "It's almost like we act as a group filter to find the most relevant stuff.”
