The Ozmosis Blog

The Voice of the Doctor is an internet radio show hosted by Dr. Nick van Terheyden, Chief Medical Information Officer for Nuance, that looks at healthcare from the perspective of a clinician.  This Friday’s show, June 22, will focus on social media in healthcare and Dr. van Terheyden has asked me to join him. 

According to Social Media "Likes" Healthcare: From marketing to social business , PwC’s consumer survey of 1,060 U.S. adults, about one-third of consumers are using social sites and tools as a natural habitat for health discussions.  As overall use of social networking sites has grown from 5% of all adults in 2005, to half of all adults (50%) in 2011, this should come as little surprise.  More importantly, PWC’s survey does a terrific job highlighting what “social” consumers really want from healthcare providers and how healthcare organizations (such as Aetna, Kaiser and Texas Health) are already transforming into social businesses.

Vegas baby, Vegas.  That’s right, the Ozmosis team is heading to Las Vegas for HIMSS12 and once again  we are delighted to co-sponsor the New Media Meetup.  This year we are joining simplifyMD, HealthcareScene.com and Influential Networks to network and mingle with our healthcare social media friends. That’s the #hcsm, #HealthIT and #HITsm crowd for all you Twitter newbies. 

Join Ozmosis & Ogilvy Public Relations Wednesday, February 15th for a star studded discussion on the continuing role social media plays in healthcare as part of Social Media Week in Washington, DC.  As we look back on the impact social media has had on the healthcare industry over the past year, we see dramatic growth in social media adoption by health care consumers, providers, and all the various organizations engaged in the healthcare ecosystem. While the industry has taken a giant leap forward into the world of social tools and collaborative models, we’ve only scratched the surface of what is yet to come.

On December 31st, the FDA finally released its long awaited guidance on the use of social media, Responding to Unsolicited Requests for Off-Label Information About Prescription Drugs and Medical Devices." (click to download the actual PDF).  As most of us expected, the FDA did not provide comprehensive guidance.

Two recent surveys explore how physician’s use social media for personal and professional use.  What was interesting from the data is how actively physicians are now using social tools for professional purposes, particularly their affinity for closed, private communities.

Another HIMSS conference is in the books.  Last week over 31,000 Health IT professionals and nearly 1,000 vendors descended on Orlando to discuss the latest industry trends.  Once you got past all the pageantry and hoopla, there were meaningful discussion, debate, and education around the intersection of technology and healthcare.  In particular, mobile health, health data exchange and the role of accountable care organizations seemed to dominate the conversation. 

Ozmosis is heading to Disney World…or rather the annual HIMSS HealthIT Conference being held in Orlando, FL, from February 20-24.  So whether you're a clinical informatics leader, hospital administrator, health care professional, or a Health IT vendor, we look forward to seeing you at the New Media Meetup we’re co-sponsoring at HIMSS.

Last month, the Ogilvy Social Marketing exCHANGE and Georgetown University held a fantastic event on the role social media can play in improving public health.  During the course of our panel discussion, we were asked to describe the value partners can play in social media.  My response was simple, I said “when it comes to social media, everyone is a potential partner.”  Alex Hughes, the organizer and moderator for the event took this message to heart and posted a very thoughtful review which I have shared below.

Ogilvy Washington and the Center for Social Impact Communication at Georgetown University have released a terrific white paper, “Using Social Media Platforms to Amplify Public Health Messaging” that explores how social marketers rely on networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube as channels to raise awareness of public health-related issues, facilitate behavior change, and ultimately help people live healthier, safer lives.

The American Medical Association (AMA) adopted social media guidelines earlier this week at its semi-annual policy making meeting.  This is a positive step forward by the AMA and demonstrates the importance of social media to its members.

I am delighted to announce the launch of a new hands-on, social media workshop series offered by Ozmosis Business Solutions. These workshops are available initially for BioPharma companies, with customized sessions for both payor organizations and health systems to follow later this summer. As we look back at the impact social media has made on healthcare, the opportunities for healthcare organizations to engage healthcare providers continues to expand.

Social Media's Impact on Healthcare - HCNM Keynote

(You can view or download the presentation)

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Today, 650 hospitals have an active presence on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter and numerous healthcare organizations have turned the corner to engage in conversations online.  As we look back on the impact social media has had on the healthcare industry over the past year, we see dramatic growth in social media adoption by health care consumers, providers, and organizations. 

For example, health systems such as Henry Ford have begun to broadcast surgeries and answer clinical questions live via Twitter, new communities like WiserTogether have made it easier for patients to share novel practices around specific conditions such as pregnancy, and services such as iGuard have changed the way we think about drug safety. The FDA’s public hearings in November also gave hope that the cloud of regulatory uncertainty would soon be lifted and the Dose of Digital Wiki now lists hundreds of active pharmaceutical social media programs.

While the industry has taken a giant leap forward into the brave new social media world, we've only scratched the surface of what is yet to come. So what does the future hold?  Join me June 14th in Chicago, as Shahid Shah (CEO of HITSphere) and I explore the past and future at the 2nd Annual Healthcare New Media Marketing Conference.  Our talk kicks off a terrific event, and I am honored to join the distinguished group of speakers Q1 Productions has assembled.
 

It's an exciting day for all of us at Ozmosis as we officially launch a new business unit. Ozmosis Business Solutions - an outgrowth of our core business - is focused exclusively on serving the social media needs of our clients throughout the healthcare industry.  

When we started Ozmosis three years ago, Facebook had fewer than 20 million active users and Twitter was relatively unknown until the SXSW conference that March. Today, they have close to 600 million active users between them and their users spend an astonishing 500 billion minutes on Facebook per month and share more than 50 million tweets a day.  

Healthcare organizations have been actively utilizing social media. More than 650 hospitals have an active presence on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Scanning the Dose of Digital Wiki shows how forward thinking major pharmaceutical firms are with their own social media programs. However, most of their efforts to date have been patient centric. Whether organizations are trying to educate their respective audiences or provide better customer service, they can also engage the more than 60% of physicians who consume user-generated content created by and for healthcare professionals.
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On March 16th, Ozmosis submitted its comment to the FDA's docket on the promotion of regulated medical products using the internet and social media, joining over 150 other submissions by drug manufacturers, health systems, consultants, agencies, advocacy groups, and private individuals.

The level of interest in this subject should surprise no one.

The world of medicine has changed dramatically since the FDA's last hearings on internet use. In 1999, less than 50% of physicians used the internet for professional purposes. Today, Google reports that virtually all physicians (92%) use the internet to gather medical information in a clinical setting, and according to Manhattan Research, 89% of U.S. physicians now describe the web as "essential to their professional practice." With the groundswell for social media resources among physicians continuing to rise, Manhattan Research also shares that 71% of U.S. physicians are interested in or already use physician social networks for peer-to-peer interactions.

However, many pharmaceutical manufacturers hesitate to engage with physicians through social media due to the uncertain regulatory landscape. While there have been notable exceptions, as highlighted in our FDA comment, this missed opportunity is a detriment to patients, providers and manufacturers alike. We strongly encourage the FDA to provide clear guidance to avoid further delay.

So what would appropriate guidance for manufacturer participation look like? At Ozmosis, we have established a set of principles that, if applied to the broader web and social media landscape, would be to the benefit of manufacturers, physicians, and patients alike.

On Ozmosis, physicians use their real identities and share their professional affiliations, resulting in a more trusted and transparent exchange of clinical information. Since physicians always know with whom they are communicating and sharing knowledge, the insights and discussions that take place on Ozmosis are highly valued and insight rich. Any regulatory framework put forth must ensure the same level of trust, transparency and accountability our physicians already benefit from every day.

Joel Selzer (LinkedIn profile), my Co-Founder at Ozmosis, has spent the past few weeks following the buildup to the FDA's Public Hearing on Social Media. After digesting last week's testimony and the conversations around it (visit www.fdasm.com for the latest courtesy of Fabio Gratton), Joel offers the following:

During my recent presentations at Digital Pharma and AdvaMed's Social Media Seminar, I argued that social media offers pharmaceutical and medical device brands a unique opportunity to engage with physicians. According to Mark Bard from Manhattan Research, 70% of physicians want pharmaceutical firms to engage them online and 60% of physicians either use or are interested in using physician social networks (just ask the docs on Ozmosis or Sermo). With thousands of physicians actively using social media every day to access and share medical information (see Rohit Bhargava's post on "How Doctors Are Using Social Media", one would expect pharmaceutical and medical device firms to salivate at the engagement possibilities.

Yet, both industries have been reluctant to engage doctors using social media under current FDA guidelines. Their reluctance has been disappointing to many but should not be surprising. Michele Sharp of Eli Lilly said it best at the FDA hearing:

To date, Lilly has avoided significant interaction with healthcare professionals and patients about our products in social media forums – largely because of a lack of clarity in understanding FDA’s expectations as to how we could participate and comply with FDA requirements.

This theme was reiterated throughout the hearings, and its absolutely critical that the FDA evaluate the impact of not providing guidance. Michele Sharp also nailed it when she called on the FDA to lead a series of public workshops that could, "collectively generate ideas, leverage the knowledge, expertise and experiences of the participants and work toward viable solutions, so that FDA can provide the detail and clarity to the pharmaceutical industry and others through Guidance or executive channels."

Lilly's recommendation is spot on, but in addition to immediately scheduling a series of public workshops…the FDA should appoint a Social Media Advisory Panel (a recommendation echoed by Zen Chu of Accelerated Medical Ventures). While holding the public hearings was a great step forward, the FDA needs to augment its social media expertise and it needs to do so quickly. Its clear from last week's testimony that the FDA has a lot of homework piling up and the best way we can accelerate their education is to demonstrate two very important points about social media use to the FDA.

1. Physicians and industry are already working together
2. Practical solutions exist to address the FDA's concerns
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With close to $40 billion in stimulus funding specifically appropriated for Health IT adoption and a wave of successful initiatives utilizing social media for public health, key decision makers need to understand the full potential social media has to affect positive change for healthcare reform. We already know the Obama Administration believes Social Media offers a low cost way to improve transparency and drive community engagement, and earlier this year we shared Six Ideas where Social Media could be used to ease and improve the HIT integration process. Now, we need to ensure that the right stakeholders join the conversation.

To help educate policy makers and advance the discussion, Ozmosis is co-hosting a Symposium on Thursday, July 16th with Amplify Public Affairs and Clinovations, entitled, "Driving Health IT Through Innovations in Social Media."  We have a terrific group of speakers from CDC, FDA, HHS, NIH and the private sector who will demonstrate the success of and lessons learned from existing social media programs in the federal, state and private health sectors. 

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The recent H1N1 Influenza outbreak raised concerns about our ability to handle the current, and future pandemic threats. Our systems for surveillance, reporting, infection control, and antiviral drug distribution showed strain and could potentially be overwhelmed. In the brief time we have to prepare for our next flu season, we must step back and evaluate where improvements need to be made.

Of critical importance during any crisis are the roles and responsibilities of healthcare providers on the front line, not only those in ER's, but also in Primary Care offices and Urgent Care Centers.  As demonstrated during these past few weeks, social media can play a vital role in the dissemination of information (via twitter, blogs and social networks), however, pushing out limited alerts through Twitter is only the first step.
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Joel Selzer (LinkedIn profile), my Co-Founder at Ozmosis, has spent the past three years immersed in Social Media - in particular the business and functional side of Social Networks.  As Facebook, Linked-in, and most recently Twitter break new ground with ways to turn their members into dollars, we are all trying to learn more about their strategies.  In this Guest Blog, Joel helps to shed light on what the big players are up to. 

For months, there has been talk that Twitter would finally unveil its business model with a focus on serving corporate customers, whether to help promote their businesses or to provide a customer service solution. Yesterday, news broke that Microsoft (MSFT), via its Federated Media ad network is the first to sponsor an Ad on Twitter.  ExecTweet, a service that collects and highlights Tweets from various executives, will be prominently displayed on Twitter pages.

Twitter will get an undisclosed payment for promoting ExecTweet and Federated Media’s John Battelle hints at a revenue share arrangement. Federated also said it plans on launching similar programs on Twitter with other clients.  Excitement over Twitter continued to build as Salesforce announced plans to integrate Twitter within its Service Cloud, a tool it released back in January.  While countless organizations, such as our own team at Ozmosis, use Twitter daily to share insights and monitor industry news, companies like Comcast and Dell have customer service agents on Twitter to proactively find complaints and address them.  Now Salesforce users can search, monitor, and join conversations specifically on Twitter creating a far more comprehensive customer service solution. 

A majority of physicians’ offices are run as small businesses and are extremely sensitive to economic pressures.  With the US economy in the midst of a recession, physicians, right along with everyone else, are facing financial difficulties.

We feel the crunch at my practice in Northern Virginia, and are actively searching for practical solutions to improve office efficiency and increase revenue.  As physicians across the country struggle in a similar search, I have paid attention to the suggestions many have shared in their discussions on Ozmosis, and other sources like Twitter.  Of particular interest are the Social Media or Health 2.0 solutions (generally readily accessible and inexpensive) that offer promise in improving the bottom line quickly and effectively.

Of the available suggestions, I feel the following have the most value, or have been implemented into practices with some measure of success.

Marketing Solutions to Recruit Patients

1. Start a practice Blog - This is a marketing and practice growth tool.  It can help increase your visibility in the community and improve your communication of services to existing and new patients. 2. Create a Facebook page - A form of social marketing, Facebook can increase your reach as well as advertise existing and new services in your practice. 3. Send practice updates through Twitter - Keep patients informed of practice specific events (flu shots, physicals, etc) and increase your practice visibility. Maximize Revenue and Reduce Operating Costs

2. Extend practice services to the Web - such as online scheduling with ZocDoc (available only in NYC for now) and automated patient appointment call reminders with PhoneTree. 2. Provide online lab results to your patients - Using services like Quest360 or use your EMR's patient based portal - this may allow you to reduce or re-purpose your current staff.

3. Move to a Web-Centric or Concierge practice - Consider a practice solution like Myca or converting to a Micro-Practice or concierge service.

In 2008 medicine evolved.  There was an explosion of social media applications enabling physicians and consumers to share healthcare related information.  With 60 million U.S. adults now Health 2.0 consumers according to Manhattan Research, I want to look ahead to the coming year and share, from a physician's perspective, the trends I will be watching for in 2009.

Provider Trends in 2009
Physicians will continue to pour into online communities and physician social networks throughout 2009, but priorities are changing, and we will demand more from the social media services we use - we will see:

The Evolution of Physician Collaboration.
We will embrace resources that offer trusted information and look for more in a site than news feeds or discussions boards.  And we will build and use professional networks to help filter the overflow of information and prioritize our learning activities. 

Recognition of rapid communication tools as a resource, not a distraction.
Health Systems and provider groups will start to understand the massive potential of instant communication, whether mobile or via microblogging as an information and collaboration resource, and begin to 'unblock' these services for their providers.

Early steps in improving Provider/Industry interaction.
In order to re-establish trust in their interactions with Physicians, Industry will begin to lean towards a more open and balanced exchange of information.  Over time, new models will level the playing field with improved transparency between both parties. 

Mobile, Mobile, Mobile. Physicians have always been interested in mobile apps for referencing medication doses and practice management resources but with wireless broadband access, faster processors, and slick new devices like the 3G iPhone, more useful and productive apps are bound to appear.  Look for mobile apps that go beyond simple reference and calculators to interactive learning, CME, and instant or "store and forward" consultations.
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