Social Media - 4 ½ reasons why for physicians in integrated care

Washington, DC, is the most social city in the United States. It’s the most walkable city in the US, it’s compact, and it’s a place with shared challenges and leadership in society. We can’t vote like residents of other states; however, we’ve had marriage This is where my “why” started, in 2005, when I was helping to lead a statewide EHR/PHR project. I needed to use social media because it was the only way to communicate authentically, honestly, and frequently during a time of immense change. Reason 1. We value communication. The ways people are communicating is changing. Look at 2005: Just 7 years ago, very few people were using social networking sites, even among people aged less than 30 years old. There's been a dramatic change in just 7 years. 1/3 of Baby Boomers now use social networking sites. Now, look at the generation after Generation Y. If you ask teens how they communicate with their friends, they cite text as most common way they communicate with friends. Social networks are #2, in person is #3. At the same time, their FAVORITE way of communication is in person, followed by text, followed by social networks. In person will always be valuable. Think about social networking as an ADDITIONAL method to all of the ways you will need to communicate as a This is what I hear from our patients today, like Mackenzie Marsh, who’s pictured here. She told me, “social networking does not replace the way I communicate. I talk with people in person, on the phone, in text, over facebook, all at the same time.” This brings us to reason #2. We want to be there for our patients (and they want to be there for us). If you look at the data from 2002 to 2011, health professionals are still the #1 place that people go to get health information. Notice, this percentage hasn’t gotten lower since 2002. The data is even more significant for caregivers, 78% of them cite health professionals as the most common place they go to get health information. Reason #3: We came here to change the world. I took this photograph at the AIDS Quilt display in Washington, DC, the first time the quilt has been shown there since 1992. There are so many stories like this, during a time when the medical profession was not as compassionate as it could have been - causing people to ask “why?” about the death of their loved one. Our ancestors, at Kaiser Permanente and Group Health Cooperative, wanted our organizations to demonstrate a replicable model, that gave people the choice to practice medicine in a higher quality, more compassionate way. We want to continue this tradition. Who in this audience knows that Black Americans in the US are 15 % more likely to die of ***? At Kaiser Permanente, this is not the case. We made an announcement in 2012 with the White House that we have eliminated disparities in care for ***/AIDS patients. You don’t have to be white, Black, Latino, straight, gay, female or male, to survive *** at Kaiser Permanente. We have posted the *** challenge online because other care providers and health systems should do this, too. I blog because when I was in training, there was NO voice for compassion in the medical profession that I could find. We have to be that voice for change. This is reason 4. Our ancestors led the way before anyone else did in thinking about environmental causes of good or poor health. Sidney Garfield recognized the benefit of sunlight for healing (the photograph on the right is called "sun bath"). Today, we are still thinking about the determinants of health beyond health care. We want physicians' work to not be defeated by their environment, at Kaiser Permanente and beyond. We use social media to advance leading edge approaches to protecting patients and keeping them healthy. We have an amazing culture here, that allows us to innovate, and tell the world about it. People know that I'm passionate about walking meetings, and I can use social media to talk about the benefits and get feedback on what this means for others. The ½ reason is that our leaders want us to. Bill Marsh, MD, is interested in exploring the lives of our patients beyond their health care through social media. With those why’s, it’s easy to see why you can find me here, here, here, here, here, and here. Glad you’re going to join me.