Most Recent Update: 8/11/10 Special recognition to the mayo Clinic and new doctor bloggers. Drs. Keith Black and Glenn Braunstein. (Updates are in red).

I was recently consulting with the Scientific and Medical team at the American Diabetes Association to explore ways for them to engage in social media to interact with their professional members and audience.

In preparation I conducted research on what other medical associations and journals were doing with social media. I explored what groups were using and looked for some of the best practices in the field.

Social media activities are scattered across many platforms and each group required an active search on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. (I added an organized blogroll to the DiabetesPro site to serve other researchers). This could be the beginning of research project or a Wiki that would continue to build and expand on the list.

Continuing this project is not my life’s mission. I’ve returned to Los Angeles to continue with my day job of being a healthcare photographer while exploring other social media/communication/marketing projects. But I wanted to share the research with the community.

I have a great collection of links with minimal commentary. Please let me know if there is anyone or a group that wants to take my start and develop a comprehensive resource list.

As I organize my notes I’ll post them in stages.

Does the professional community care about social media?

The best example I’ve found that proves physicians will engage in social media is the active community that has been built by Sermo.

Sermo advertises having a community of 112,000 members, spanning 68 specialties in all 50 states. It’s a physician-only community where credentials are verified, and you will need to be a doctor or explore the site with a member to explore the engagement.

The site has done a great job of creating a community and keeping them engaged. They have succeeded at hosting lively discussions both on practice questions and patient management issues.

Hospitals

Special recognition in the field needs to be given to the groundbreaking work of Lee Aase for the Mayo Clinic. Their exploration into social media for hospitals made it safe for other to explore.

Aase was also generous with his knowledge and started Social Media University, Global that many others and I used as their introduction to social media in healthcare settings.

The informal blog university has now evolved into a more formal Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media where they consult with, plus train other hospitals and health-related organizations in sharing their mission.

Ed Bennett does a great job of keeping track of the “Hospital Social Network List“. This is an extensive collection of the U.S. Hospitals that use Social Networking tools. Visit Bennett’s site to follow other developments in social media use by hospitals.

A great run-down of the medical communities can be found  on the BMJ Careers section website. It was created by the BMJ’s community manager, David Isaacson. He picks out the best and the worst online communities as well as highlighting the benefits and dangers of being active online.

Medical Blogs

While I was at the ADA, I shared a couple of medical blogs with David Kendall, MD, the Chief Scientific & Medical Officer of the American Diabetes Association and he asked to see other examples. I couldn’t find many that were a close match to his position (does the medical director for Medical Cannabis of Southern California count?).  I discovered that writing a blog is a very personal statement. Some are focused on medical issues; others are more geared to advocacy.

With so few direct examples I pulled from an association president and CEO as well hospitals and some individual physicians to share the different styles with him and now you.

Medical Director

Dr. Len’s Blog – J. Leonard Lichtenfeld, MD, MACP – Dr. Lichtenfeld is Deputy Chief Medical Officer for the national office of the American Cancer Society. He directs the Society’s Cancer Control Science Department

http://www.cancer.org/aspx/blog/

CDC – Dr. Jay M. Bernhardt, Director of the National Center for Health Marketing

http://blogs.cdc.gov/healthmarketingmusings/

Joseph Kvedar, MD Director, Center for Connected Health, Partners HealthCare

http://chealthblog.connected-health.org/

Dr. Sean Breen, medical director of Medical Cannabis of Southern California

http://mcsocal.com/blog/

Angela Gardner, MD, the president-elect of ACEP

http://gardnersgate.blogspot.com/

Also has a twitter feed:

http://twitter.com/ACEPheadliner

Association CEO

The Lewin Report  - Dr. Jack Lewin is the Chief Executive Officer of the American College of Cardiology

http://lewinreport.acc.org/

Association President

AMA President J. James Rohack, MD-On the Road with Dr. Rohack

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/road-doctor-rohack.shtml

Hospital CEO

PAUL LEVY – President and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston

http://runningahospital.blogspot.com/

Medical Group

CEP America – Emergency Room Physician Blog

http://blog.cep.com/

The Central Line Blog

http://thecentralline.org/

Medical Association

Texas Medical Association’s blog: “Blogged Arteries”

http://bloggedarteries.texmed.org/

Medical Center

NYU Internal Medicine Blog

http://www.clinicalcorrelations.org/

Dr Mark Godley is the principal of a state-of-the-art surgical centre serving patients from across Canada in its location in Vancouver, British Columbia.

http://www.falsecreekhealthcare.com/blog/

http://www.falsecreekhealthcare.com/about/doctors/mgodley/

Mayo Clinic:

Medical and Scientific News and Stories about Mayo Clinic

http://newsblog.mayoclinic.org/

Medical Science Blog

http://advancingthescience.mayo.edu/

Medical and Health Podcasts from Mayo Clinic

http://podcasts.mayoclinic.org/

Diversity in Education blog

http://educationdiversityblog.mayo.edu/

Why should a hospital blog?

Christopher Boyer, Hospital marketing consultant (now at Inova Health System). You may also like the video format instead of writing.

http://hospitalonlinemarketingeducation.ning.com/profiles/blogs/home-30-blogging-as-part-of

Healthcare IT

Thoughts, comments, news, and reflections about healthcare IT from Microsoft’s worldwide health senior director Bill Crounse, MD, on how information technology can improve healthcare delivery and services around the world.

http://blogs.msdn.com/healthblog/

John Sharp is an IT Manager for the Cleveland Clinic.

http://ehealth.johnwsharp.com/

Institute Director

Richard O’Grady, Executive Director of the American Institute of Biological Sciences

http://blogs.aibs.org/richardogrady/

Medical Library Director

Isaac (“Zak”) Kohane, Harvard Medical School Director’s blog.

http://hmscountway.blogspot.com/

Multiple & Individual MD blogs

Bryan Vartabedian, M.D.  blog focused on pediatric health and social media.

http://www.33charts.com/

A multiple collective blog led by Val Jones, M.D.

http://getbetterhealth.com/

Felasfa Wodajo, MD bone and soft tissue tumor surgeon, metro Washington DC

http://orthoonc.com/

Peter A. Lipson, MD Private practice in Detroit area – White Coat Underground.

http://scienceblogs.com/whitecoatunderground/2010/04/preventing_diabetic_amputation.php#more

Westby G. Fisher, MD, FACC is a board certified internist, cardiologist, and cardiac electrophysiologist (doctor specializing in heart rhythm disorders) practicing at NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston, IL

http://drwes.blogspot.com/

Medscape videoblog by Dr. Anne Peters. (My wife) I do the video production.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/719084

Glenn D. Braunstein, M.D. professor and chairman of the Department of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center blogs about a variety of medical topics at the Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-d-braunstein-md

Pediatrician Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson at Seattle Children’s Hospital

http://seattlemamadoc.seattlechildrens.org/

Paul J. Dorio, MD – A hard-working, deep-thinking, interventional radiologist in Florida.

http://drpauldorio.com/

Dr. Sharma’s Obesity Notes – Dr. Arya M. Sharma is the Medical Director of the Edmonton Capital Health Region’s interdisciplinary Weight Wise Program.

http://www.drsharma.ca/

Dr. Yoni Freedhoff – Family doc and founder of Ottawa’s Bariatric Medical Institute – a multi-disciplinary, ethical, evidence-based nutrition and weight management centre.

http://www.weightymatters.ca/

Celebrity Diagnosis provide a dynamic collection of Teachable Moments in Medicine™ to increase health awareness and medical knowledge. It was was co-founded by Michele Berman, M.D. and Mark Boguski, M.D., Ph.D.

http://celebritydiagnosis.com/

Academic OB/GYN is a blog and podcast created by Nicholas Fogelson, an academic OB/GYN physician in South Carolina.

http://academicobgyn.com/

Brain Health Blog ”Getting Inside your Head”  by Keith L. Black, MD. Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, Calif., and director of the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute.

http://www.everydayhealth.com/blog/dr-black-brain-health/

Medical Journal Blog

British Medical Journal blog

http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/

ACP Internist

http://blog.acpinternist.org/

Blog terms of use & disclaimers

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/terms-of-use-agreement

http://www.clinicalcorrelations.org/?page_id=2

http://scienceblogs.com/whitecoatunderground/about.php

http://thecentralline.org/

Social Media Policies

Dave Fleet has collected a great list of 57 Social Media Policy Examples and Resources. I pulled the ones that are healthcare related. For other industries and additions beyond the first 57, visit his website.

http://davefleet.com/2010/07/57-social-media-policy-examples-resources/

Fleet is the Vice President and head of the digital communications practice at Thornley Fallis Communications.

American Red Cross

Kaiser Permanente

Mayo Clinic

Participation Guidelines

Comment Policy

For Mayo Clinic Employees

Twitter Doctors

Dawson King @dawson, a”healthcare entrepreneur in Cambridge, UK is organizing a directory of the most influential doctors on Twitter.

http://twitterdoctors.net/

How are medical groups using social media?

Medical Associations

There is some overlap of medical associations and medical journals. Most of the associations also publish journals. For this list I’ll include the social media links for the journals and then repeat them in my list of journals.

The Brain Aneurysm Foundation

Before I give a run-down of what some associations are doing. I found a great case study In launching A Facebook Page for The Brain Aneurysm Foundation by John Haydon.

American Heart Association

AHA is active both in the standard social media networks, plus they’ve started their own member’s-only network.

I had a couple of conversations with John Ponzio, Director, Professional Membership and Science Marketing at American Heart Association. He informed me that they began the process as an added benefit for members to foster collaboration with peers.  The system was built to support those connections.

The other driver was to get a system in place during the early adoption of social media to learn how it works so that they wouldn’t be playing catch-up 3-5 years from now. They “didn’t want to miss the boat.”

They considered rolling their member’s site out to younger and mid-career members but decided to open the group up to all the members at once.

They are starting by repurposing some of their content that is produced for general release. There are a number of “lurkers” on the site now with little interaction, but there are now 1,000 registered members. It’s not necessary to be an AHA member to register and have access to the site.

The member area has a basic Facebook-like profile function that allows you to build your profile and friend others. There is also a forum that has limited discussion at this time. The low activity in this area could be because it needs to be nurtured more, or the open membership policy restricts the free flow of information.

The main attraction of the member site is their blog and video content.

The home of the professional site that is the gateway to related sites and their professional journals.

http://my.americanheart.org/professional/

The homepage of their group site for members:

http://networking.americanheart.org/home

Professional Journals – Editor’s Picks are free: One to four articles a month.

http://www.ahajournals.org/

Circulation Research home page:

http://circres.ahajournals.org/

Circulation Research Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/CircRes?ref=search&sid=687058660.2171777127..1

Circulation Research Twitter account:

http://twitter.com/CircRes

Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology

http://atvb.ahajournals.org/

Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/ATVB/194783022791?v=wall

Go Red (fund-raising campaign) for professionals

http://www.goredforwomen.org/professionals/

Consumer/patient sites:

The American Heart Association has a new main website:

http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/

The consumer/patient Facebook site

http://www.facebook.com/AmericanHeart

There are a number of LinkedIn sites. Most are tailored to the consumer/patient audience:

http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory?results=&sik=1277062196966

AHA also has diabetes site.

http://www.iknowdiabetes.org/index.html

http://www.facebook.com/heartofdiabetes#!/heartofdiabetes?v=wall

Go Red Consumer

http://www.GoRedForWomen.org

http://www.GoRedCorazon.org

http://www.flickr.com/photos/GoRedForWomen

http://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialGoRed4Women

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/HowardHughesMed

Twitter:

http://twitter.com/HHMICoolSci

http://twitter.com/HHMINEWS

Websites:

HHMI’s Cool Science has something for everyone, teachers, students, and parents

http://www.hhmi.org/coolscience/

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) plays a powerful role in advancing biomedical research and science education in the United States.

http://www.hhmi.org/news/

All photos are © by Mark Harmel. All Rights Reserved.

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