Top 10 health startup and social media posts 2012

Jason Berek-Lewis Founder, Healthy Startups 

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This blog makes me happy - I love writing about social media, PR, technology and startups in healthcare. I get my thrills from speaking with startups and entrepreneurs around the world who are making apps, devices, hardware and software that are improving lives, keeping people healthy and giving patients and doctors the ability to share information in ways that we never could before.

 
Thanks so much for your support in 2012. This has been a huge year for Healthy Startups -  taffic has grown to around 7000 unique visitors a month in December 2012, off of a very low base at the start of the year.

I appreciate the support of so many entrepreneurs and startups who have contributed to the site and to the many people who share the site's content - especially on Twitter and LinkedIn.

It has taken 2 years to build this site and it's traffic to 7000 visitors per month - my goal in 2013 is to double this number. Wish me luck!

Thank you to the patients, doctors, nurses, surgeons, medical specialists, healthcare communicators, entrepreneurs, coders, bloggers... and more who are contributing to the biggest change in healthcare in modern times... 

To wrap up the year, here are the 10 most popular posts on Healthy Startups, as determined by Google Analytics.

Be well, see you in 2013.

10> Attack of the healthcare startup clones

http://healthystartups.com/founders-blog/2012/6/10/attack-of-the-healthcare-startup-clones.html

9> 5 things doctors should know about managing their reputation

http://healthystartups.com/startup-blog/2012/8/2/5-things-doctors-should-know-about-managing-their-reputation.html

8> Could Pinterest be the healthiest social network?

http://healthystartups.com/founders-blog/2012/1/24/could-pinterest-be-the-healthiest-social-network.html

7> Why your medical practice needs a social media strategy

http://healthystartups.com/founders-blog/2012/10/1/why-your-medical-practice-needs-a-social-media-strategy.html

6> Indian startup launches Android device to manage diabetes

http://healthystartups.com/startup-blog/2012/8/15/indian-startup-launches-device-android-app-to-manage-diabete.html

5> 7 ways to get more media coverage for your startup - right now!

http://healthystartups.com/founders-blog/2012/6/4/7-ways-to-get-more-media-coverage-for-your-startup-right-now.html

4> 5 Reasons why your health app will fail

http://healthystartups.com/founders-blog/2012/7/17/5-reasons-why-your-health-app-will-fail.html

3> Why is Siri ignoring healthcare?

http://healthystartups.com/founders-blog/2012/6/22/why-is-siri-ignoring-healthcare.html

2> Doctors are the new search engines

http://healthystartups.com/founders-blog/2012/7/26/doctors-are-the-new-search-engines.html

1> Startups: Do 1 thing

http://healthystartups.com/founders-blog/2011/10/25/startups-do-1-thing.html

Doctors are... dangerous (according to the internet)

Jason Berek-Lewis Founder, Healthy Startups 

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Healthy Startups has previoulsy covered ways that doctors can manage their online reputations (see http://healthystartups.com/startup-blog/2012/8/2/5-things-doctors-should-know-about-managing-their-reputation.html). But, at least according to a Google search, it's a losing battle.

This isn't a post about SEO or other ways to manipulate/ influence search results, but it does beg the question: is this really what patients think? After all, Google can only find what has been published on the internet and that content was created by people for a reason...

Sure, search results can be 'gamed', but at the end of the day they are simply a catalogue of what we publish online. If 'dangerous' is the first word that comes to Google's 'mind', then surely this reflects a large proportion of people's views. 

                                                                  Why are doctors dangerous?

By and large this all comes down to trust and I believe that Healthy Cyborgs simply no longer implicitly trust their doctors. Patients are empowered by technology and by 'knowledge' (I use the term loosely given the quality of some online health content) and are now armed with reams of 0s and 1s that lead them to second guessing their doctors, their diagnosis and their treatment.

But, patients aren't wholly at fault here. They are morphing in to Healthy Cyborgs, turning to new technologies and new social media forums to manage their health, mostly independently of their relationship with their doctor.

The majority of medical professionals haven't proactively engaged in managing their online profiles or in engaging with partients online. The medical professions have been to slow to recognise the democratization of health by the internet and social media and codes of conduct, together with medical education and training, just can't keep up with the pace of change.

The main reason why the internet thinks doctors are dangerous is that Western health systems are still stuck in 20th century models of care and funding models that are decades out of date... Meanwhile, healthy cyborgs are busy turning to their phones, social media networks and new technologies to manage their health. But, isn't this dangerous too?  

If you are a doctor, I think you will agree with that last statement.

And we'll all go along like before. 

* This post was inspired by Hon Weng Chong from StethoCloud (see http://www.stethocloud.com).

Why your medical practice needs a social media strategy

Jason Berek-Lewis Creator, Healthy Startups 
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Here are 6 reasons why medical practices, everything from a large metropolitan hospital to a 1 doctor clinic in a rural town, need a social media strategy:

Doctors are real people too

The patient/ doctor relationship is the nexus of Western healthcare systems. Doctors' education and training has become more focused on patients as people, but patients need to see their doctors are 'real' too... For too long patients have felt unable to query their doctor's advice, to ask for a simpler explanation of their health condition and treatment, to make their own views on their health care known.

We live in an era of patient empowerment, but this shouldn't mean disempowering doctors - by using social media, by being active on a medical practice's Facebook page or Twitter account, doctors can share their medical knowledge, but also some of their personality too... YouTube is a great way to do this: have every doctor in your practice record a 1 - 2 minute 'welcome' message for your practice's website and post these videos to YouTube too. For example, doctors can use YouTube to talk about the areas of health that interest them the most. By broadcasting a more rounded view of who doctors are - as practitioners and real people - you can help patients to expand the trust they place in members of your team.

Discover your colleagues

Clinicians can use social media sites such as Doximity or LinkedIn to learn more about colleagues, to share knowledge or to find practitioners that share interests in specific types of medicine. Social media is a powerful tool for knowledge sharing - with no physical barriers, medical staff in your practice can seek opinions, advice and support from other medical professionals across the globe.

Discover your patients

Who are your practice's patients? Do you know what motivates them to be healthy/ causes them to be unhealthy. Having a Facebook page for your practice can be a great way to spark discussions among your patient community and to learn what matters to them. What you discover could lead to the practice offering classes or creating patient support groups, or even becoming more involved in the local community...

Inspire your patients

Why not use Pinterest (http://healthystartups.com/founders-blog/2012/1/24/could-pinterest-be-the-healthiest-social-network.html) to create boards where you can post healthy recipes, exercise tips or motivational quotes? How about using the practice's Facebook page to organise a community health challenge like a mini marathon or diet goal? You can then use Facebook or YouTube to boast about the challenge's success...

Empower your patients

Provide a space like a blog, Facebook page, YouTube page or forum for patients to share their stories - particularly their health 'success stories'. Post, or encourage patients to post, some great examples of people losing weight, getting control of their cholesterol levels, keeping track of their INR results, managing the pain of their musculoskeletal condition, becoming better managers of their medications...

Create spaces for people to talk to each other: spark discussions on the health topic of the week on your practice blog (always sharing or crowdsourcing tips to overcome that week's challenge) or use your social media channels to organise online/offline patient support groups or to share information on new treatments/ therapies.

By creating opportunities to share knowledge and experiences, you will bring your patients closer together and potentially create a supportive community, of which your medical practice and medical staff are the hub.  

Build healthy communities 

While we live in a hyper connected world, we also live in a hyper local one and medical practices are often an important part of a community's fabric. By focusing on sharing locally relevant health information, promoting local health activities and empowering doctors and patients to share their (health) stories, you can use 'cyberspace' to build closer connections and better health outcomes in the real world...

Some tips for building your practice's social media strategy

• set clear objectives around how and why your will use social media and what you want to achieve.
• find out which social media sites are relevant to your patient community and 'go where the eyeballs are'.
• make someone in the practice responsible for social media.
• decide what types of information you want to share.
• use the offline world to reach out to patients and encourage them to participate on your practice's social media sites.

Social media is about sharing

Does your medical practice have a social media strategy? Are you a doctor/ who is  working to a social media strategy? Are you a patient who is using a social media tool to engage with your doctor? Share your experiences in the comment below, or contact me about writing a guest post for our Startup Blog - http://www.healthystartups.com/startup-blog

Doctors are the new search engines

Jason Berek-Lewis Founder, Healthy Startups 
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With research showing that patients, or healthy cyborgs (see http://healthystartups.com/founders-blog/2011/11/10/the-rise-of-healthy-cyborgs.html), are going online seeking information to spark discussions with their trusted health professionals, and some research showing that 4/5 people search online for health information, it's time for doctors to fight back...  

The trap for healthy cyborgs

The 0s and 1s revolution means that we now have access to more information than at any time in our history. But, how much of the health information online is trustworthy? A 2010 study conducted in the United Kingdom found that only 39 percent of sampled health websites provided accurate information (see http://www.bupa.com.au/staticfiles/Bupa/HealthAndWellness/MediaFiles/PDF/LSE_Report_Online_Health.pdf). The large volume of dubious online health information provides a unique opportunity for medcial professionals to create a new role for themselves in the information economy.

Doctors fight back!

The web now puts nearly infinite amount of information at the finger tips of our parents/patients. This can be good and bad. However, pediatrician(s) are specialist(s) that are educated in a very specific discipline thus making them highly trusted sources of information. This puts them in an excellent position to curate, manage, filter and organize the information that is on the web.

The truth is, there is a lot of bad information out there regarding pediatric health issues. And as long as that information remains unchecked, parents will assimilate it and credit it as factual. But by embracing the web as pediatric curators, pediatricians have the potential to procure the best healthcare related information on the web and share it with their network.

 Brandon Betancourt writing on http://www.kevinmd.com

Our trust in doctors and medical professionals remains strong (see http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/2818/Doctors-are-most-trusted-profession-politicians-least-trusted.aspx). Doctors have an opportunity to use this position of trust to become the new curators of health information.

Doctors who understand curation, who know how to use social bookmarking tools like Pinterest, who know where to find the best and most relevant information will be the ones who add real value to care of their patients - whether they are healthy cyborgs or not... 

Do you think patients want their doctors to act as search engines? Are doctors ready to fill this role? Share your thoughts in the comments below. 

How to find the hidden startup in every hospital...

Jason Berek-Lewis Creator, Healthy Startups 
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Image via http://3.bp.blogspot.com

 

 
... or maternal child and health centre, or general practice, or 24 hour emergency clinic or tent in the middle of the desert.

Every day, in each one of these health services and more, entrepreneurs are building teams, finding new investors, building new solutions, out caring their competition. They are disruptors, innovators, entrepreneurs or you might call them doctors, nurses, psychologists, surgeons, midwives, cardiologists...

In the West, high government debt, budget deficits, doctor shortages and ageing populations are creating 'perfect storms' for disruptors, people who are looking at old systems, tearning down the 'way we always do it' and building something new.

My vision for Healthy Startups has always been to champion these thinkers and doers, and I have done so where I can, but I also hope their stories and other posts on this blog can inspire the startup in your hospital or healthcare service.

You don't have to build the next big thing in health apps, or create a diagnostic attachement that works with an iPhone, but there are plenty of areas within hospitals and other health services that are crying out for disruption.

My number one tip for disrupting your health service and starting your own in house startup: really care about your patients. Not about treating their illness or successfully completing their surgery. Really care about your patients: know who they are, who they love, who loves them, what matters most in their lives. Patients are more than illnesses in broken bodies. Patients are more than analytics, treatment codes, health insurance forms and medication merchants. Each of them has a real story that is much bigger than just their condition.

Understand that and you have disrupted everything and your hospital is now a startup.  

Where are you building your hidden startup? What do you plan to disrupt?