Cast & Curious

Tag: healthcare

  • Jan 4, 2014 #HealthXPh Tweet Chat and Hangout on Air Topic Responses

    It was a happy day of surprises for the #HealthXPh community as it officially launched the tweet chat and Google Hangout as platforms for health collaboration. For a community less than a month old, #HealthXPh’s tweet chat’s upsurge of activity (we hit 560+ impressions!) delighted us to no end. Big thanks to our friends and colleagues at #hcldr and the Filipino physicians for supporting the launching of tweet chat.

    The live tweet chat started on time while a hangout (instead of the scheduled Hangout on Air) started some 45 minutes after because of technical difficulties. Once the conversations on hangout rolled however, it snowballed into one live, highly interactive discussion on emerging technologies. We actually went into overtime by some 30minutes or so!

    Since we’re utilizing all medium as a platform for collaboration,  I’m answering the questions/topics in a blog post, here in my blog.

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    T1. What is #HealhXPh for core collaborators?[/box]

    HealthXPh is an enabling platform of collaboration for all the healthcare stakeholders -physicians, patients, healthcare institutions, academe and policy makers in the Philippines. It will engage all of these stakeholders to take a more active role in owning issues that affect their health. It aims to give stakeholders a new tool to increase reach beyond what mainstream media can in the discussions about health.

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    T2. What emerging technologies do you find important and relevant in healthcare?[/box]

    The mobile sms because of its reach and widespread use in the Philippines is still on top of these emerging technologies. With adaptation and maximization of its use to further healthcare programs and discussions is of great potential for an archipelagic country like the Philippines. I currently use sms to remind some of my distantly located patients of their follow -up schedule and specialist referrals.

    Social media also plays an important role for me in my clinical practice. This is mainly for patient education and collaboration with fellow physicians. I get queries from potential patients on facebook, twitter and sometimes Google+. All my social media interactions are aimed at encouraging patients to see a physician personally for their health questions and concerns.  While facebook and twitter may have the farthest reach,  I’m particularly interested with Google+ and all the app services attached to it. It’s potential as a platform for use to health is enormous. Most of these services, is free. Of course, blogging is an effective social media platform to further healthcare discussions and raise awareness. I’ve been blogging since 2006 and that spurred my interest into social media as a platform for collaboration in health!

    I do not consider email as an emerging technology nowadays but for the past decade, it has been a great tool for me in health. Research, training, discussions, updates, and lately to communicate with patients has all been quite a success.

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    T3 What do you think are the obstacles to the use of emerging technologies in healthcare?[/box]

    Many healthcare stakeholders in the Philippines adapt slowly to emerging technologies when it comes to health. Technical knowhow seem to be an apparent stumbling block. However, if you observe the use of emerging technologies in other segments of our society- business, entertainment and politics, this stumbling block seem negligible. Socially this is can be tied up to a bigger, more fundamental reality to Filipino’s priorities. Health and all other services attached to it, remains low on our priority scale. This is the behavior we wanted to change. With social media as a platform, #HealthXPh could hopefully effect a positive behavioral change to all stakeholders for a collaboration on health.

    Closing Thought (CT): What’s one thing you’ve learned in todays discussion that you can take to your place of influence to help a patient or colleague tomorrow?

    Foremost in my intention is to enlighten interested colleagues and patients regarding social media use in healthcare. Enlighten primarily mean allaying fears of physicians regarding social media usage and issues. The other is to come up with simpler “1-2-3  how to steps” for adapting to some social media tools they can use.

    Thanks to all those who joined and supported #HealthXPh tweetchat and Hangout on Air launch. See you again next week!

    [box style=”green info shadow” ]#HealthXPh tweet chat and Google Hangout on Air happens every Saturday 10 am Manila time (UTC +8 hours). Join the #HealthXPh community on Google Plus, facebook group, like our FB page and on twitter discussions using #HealthXPh hashtag. Subscribe to the HealthXPh blog (www.healthxph.net)  for more updates on email  and your RSS feeds.[/box]

  • Do you want your healthcare professionals or healthcare institutions to have a social media policy?

    Yesterday I started a survey  asking healthcare professionals (physicians, nurses and allied medical professionals) if their healthcare institutions have a social media usage policy. (If you’re a healthcare professional you can still vote and comment in that post. ) Now its time to ask our clients, the Filipino patients:

    Do you want your healthcare professionals (physicians, nurses allied medical personnel) and /or healthcare institutions (hospitals, clinics) to have a social media policy?

    Philippines, the social media capital of the world!

    This question is important and highly relevant. Why? Philippines is the social media capital of the world and there’s a surge of content sharing in these social networks. That is according to this report by the Global Web Index. Sharing health related patient information on these social networks threads dangerously on an already greyed (if there is/was) privacy and health information laws here in the Philippines. Without enforced laws or governing policies, a breach of patient’s privacy and confidential information have consequences that pose a threat to the mutual trust between patients and his/her physician or that of his/her healthcare institution.

    The other reason is about enhancing patient communication. Social media is  an alternative, revolutionary way in which healthcare professionals or institutions communicate or interact with their patients.  Social media (though research data is lacking on this) could be  a venue for positive reinforcement of actual clinical consults and follow ups. A recent survey also shows that social media is now gaining ground as source of health information in first world countries. The absence of policies regarding its use defaults the interaction to a “free for all” and often negatively affect the overall outcome of these patient-physician  or patient-healthcare institution interactions.

    So again, I’m asking you, Filipino patients, or anyone since obviously you are the ones will be ultimately affected by this policy.

    Do you want your healthcare professional or healthcare institution to have a social media policy use?

    Please vote below and comment (in the comments section) if you wanted to explain your answer. Should you want to maintain anonymous, just email me privately thru this contact page and I will assure you of your confidentiality)

    [poll id=”3″]

  • Do you have a social media policy in your healthcare institution?

    Philippines ranks first in the global social media penetration according to a February 2011 market survey by Global Web Index. In this survey, it was also pointed out that asian countries do more ‘content sharing‘ than sharing messages as in other countries (UK, Canada). What is the implication of this survey results to Philippines’ healthcare system?

    Philippines tops social media usage globally! (Infograph from Mashable by Global Web Index)

    Possibly huge. Possibly positive. Sometimes, menacingly negative.

    For Filipino patients, the surge of content sharing and social media usage puts a huge stress on prevailing (or lack of) Philippine laws that govern patient information confidentiality. The lackluster enforcement of such laws, if there is/was, is/are sporadic. One does not need to look further. The gruesome photos (trauma, surgical, etc) that somehow lands on your Facebook wall is a testament to this breach. It’s also not uncommon to read patient blogs, tweets and comments on Facebook that cast doubts on healthcare professionals or or institution’s credibility. Some even lead to sensational malpractice suits.

    To healthcare professionals (physicians, nurses, allied medical professionals) the responsibility is even greater. In first world countries, there are stringent rules of engagement for healthcare professionals on how they relate to their patients and to healthcare institutions on social media. Such policy govern healthcare professionals employed in healthcare institutions and who’s social media usage directly or indirectly affects that of his or her employer. In the Philippines , while majority of healthcare professional and institutions  does not seem bothered  yet,  catastrophic consequences still hangs in the future . How many times have you encountered photos on Facebook that are in one way or another health patient or institution related? Too often?

    For healthcare institutions, this surge is promisingly positive should they take advantage of social media usage. This study by the Global Web Index for example is a market survey for business entrepreneurs. This could be an area for healthcare institution to reach out, communicate to their clients and improve the institutions online visibility. This is what the Mayo Clinic, Mount Sinai hospital for example is doing crafting their own social media policy to enhance patient – institution communication.

    Filipinos spend one fourth of a day on social media network.(Thanks to Dr. Iris Isip Tan for posting this infograph)

    But without a policy to govern such social media practices by their employees (internal) or their patients (external), the healthcare institution risks running into so many potential negative social media issues aside from economic ones (employees using social media at the workplace).

    As an afterthought, let me share another info graphic about use of health related IT technologies in US (source). Take a look at the social media usage. To think, Philippines is ‘ahead” of US in terms of per population social media usage. I don’t know if Philippines has have similar figures in terms of health related social IT. This should be an interesting research for healthcare markets.

    Health related IT technologies usage in US (source)

    So to answer this post title-question, I’m making an informal, non scientific survey here. This is open to all medical and allied medical professionals. Please answer the poll and please comment below if you need to explain your answer.

    [poll id=”2″]

    Thank you for voting!

  • Do we need a law that protect healthcare providers if they disclose or confess medical errors?

    Central to correcting medical errors is accepting one first, if it did happen. Improvement in healthcare delivery will only happen if we learn from our mistakes and make concrete, active steps to rectify it. This is what we actually do during mortality and morbidity conference- analyze medical events and cases to help improve delivery of healthcare services.

    The health care industry accepted the occurrence of medical errors decades ago. But disclosing medical errors publicly is unpopular even in countries where litigation is relatively not so common. Why? No one really knows. In our society however, publicly apologizing for one’s true medical mistakes is akin to killing your medical career. I guess it’s a bit easier to admit moral turpitude publicly than let’s say admitting you misdiagnosed a patient. The acceptance is just too low.

    But what can we do? First, we should create an environment of open-mindedness among medical peers and enact laws that will protect disclosures of medical errors publicly. That way, we can freely examine medical errors to institute appropriate corrective actions based on acceptable and evidenced based medical practice.

    This is what John Hopkins University Hospital is doing since 2001. Their  Disclosure Policy  protects and actually encourages employees to confess or report medical errors. This is partly the reason why JHUH  litigations have continually decreased ever since the policy has been implemented.  John Hopkins is the top ranked hospital in the US for 20 years already.

    Medical errors simply don’t surface over time. For us, providing a “medical whistle blower” law might just be the first step in improving delivery of healthcare services. Don’t you think so?

     

  • Loyal patient watchers..

    Communication, patient-provider (photo taken from http://www.aafp.org/fpm/1999/0500/p23.html )

    I was doing my usual morning rounds last tuesday when a watcher of one of my patients approached me before I saw their patient in his bed. This watcher mentioned that someone went inside their patient’s room and asked questions that raised the curiosity of the family. The watcher spoke a different dialect and though I understood most of what she’s trying to convey, she fumbled with words and was obviously concerned at the “questioning” incident. I asked about the details of the incident, but none of them can give me a clear idea what was the “questioning” all about.. All I can deduce from the watchers was that someone asked them and “implied” a question of competency  and thus are worried about their decisions in seeking my care.

    Unfortunately, none of the watchers asked (they are probably too shy or too gentle) the name nor remembered the identity of the person. They describe the interviewer as wearing a white dress and was asking other questions like “Why go to this hospital?” or “Who told you or referred you to this institution?”.

    I asked the family then if this did affect their perception of my competency. I heard a resounding “Hindi po” or “No, it didn’t”.

    I suddenly remembered who the interviewer could be. None of these watchers realized  that the interviewer was actually  doing a sanctioned survey.  I have yet to encounter this response variance (meaning, the watcher doubted competency as a result of being interviewed) in any surveys I’ve been involved. This however pointed out one thing- a communication gap between the interviewer and the interviewee. The interviewer broke protocols by not introducing herself (blinding?) which rose suspicion and doubts on the part of the interviewee. Imagine what a simple mistake like this evoking a different response!

    I  felt relieved discovering this fact but was bothered by the communication gap. I spent more time explaining the survey and placate these watchers apprehensions. This time spent explaining will go a long way protecting a provider’s image from a simple neglect of introducing oneself before any patient or watcher’s interaction.

    So doubts? Nah. But I’m sure that staff will have something to learn from communications 101!