Ever since the success of the Facebook newsfeed, I’ve wondered how this would work out when applied to a stream of personalized news items that’s not discussing points earned with the harvest of virtual crops or displaying pictures of last night’s tequilla race (which, in the end, the tequilla won by the way). Truckloads of corporate social networks like Socialtext, Yammer and BlueKiwi partly answered this question, but in my experience many items posted there still mostly concern ‘lighter’ subjects; interesting articles, office social happenings etc. Communication activities on which bottom line results hardly ever really depend. As soon as a certain degree of risk is involved that an unread or misinterpreted message leads to financial loss, people generally fall back on traditional media to communicate their message. As long as a social network is not an organisation’s primary means of communication, this situation is likely to remain.
But what if, especially in a situation when a team works in a high-risk environment such as a hospital, it is the primary means of communication? What would happen if an electronic patient record system would fully adopt the newsfeed principle? Heck, what if the entire Facebook look and feel that is so familiar to hundreds of millions of users around the globe would be at the very heart of a patient record system? We probably wouldn’t call it that anymore in the first place, would we? A Cure Team Network? Healthmedia? Curemunity? Let’s just plainly call it Patientbook for the moment.
OK, I hear you. “Never gonna happen since the risk of someone who is not supposed to is reading private information is to great, doctors could accidentally send private direct messages to the wrong patient, etc.” Exhibit A is Facebook itself, already having demonstrated the nightmare of privacy options in full. But what if…
Wouldn’t it be great to literally see your different care providers working together in one place all for the benefit of your health? And to actually be part of the conversation between your GP, physiotherapist and specialist instead of trying to catch a glimpse of their screen that contains the individual messages (or more often: printed letters) they’re sending to each other? Sure, there’s a major cultural shift involved. But customers are demanding more and more transparency in supply chains of all kinds of products, so they will eventually also expect full transparency in the process of servicing the product that serves them best; their own health.
Moreover, it’s give and take. You’re also making life easier for the medical professionals, as mobile monitoring will keep your team aware of any developments that may need attention (a status update caused by a high-risk biometric value will include your geoposition) and reduce the number of unpleasant surprises during their shift.
How would you like to see the newsfeed or other social network functionality revolutionize cooperation in health care teams?
softcode liked this
hospitalconcepts posted this
