1. Practicing social media in health
and medicine:
A primer for researchers and health professionals
Daniel Hooker (Fran)Cisco Grajales eHealth Investigative
Researcher Graduate Student Partnership Program
eHealth Strategy Office Researcher (eHIPP) Rounds
eHealth Strategy Office June 16, 2011
@danhooker
Trainee, Western
Regional Training
Centre for HSR
@ciscogiii

2. Introductions

3. image credit Kris Krug

7. Overview
By the end of this presentation, you will be able to:
• Define “social media” and understand generally
how they are used in medicine and health research
• Identify issues relating to the everyday use of social
media in health and medicine
• Understand current directions in social media
research
• Recognize future directions in the field

8. Social Media Defined
• Social media is the use of web-based and mobile
technologies to turn communication into interactive
dialogue. (Wikipedia)
• Often synonymous with Web 2.0
• “Seems to be like Pink Floyd lyrics: It can mean
different things to different people, depending on
your state of mind.” (Kevin Maney)

11. Basic Premises of Social Media
• Social media research in medicine is parallel in with telephone-
based telemedicine
• No true “experts”: things change and evolve - FAST!
• No service, website or company fits into one service category.
• Education and Awareness
• Data Collection
• Remote Monitoring
• P2P Communication
• Disease and Epidemic Outbreak Tracking
• Diagnostic Treatment and Support

12. BLOGS

13. What is a Blog?
A blog is a type of website... usually maintained by an
individual with regular entries of commentary,
descriptions of events, or other material such as
graphics or video. (Wikipedia, 12 June 2011)

19. What is Twitter?
• Twitter is often called a “microblog”:
primarily text- and hyperlink-based
communication 140-characters in length.
• Allows people to exchange ideas rapidly
and consume with massive amounts of
information quickly.
• The 140-character limit was chosen
based on text-messaging.

27. What is social networking?
Web-based tools that allow for social interaction
through profile pages of “friends” who upload, share,
and comment on each others’ digital media.

31. Facebook for Rounding?

33. ISSUES: Privacy / Professionalism

34. ISSUES: Privacy / Professionalism

40. ISSUES: Privacy / Professionalism

50. What about information quality?

51. MYTHS

52. Social
media is
always
positive

53. Social
media is
always
positive

54. Social media is brand new

55. Social media is too hard

56. Gender Equity?
• Many of the leaders are women
• @DrVal, Founder of getbetterhealth.com
• @sixuntilme, Highly Regarded ePatient
• @CorineJansen, Chief Listening Officer, UMC St. Radboud

57. RESEARCH

67. Rules of engagement
• Be authentic
• Maintain professionalism
• Have fun & don’t let the fear of
the unknown stop you
• Ask for help
• Focus, Grab Attention, Engage,
and Take Action (The Dragonfly
Model)

68. WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?

69. • Facilitating research production by enhancing collaboration,
communication, information sharing (Community of Practice)
• Clinical trial recruitment
• Staying current
• Open(ing) peer review
• Fighting misinformation spread
• Shifting roles for patients, providers and policy makers

70. THANK YOU

71. Questions?

72. Daniel Hooker
http://danielhooker.com/
@danhooker
daniel.h@ubc.ca
Fran(Cisco) J Grajales III
http://franciscograjales.com/
@ciscogiii
cisco@franciscograjales.com