Social Media And Medicine, Part 2
Social media is about more than culling your flock.
That's something that the Internet allows you to do: cast your net to the entire world -- or at least, your geographic catchment area -- and make yourself easily found by those who find you appealing. A small fraction of the total, but enough to make a happy living with, and to stay busy with, keeping them happy.
And that last part is the key -- what differentiates social media from the medium of the Internet.
What separates caring for your patients from basic patient care.
I've referred to this before, in my regular EHR/EMR blog: today's doctors are so incredibly time-pressed that it's an uphill battle to see past the end of the shift. That can have a certain effect on patient care. If you think you're giving your all and some folks don't appreciate it, there are 5 more folks behind them clamoring for their spots. The emphasis is on getting those "difficult patients" to step aside, not on adjusting your outlook as an already harried provider.
Medical training has traditionally lagged here, too. The focus is on learning the body's systems and the various ways they can go south, and hopefully fixed. Managing your own attitude as a provider of care? That would be incredibly progressive and uncommon.
The reality is, physicians have had the luxury of going about business as usual, and finding their own way of "telling it like it is." The supply of healthcare providers was far smaller than the demand of patients, and supply and demand were the primary forces at play. Advantage: physicians.
With The New Reformation, things are shaping up differently.
Demand is still greater than supply, but there are other demands at play. Doctors are starting to be graded based on performance metrics -- what percentage of their diabetics have controlled cholesterol, what percentage of their female patients have had Pap smears, and so on. Payments are changing based on performance and patient satisfaction ratings. Rumblings from the President on down about shifting the pay scheme from quantity to quality of care.
All of which means, if you're a doctor, you can't bury your head in the sand, anymore.
Doing your own thing and knowing your CME Ps and Qs ain't gonna be good enough.
You're going to need a new adeptness.
Understanding what motivates people -- truly motivates them, not just what they say they want (e.g. "I can't afford those smoking cessation classes, doc," from the guy who has a satellite dish on his mobile home).
Appreciating that to sway numbers of people, you have to play within their mindsets, their viewpoints -- or have organization-level resources with money and manpower to burn to forcibly re-educate them.
Learning how to communicate in riveting ways, and the value in working on folks over time, continually.
Most importantly, believing that success in changing patient behavior directly depends upon the quality of your relationship with them. Relationships that you build and nurture over time with an integrated effort, central to your worldview. Not a lip service afterthought.
Or as social media folks say, Content Isn't King, Relationships Are.
Time to learn from the experts.
