As a 21^st century citizen, I can read no newspaper and watch no TV. I get my news from the Internet, and not even have to look at a news website. I have Facebook and twitter. Actually as a Chinese, I got my Weibo and Wechat news threads. In a world people hold their smartphones whole day and all night, if a business doesn’t successfully utilize the social media, it will not just be unsuccessful, but doomed to fail.

Same rule applies to the healthcare providers and other businesses in the healthcare industry, such as the previously introduced PatientsLikeMe whose mobile application is still absent. Some may have the impression that things related to medicine and hospital should be more serious and credible than what is conveyed through social media. However, the role of social media nowadays is not simply a spread of word of mouth. More functions are performed on this modern platform.

Let’s look at some statistics on how social media has impacted the health care delivery. (source: referralMD)

1. More than 40% of consumers say that information found via social media affects the way they deal with their health.

Why this matters: Health care professionals have an obligation to create educational content to be shared across social media that will help accurately inform consumers about health related issues and out shine misleading information. The opinions of others on social media are often trusted but aren’t always accurate sources of insights, especially when it comes to a subject as sensitive as health.

2. 18 to 24 year olds are more than 2 times as likely than 45 to 54 year olds to use social media for health-related discussions.

Why this matters: 18 to 24 year olds are early adopters of social media and new forms of communication which makes it important for health care professionals to join in on these conversations where and when they are happening. Don’t move too slow or you risk losing the attention of this generation overtime.

3. 90% of respondents from 18 to 24 years of age said they would trust medical information shared by others on their social media networks.

Why this matters: A millennial’s network on social media is a group of people that is well trusted online, which again, presents an opportunity to connect with them as health care professional in a new and authentic way.

4. 31% of health care organizations have specific social media guidelines in writing.

Why this matters: It is crucial to have social media guidelines in place for your health care facility to ensure everyone is on the same page, your staff is aware of limitations to their actions on social media and that a systematic strategy is in place for how social media should be run across your organization.

5. 19% of smartphone owners have at least one health app on their phone. Exercise, diet, and weight apps are the most popular types.

Why this matters: This drives home the need for your health care organization to look into possibly launching a health related app focused on your specialty. This statistic doesn’t mean every health care facility should have their own app, but they should have a strong mobile focus across their marketing no matter their size.

For more statistics and figures, see 24 Outstanding Statistics & Figures on How Social Media has Impacted the Health Care Industry

Social media is not anymore a one-direction marketing tool for healthcare providers and related businesses, but the speculation and peer-to-peer interaction is significantly influencing important decisions of those parties. The power of interaction and viral information transaction is leading the healthcare industry from bottom up. Healthcare practitioners should pay more attention to the information they delivered and the way they deliver it.

PatientsLikeMe 2 - Grow To Serve Better

Continued from last post, PatientsLikeMe (PLM) shows great potential, but seems have some problem to sustain its growth and expansion. Why is this happening?

The first problem is its business model. PLM doesn’t charge the patients. The website doesn’t display ads. The revenue comes solely from the buyers of its data. However, the value of its data can be questioned, as quite a portion of the patient users doesn’t provide accurate or useful information, and PLM is unable to verify the information. Additionally, PLM doesn’t have enough channels to sell its data, making its revenue very limited.

The second thing is that PLM isn’t making good use of the modern technology. Although it has its own Facebook, twitter and YouTube pages, there were not a lot of visits. It also has a blog on its official website, posting abundant medical news and interesting healthcare topics, but most of the posts have zero or only one comment. The biggest weakness, I think, is that PLM doesn’t even have a mobile application. WebMD, and CureTogether are PLM’s direct competitors, and they both released mobile app. “If you love something, make it mobile.” It’s hard to understand why a platform like PLM, collecting data in a very innovative way, has given its strength of innovation away by not following the mobile trend.

Another problem is the competition. As mentioned earlier, WebMD and CureTogether have taken away a great deal of PLM’s market. WebMD is more for medical practitioners and researchers, and CureTogether has a very similar model as PLM. The one using the same model is experiencing similar problems, but WebMD can plays as a best practice in the market. From its website’s contents to the user interface, it deserves that kind of activeness.

In terms of solution to PLM’s current problems, there are several strategies I can think of. PLM’s website could provide more interesting information for patients to view. It may be helpful to open a new sector displaying intriguing health-related knowledge or content, which will attract health-oriented online searchers apart from patients. It could also improve its disease categories besides the life-changing diseases, such as ALS and cancer, as there are also some other long- term diseases lacking of effective treatment, such as hay asthma.

PLM could improve its search engine optimization by improving its rank in search results for keywords like “online patients community”, “patients information sharing” etc. This will help patients or web users who surf on net can get easier access to the website and perceive it as the keyword description.

For social media, PLM could come up with marketing campaigns to increase followers. For instance, PLM could sponsor medical-related events and influential medical institutions’ activities (Johns Hopkins Hospital for instance), and participate in the Twitter and Youtube interaction.

PLM was one of those named “TheNext Disruptors: 15 companies that will change the world”. I personally very fond of the great incentives of the founders of this company, and I believe with some improvements, it can better serve the patients and help with finding better cure to disease.

A video from PLM's YouTube posting. The Patient Voice: Garth Callaghan, The Napkin Notes Dad.

PatientsLikeMe - Curing through Sharing

I was diagnosed idiopathic scoliosis when I was 11 years old. During about 5 years of treatment, there were several decisions that I wonder if done differently, could significantly change how I am now. Starting from the choice of hospital and physician, later comes to the choice of treatment and post-op care. I can’t help but wondering, what if I knew the best choices for me from the beginning, or if I could talk to people who had the same disease as I did, how much better could I be treated?

Something didn’t exist at my time is now helping more people like the younger me – PatientsLikeMe.

PatientsLikeMe (PLM) is an online community built to support information exchange between patients. The site provides customized disease-specific outcome and visualization tools to help patients understand and share information about their condition.

PLM provides a platform for patients to share their symptoms and experiences of fighting with disease, to find out patients who have similar symptoms and to learn more about the treatments of the disease. For instance, if a patient starts to sign up on the PLM website, she might join a specific community (e.g. ALS) with a username and a profile of her symptoms. The information of the profile is available for other users to review and comment. In my case, I can search for scoliosis and join the community to find the most suitable or advanced treatment for this particular disease, or even talk to other patients to exchange some hospital or physician information.

PLM stands against other
social media health platforms due to 
the depth and span of its data
 collected. As stated, there are 
numerous communities on the PLM 
platform. Each community is
patient-oriented. Patient data from 
whom similar conditions generate d
are integrated on the basis of
 community. Thus hospitals, medical 
research institutes and pharmaceutical companies are interested in this company and hope to use the data for treatment improvement, medicine development, or scientific research.

The data collecting and redistribution process combines ICT with personalized care delivery, and creates a virtuous cycle to improve each patient’s condition and the whole health care delivery system. However, PLM is experiencing some problem and is slowing down its development. In the next post, I will dig deeper into the problems and possible solutions.