Seriously, why Twitter?
I’m not a user of Twitter and might only become one if I thought it might be a good way of reporting breaking news during, say, a speech at a conference or something like that. Any other uses seriously seem pointless, particularly in healthcare.
I’m particularly disturbed by the news last month that the chief resident at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit provided live tweets of a surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from a kidney. Then, last week, another Henry Ford resident Twittered a robotic hysterectomy.
I know the Twitterers weren’t the actual surgeons doing the cutting, but seriously, didn’t they have anything better to do? And unless they were close friends or family of the patients, didn’t the people following the updates have anything better to do with their time?
As I watched so many news outlets breathlessly report on the popularity of Twitter in recent weeks, I couldn’t help thinking that once the mainstream media and non-techies started using this decidedly geeky application, Twitter may already be jumping the shark. A day or so after I first had this thought, I heard someone on WGN Radio in Chicago say Twitter had jumped the shark. And then, last week, The Daily Show had this great satire of Twitter.
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Still, I think this person offers the best commentary on Twitter I’ve seen to date.
Seriously, why not?While I do agree that this is a silly experiment. However I think the mechanism of broadcasting status (or progress) of a surgery to a wider audience could come in handy.Think of the coordination of the whole surgery workflow, the reception at ICU could benefit from being able to ascertain progress of their incoming patients. Similarly the dispatching wards could also know whether or not to start prepping their pats.This can of course be done with any method of communication, but the point that the OR it self distributes this information to a large range of receivers is interesting. Rather than each individual (interested) party polling the OR, the OR broadcasts it’s status.Twitter, however, is not appropriate for this service, but the concept is interesting (to me).
Of course it’s a good way to report breaking news. It’s also a good way to ask for updates from an informed audience that may no more than the news gatherer at a point in time.As a new media and search tool, users are still learning about how to best use Twitter appropriately, and operating room reporting may cross the line in most cases. Of course, when Octo-Mommy gave birth that was clearly relevant news content, and Twitter would have accelerated the news cycle.Twitter is an easy target for parody, as it should be. But so was e-mail 15 years ago, and try to live without it today. 3 years ago bloggers were ridiculed for their arrogance to think people wanted to know their daily thoughts. Now blogs facilitate communities in many industries and occupations.Give Twitter a little time, and I think we’ll soon see applications that start to make sense and add value.
Check out http://twitter.com/joemd Here is a doctor who is appropriately sharing his experience on twitter. A very human perspective on medical practice. I’d follow on twitter any physician that could match Joe’s obvious compassion. He is a credit to the profession.
Twitter is awesome. I only recently found people to connect with in healthcare, but so far I’ve gotten the following from Twitter:-Advertiser for EMR and HIPAA-Content for EMR and HIPAA blog posts-Answers to HIPAA legal questions-Traffic to EMR and HIPAA blogand non health care related…-Tickets to Opening Night of Terry Fator in Las Vegas-Tickets to Cirque de Soleil in Las Vegas-Free graphic design work-Recommendations for web development/graphic design companies-Connection to High School football coach to collaborate with on a high school sports fundraiserI’m sure I’m leaving out 100 different things. The point is that Twitter is a really powerful way to connect people. Hard to understand until you experience the connections first hand.Sometimes I do wish that I could divide and filter my twitter account, but sometimes it’s fun to see the firehose of all the various topics that interest me.On that note, make sure to follow me.
Critiquing something with which you have no personal experience, and only third-hand knowledge through the media, is akin to standing by the road waiting for cars to break down so you can yell “Get a horse.”Of course it takes a while for new ideas to be utilized meaningfully. And no, Twittering may not be the ideal use of time and energy in certain fields.Twitter broke the news of the recent plane landing in the Hudson river, and provided an amazing first photo seen in news outlets worldwide.http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/1/us-airways-crash-rescue-picture-citizen-jouralism-twitter-at-workhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/twitter/4269765/New-York-plane-crash-Twitter-breaks-the-news-again.htmlJust because some people haven’t figured out the best use of a tool doesn’t invalidate that tool. And a tool that allows you to self-select your intake of information by choosing who you follow and deciding who gets to follow you can’t jump the shark. The shark doesn’t even get to see your profile.