BodiMojo Blog

            Let’s talk about healthcare and technology, and in particular, pushing health concepts by using social media.

            First: setting the landscape. Compared to other industries—finance and retail—healthcare is in the dark ages with technology. Physicians have been slow to adopt electronic medical records, and only 8 percent of doctors are truly e-prescribing. HHMS Secretary Michael Leavitt has laid out an ambitious plan to transform healthcare by 2012, but the groundwork is still being laid out, like pieces of a very big puzzle that has yet to be assembled. 

Any bit of movement is encouraging, such as a recent study that says that over half of physicians are either using or interested in using physician online communities such as Sermo or Medscape Physician Connect. This is good news for a profession that would rather scrawl a prescription on a piece of paper than use a handheld.

            But there has been some headway in using technology for healthcare marketing. Just a little bit of digging around federal Web sites, shows that the use of social media is taking off in the federal government, which, by the way, is also the originator of VistA, a very capable electronic health record system employed by the Veteran’s Administration.

            The CDC, for example, has been exploring social health campaigns, including the use of newsgroups, wikis, podcasts, IMs, and, in particular, the use of mobile technology to push out health information. Want info on seasonal flu or public health emergencies? It’s as close as your PDA or mobile phone.

            The Feds haven’t been shy in using blogging either: there are at least 20 federal agency blogs for the public, on topics ranging from AIDs to the White House (of course, you wouldn’t expect anything less from our Blackberry-pushing pres).

            Anne Zieger, editor of FierceHealthIT, a weekly e-newsletter for Health IT leaders, points out that social marketing is a natural, when it comes to playing an important role in supporting health information technology efforts. Facebook and MySpace are no brainers, but there are also a 100-odd vendors out there whose technology offers the ability to build your own private-label social network.  And you can even create your own call-in talk radio show, on BlogTalkRadio.com.

             If the Old Gray Mare—the Federal Government—ain’t what she used to be and has become a techno-whiz, then the future looks bright indeed.

            Ahhh, yes, the sky’s the limit. Here at BodiMojo, design teams are striving to stay ahead of the curve, linking up health information with the latest mobile technology as well. We have the wheels turning on mobile apps, as well as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and our very own blog—and as far as radio? Who knows? You’ll just have to tune in later.

– Contributed by Cindy Atoji, BodiMojo blogger