Health Media + Digital Health | i3 | institute for innovation + improvement

#DigitalHealth

#eHealth

#HealthIT

Opportunity

In recent years the use of health media platforms (eg Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn) has increased significantly – with healthcare professionals around the world using these tools to promote health awareness, encourage patient engagement, share clinical research and increase the spread of accurate health information.

i3 aims to help our clinicians transform healthcare through the use of health media tools. We are starting with a small number of pilot projects that can be customised and scaled. The aim is to support clinical groups to incrementally build a social health media presence, and provide tailored support to ‘health media champions’ that have been identified across different specialties.

We are privileged to have organisational membership of the Mayo Clinic’s Social Media Network, which was established to improve health globally by enhancing the use of social networking tools, and provide a collaborative learning community of patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals. The Mayo Clinic’s blogs, resources and advice on how to develop and scale a social media presence will inform our work.

Aim

Improve the digital experience and engage our patients more meaningfully via health media platforms
Empower patients to take an active role in their own health and care, by providing timely access to relevant, trusted information and facilitating peer support online
Develop 'digital ecosystems' around people for enhanced and measurable experiences and outcomes
Improve two-way communication and information-sharing between patients and clinicians and the wider Waitemata DHB community
Encourage and support clinicians to use appropriate health media tools
Improve health outcomes for patients as a result of the above

Invervention

Scoping Phase

A survey was circulated to all doctors in Waitemata DHB (April 2017), to gauge their current usage of health media platforms, and to identify potential health media 'champions' across different divisions/services. Seventy-eight clinicians responded, giving us insight into their personal and professional use of health media tools. Follow-up discussions with those who nominated themselves, or colleagues, as early adopters have given us further insight into the perceived social media / digital needs of these specialties.

Clinician's personal and professional use of social media

Prototype and Test

Our current phase of work involves building our own capability within i3, and adopting social platforms. Our aim is to create an interactive and 'live' web-platform to aggregate information from various sources, including current work, blogs, forums and social networks.

We will work with our health media 'champions' on a small number of pilot projects, tailored specifically to the health media needs of the individual service. i3 will support clinicians to develop a social media presence with appropriate tools that foster two-way communication and that will have a positive impact on patient communication and engagement.