PHOENIX, AZ – Hospital staff at Trinity Hospital are now required to attend social media-targeted family conference training and medical resource training.
Hospital administrator Rob Hamilton explains, “The recent discovery of the use of cell phones to combat pain has inspired us to use cell phones in other areas of healthcare. Social media is a HIPAA-friendly way to distribute patient updates and a great way to assist our doctors and nurses in making medical decisions.”
“My baby’s mom always updates on ‘Pray for Baby Nicole’ after she talks to me,” explained NICU nurse Susan. “But last time I told her that her baby slept all night except for feeding and diaper changes, and she posted that Nicole had a terrible night!” Nurse Susan added, “I don’t want her Facebook followers getting the wrong idea!”
Now required to conduct family updates in points less than 140 characters or three sentences, doctors and nurses will be able to accommodate both families and their propensities to post on social media sites.
As administrator Hamilton maintained, “It’s a HIPAA-friendly way to keep families, friends, and total strangers in the loop! We provide accurate and concise information in shareable sizes, and then it’s up the Facebook group administrator to share that information. Whoever holds the cell phone holds the power, and we’re trying to harness that.”
Doctors and nurses can now use social media as a medical resource in lieu of medical journals to figure out how to treat their patients. Facebook and Twitter fans love to diagnose and provide treatment recommendations that are extremely thorough.
Hamilton continued: “Facebook friends can now chime in with their comments to help direct medical-decision making. We even post polls to help decide if surgery should happen or medications changed. Facebook followers seem to always be up to date, even more so than UpToDate, on medical matters and we should trust them instead of our medical staff.”
“Plus with Facebook fans doing the medical research, we can reallocate hospital workers to code and provide sandwiches for our patients.”
SICU nurse Rachael and Gomerblog looked on, while calm and restful patient @Gray_Haired_Ninja updated his Twitter feed: In 10/10 pain but the nurse says it’s not time for #whatsitcalled? It starts with a ‘D’? #isittimeyet #hurryup.
