1. Google yourself - repeat on a regular basis, at least once a month, and set up Google alerts to catch new mentions.
2. Correct mistakes and false information about you that is published online. Contact the site authors.
3. Create your own content - start a blog, Twitter account and Facebook page, use Google+ for draft posts. Send selected news to Twitter, try Facebook for updates from you practice. Link you own blog posts from Twitrter and Facebook.
Setup professional profiles on Google+ and LinkedIn.
Push irrelevant or non-reliable content down in the search results. The farther down the better, as 90% of people won't go past the first page of search results and 99% won't go past page 2.
4. Embrace constructive online criticism. Consider it a 360-degree evaluation.
5. Address actionable items such as "hot button issues" among patients - long waits, lack of response or slow responses.
Cycle of Online Information and Physician Education (click here to enlarge the image). An editable copy for your presentation is available at Google Docs.
I developed the concept of Two Interlocking Cycles:
- Cycle of Patient Education - Cycle of Online Information and Physician Education
The two cycles work together as two interlocking cogwheels (TIC):
"As we start 2012, and welcome the more than 6 million annual visitors to our journal's Web site, we remind our readers that the online version, not the shorter print edition, is the official journal of record. Is it time to do away with the print version? Probably not just yet, but it may not be long until we are heading in that direction.
If you are thinking, “there are so many options to peruse and so little time!” you will find some highlights of each issue in our blog - First Read - which contains previews of articles of interest selected by members of our executive editorial board. We are even running some of our most interesting “fillers” from the print journal in the blog so they are not missed by our online readers"
All physicians should consider starting a blog in 2012
I would encourage all physicians to start a blog in 2012 - here is why (quotes from an interview with Seth Godin and Tom Peters):
"Blogging is free. It doesn’t matter if anyone reads it. What matters is the humility that comes from writing it. What matters is the metacognition of thinking about what you’re going to say.
No single thing in the last 15 years professionally has been more important to my life than blogging. It has changed my life, it has changed my perspective, it has changed my intellectual outlook, it’s changed my emotional outlook. And it’s free."
Don't limit yourself to your blog - use Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus
Blogging can be great for personal growth but there is a lot more interaction on Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus nowadays as compared to blogs. If you have a blog, you must also have a Facebook "like" page (previously called "fan" page), a Twitter account, and probably a Google Plus page. These serve the dual purpose of distribution and commenting channels ("two-way street").
For example, Facebook pages get a lot more interaction than blogs for some medical journals - you can compare the number of comments on the NEJM Facebook updates (the range is 9-180) vs. their blog (0). The blog has comments enabled, of course.
Facebook is the clear "winner" in terms of commenting activity, it is not even close:
This is a suggested simple project for all doctors in 2012:
1. Start on Twitter (microblog). 2. Continue on Blogger/WordPress. 3. Make an impact. Improve the quality of online health information and tell the public your side of the story.
How to Create a Blog on Blogger in 5 minutes (Google video):
Help your patients and your practice
I developed the concept of Two Interlocking Cycles:
- Cycle of Patient Education - Cycle of Online Information and Physician Education
The two cycles work together as two interlocking cogwheels (TIC):
A South Korean couple who were addicted to the internet let their three-month-old baby starve to death while raising a virtual daughter online, police said.
An autopsy showed her death was caused by a long period of malnutrition.
The couple had become obsessed with nurturing a virtual girl called Anima in the popular role-playing game Prius Online.
Some psychiatrists still have doubts if Internet addiction exists but it looks pretty much for real in this video:
"If a photograph of an identifiable patient is used, the patient should complete and sign our Release Form for Photographs of Identifiable Patients. Any information that might identify the patient or hospital, including the date, should be removed from the image."
Images – such as x rays, laparoscopic images, ultrasound images, pathology slides, or images of undistinctive parts of the body – may be used without consent so long as they are anonymised by the removal of any identifying marks and are not accompanied by text that could reveal the patient’s identity through clinical or personal detail.
Case Reports and HIPAA
Physicians must assure that the case report does not contain any of the 18 health information identifiers noted in the HIPAA regulations, unless authorization from the individual (s) has been obtained. The authorization is not required if neither of the 18 identifiers below are used in the case report.
List of 18 Identifiers:
1. Names;
2. All geographical subdivisions smaller than a State, including street address, city, county, precinct, zip code, and their equivalent geocodes, except for the initial three digits of a zip code, if according to the current publicly available data from the Bureau of the Census: (1) The geographic unit formed by combining all zip codes with the same three initial digits contains more than 20,000 people; and (2) The initial three digits of a zip code for all such geographic units containing 20,000 or fewer people is changed to 000.
3. All elements of dates (except year) for dates directly related to an individual, including birth date, admission date, discharge date, date of death; and all ages over 89 and all elements of dates (including year) indicative of such age, except that such ages and elements may be aggregated into a single category of age 90 or older;
4. Phone numbers;
5. Fax numbers;
6. Electronic mail addresses;
7. Social Security numbers;
8. Medical record numbers;
9. Health plan beneficiary numbers;
10. Account numbers;
11. Certificate/license numbers;
12. Vehicle identifiers and serial numbers, including license plate numbers;
13. Device identifiers and serial numbers;
14. Web Universal Resource Locators (URLs);
15. Internet Protocol (IP) address numbers;
16. Biometric identifiers, including finger and voice prints;
17. Full face photographic images and any comparable images; and
18. Any other unique identifying number, characteristic, or code (note this does not mean the unique code assigned by the investigator to code the data)
How can you make sure future program directors find only the best “you” online? Follow these suggestions when using social media services such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs:
- Consider carefully what you’re posting - Avoid posting patient stories - Periodically search yourself - Check the photos in which you’re “tagged” - Define funny - Humor can be hard to interpret - Choose your friends carefully - Restrict your privacy settings
Eli Pariser: Beware online "filter bubbles", TEDtalksDirector, May 2, 2011: As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and search results) to our personal tastes, there's a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a "filter bubble" and don't get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview. Eli Pariser argues powerfully that this will ultimately prove to be bad for us and bad for democracy.
Similarly, you don't want Twitter to replace your RSS reader - always get to the original source. When you see a medical news item on Reuters or WebMD, don't stop there - always go to the original journal article. More often that not you will find that the results reported in the original article are a quite a bit more nuanced and less certain than the layman language, SEO-optimized headline that you first encountered. Always go to the source. If you write a blog, always link to the source.
The circle of online information (full version) (click to enlarge).
1. Google yourself - repeat on a regular basis, at least once a month, and set up Google alerts to catch new mentions.
