Doctors are just now beginning to realize the benefits of social media and the other new technical tools to delivering better health care. Excellent medical care is all about communication and data management. Data can be hard facts, like lab results, or patient preferences about every aspect of their life and health care.
Medical care is extremely technical, from the common and mundane like basic computer software, to tools for heart transplantation and limb reattachment. Medicine in general also has multiple personalities, however, caused by a huge variation in practice styles and attention to quality and detail. To be a top doctor today, you need to master the digital tools now available. Only then will you get all the facts about a patient or disease, constantly update and fresh off the press, and that information will guide the care.
We are getting increasingly overloaded with information. Even the choice of technologies and other tools can be overwhelming. I am going to try to examine the new and promising digital solutions here, so I can learn about them and share my new knowledge.
I want to at least be as facile with the technology as my teen and preteen children and their friends. They use Facebook instead of the old ice cream stand to meet with their friends. They can type faster with their thumbs texting and tweeting on Twitter than I ever could with a typewriter or keyboard. My gut tells me this technology will eventually show up in electronic medical records. Even standard text pagers will be replaced by smart phones. Patients are going to want to read my practice's Facebook page, or learn more about me on LinkedIn.
Too late to resist. Time to dive right in! My medical practice, and perhaps my career, depends on me becoming technically adept. I embrace the challenge. These new digital tools will stimulate my creativity and cortex in so many new ways. I'll be a better doctor in the end, I predict. Time to get started! It's going to be fun.
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