Monday, June 13, 2011

How fast can you say "social media"?

Here are two social media events that prove something or other.

First, a person on Facebook made the following request of a group of patient advocates:

I'm wondering if I can crowdsource a request here. For those of you who have journal article access, is anyone willing to retrieve a copy of this article from the Joint Commission Journal of Quality and Patient Safety? The medical library I have access to doesn't subscribe to this journal. If you can obtain a PDF copy, please email it to me at [email] - Thanks!! More than happy to return the favor some time!

Within minutes, she posted:

That was quick! I love Facebook for this kind of thing!

In a private note to me, she said:

Journals clinging to the subscription model are easily disrupted by connected e-patients. I have often provided journal articles to countless patients and advocates and obtained them when my own library doesn't have a journal for some reason. Don't tell! :)


Meanwhile, up in Edmonton, Alberta, the Dean of the University of Alberta's Medical School found himself in trouble for possible plagiarism:

Students publicly complained on the weekend about Dr. Philip Baker’s after-dinner speech to the graduates Friday night. They said the speech bore a strong resemblance to one given in 2010 by Dr. Atul Gawande at Stanford University in California.

Some students said they searched the speech on smartphones and were able to follow along as Baker spoke to them.

The world has become instantaneous.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hm, can't get Blogger's login to work, so I'll do it the hard way - e-Patient Dave here:


Hahahaha! Great stories!

Your teaser line on Facebook was nowhere near informative enough to make me click, but this showed up in my Google Alert for e-patient... good stuff. (And please try to have your teasers communicate more - it's hard to tell what to click in the daily blizzard, and see-through window helps!)

Anonymous said...

Paul, this is great fun. Among the fascinating aspects of transparency is that no matter the domain, real root cause analysis is in demand. Where (who) are the cabals of our time? Who determines CMS payments? Who (in 2011) argues for closed access?

If we keep asking 'why,' we will also get to better data. When social media is used to optimize (for others, not patients) the algorithm of care we receive, is anyone asking who is providing our Facebook information to our insurance company?

Theresa said...

Peter Shankman argues that this super-connected era demands complete transparency. In other words, if you do something sketchy, you will be called out. His advice...don't do it. After seeing far too much media coverage on Weinergate, I have to agree. Don't plagerize a speech...people who are inclined to do things they don't want others to know about just can't get away with this stuff anymore!