Using social media for patient education

Posted by NoTime_author in Featured Articles, News on Jul 28th, 2010 | 2 responses

One group of patients have poorer health outcomes because of socio-economic disparities and low functional health literacy. In response, health care providers are actively learning the skills to reach and help them, by providing clearly written handouts, asking them to teach back what they have learned, and providing supports to help them succeed.

Another group of patients are technologically literate and fully connected. Are we doing as good a job at reaching them, or are we assuming they’ll find good information on the Internet and take care of themselves?

Students in the New Media Institute have developed ways to use powerful personal media tools (Facebook, Twitter, Mobile, and Gaming) to help people make better health behavior decisions. A report detailing their work, Personal Media Public Good, is available from:

http://nmiuga.weebly.com/personal-media–public-good.html

Who are your patients? Are you individualizing your patient education efforts to address their needs? How could you use these tools to improve your practice?

Thanks to Kathy Ordelt for sending me the CDC link that helped me find this report. http://www.cdc.gov/healthmarketing/ehm/mobile.html

banner ad

2 Responses to “Using social media for patient education”

  1. Mary Jean says:
    August 2, 2010 at 9:25 am

    This is a free text health messaging tool to share with pregnant women and new parents: http://www.text4baby.org

    Text4baby is a free mobile information service designed to promote maternal and child health. An educational program of the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition (HMHB), text4baby provides pregnant women and new moms with information they need to take care of their health and give their babies the best possible start in life. Women who sign up for the service by texting BABY (or BEBE for Spanish) to 511411 will receive free SMS text messages each week, timed to their due date or baby’s date of birth.

    Text4baby is made possible through a broad, public-private partnership that includes government, corporations, academic institutions, professional associations, tribal agencies and non-profit organizations.
    See their website for more information.

  2. NoTime_author says:
    August 3, 2010 at 4:34 pm

    Absolutely! I announced this service on Twitter back in February. Thanks for mentioning it here at http://www.notimetoteach.com!

    RT Nutrition_gov Expecting? New mom? Get free health & nutrition text messages during your pregnancy and baby’s 1st year: http://www.text4baby.org/
    6:03 PM Feb 11th via web

Leave a Reply