Op-ed by Mark Trahant
Paul Levy’s Running A Hospital “is a blog started by a CEO of a large Boston hospital to share thoughts about hospitals, medicine, and health care issues.” The postings started as a lark. But when the president and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center writes openly, that sends a message that filters down throughout the system. Other hospital professionals started blogs and more hospital data was posted in real time making transparency a core value.
People already use the Web to search out medical information of all kinds (several studies show it second only to porn for Internet searches). Health organizations have a natural, built in audience of people wanting to know what’s going on.
So how do health professionals by and large manage this interest?
“Effective immediately, the Hospital is blocking access to social networking sites including Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter from all Hospital computers,” says an internal memo from another system as blogged by Levy. “The Executive Team will be working in the coming months to ensure that we have written policies in place that articulate the appropriate use of social networking sites while on duty at the Hospital. Once these written policies are in place, we have educated all employees about expectations and disciplinary action associated with violating the policies.”
The message is clear. Information is scary.
