Some researchers, practitioners and hospitals are using social media tools to engage internet users in a new manner.Some researchers, practitioners and hospitals are using social media tools to engage internet users in a new manner. (iStock)

In late June, the Rochester, Minn.-based hospital system Mayo Clinic tried something it had never attempted before.

Using the micro-blogging service Twitter, it announced the imminent release of a study on Celiac disease, an immune system response to gluten. Then it tracked which of its followers had re-distributed the Tweet and, after careful consideration, provided a few users with an embargoed copy of the study —a practice normally reserved for journalists. Those followers, each of whom have Celiac disease, were permitted to blog about the study once it was released to the public.

"Hopefully it becomes a model," says Lee Aase, manager of syndication and social media at the Mayo Clinic who notes that the hospital promoted the study with explanatory video and audio clips on its own blog as well as on Facebook and YouTube. "We want to provide the ability to have a conversation."

For many in medicine, that's an unconventional perspective. It's difficult enough to engage one's physician in a conversation about health issues, much less the staff of a prestigious research institution and hospital system.

Yet, convention can't hold back the internet masses who seek not only reputable health information, but also a dynamic user experience and Web-based dialogue about their respective conditions and questions. Some researchers, practitioners and hospitals understand this and have begun in earnest to use new and social media to engage internet users.

Tech-Based Tutorials

While no one counts the number of interactive Web projects run by those in the health care field, the figure may be in the hundreds.

Four Canadian researchers recently published an analysis of medical information on the 3-D virtual reality known as Second Life and found 68 health-related sites alone. The array of content included education tools, information kiosks, videos and virtual renderings of health care facilities.

Jennifer Keelan, co-author of the study and an assistant professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, says virtual experiences can empower people to become better patients by simulating health care scenarios.

The Second Life-based Ann Myers Medical Center, for example, is run by real-life nurses and physicians and demonstrates how women can perform their own breast exams. It also allows the user's avatar — a self-selected computer character — to receive a virtual mammogram in order to familiarize patients with the procedure.

Though Second Life has existed since 2002, and social media Web sites like Facebook and Twitter have been around for a few years, most in the health care field are only now starting to migrate to such outlets.

Tom Brand, executive director of the Norcross, Ga., consulting firm Avid Design, says there's been a "huge buzz in the past six months" about moving into this realm. His firm now advises more than 100 hospital and health care clients looking to develop a more dynamic online presence.

And doing that effectively can be a powerful marketing tool. Instead of relying on a directory of physicians to grab the attention of busy patients looking for a cardiac surgeon, for example, Brand recommends offering video spots of doctors explaining various procedures.

"It's really hard to connect with text on a page," he says. But hearing a physician talk through a procedure can make a huge difference. It also doesn't hurt that videos make an internet user linger on the page for an average of 22 seconds longer, according to Brand's internal statistics.

The Patient Experience

As with anything in social media, the user's experience is what they make it. But patients can benefit from such content in very specific ways.

Jennifer Keelan says her research has turned up videos on YouTube in which users advocate for and against vaccines or share content on the controversial subject. Spirited debates are then carried out in the comments below the videos, which users also rate and share.

On Patients Like Me, a social-networking Web site that functions as a support group, users share intimate details of their diagnosis and treatment, including information about specific symptoms and medications.

In other instances, users want information about cutting-edge technologies. That's what Palomar Pomerado Health, a hospital system in the San Diego, Calif., area, began offering earlier this year when it partnered with Cisco to give Second Life virtual tours of its new $917 million bond-funded facility, which is scheduled to open in 2012.

The tour highlights new technologies, including a video camera-equipped robot that allows doctors to make virtual rounds with patients from afar. (There's no mention of the robot's efficacy or annual $96,000 cost to the hospital, which could be passed onto patients in the form of higher fees.)

For patients in search of a dialogue — or debate — about medicine there are various internet platforms.

Jennifer Keelan says her research has turned up videos on YouTube in which users advocate for and against vaccines or share content on the controversial subject. Spirited debates are then carried out in the comments below the videos, which users also rate and share. Similar conversations can take place on Facebook, Twitter and blogs.

Keelan is careful to note that such exchanges represent what's both ideal and imperfect about free and open discussion of health issues online. Users are often well-informed and make an effort to refer their peers to reputable resources; others repeat unfounded or untrue claims.

That's what worries public health experts the most, Keelan says. They can help disseminate accurate information, but they have to be just as vigilant about falsities or misconceptions before they become viral online.

But, she adds, educating the masses and countering misinformation has been the focus of public health officials since the 18th century, when they used broadsheets and town halls to reach the public.

"This isn't tremendously different than that," she says. "What's different is that users themselves are driving the broadcasting and repurposing of information."