Patient Driven Social Media

According to Wikipedia, Signal to Noise Ratio “is defined as the ratio of a signal power to the noise power corrupting the signal. A ratio higher than 1:1 indicates more signal than noise. In less technical terms, signal-to-noise ratio compares the level of a desired signal (such as music) to the level of background noise. The higher the ratio, the less obtrusive the background noise is.”

There is a lot of discussion these days about the application of social media to healthcare. Twitter’s recent valuation at $1B has put social media on the radar screens of even the most died in the wool doubters. There are a number of very smart healthcare people tweeting valuable information - if you can find it. Then, if you can find it, does it mean anything to you?

The fact is, for the average patient, as opposed to average healthcare geek, the signal to noise ratio may be even worse than 1:1. There are currently about 50M people on Twitter and 300M on Facebook making a lot of noise to go along with the signal. How can we utilize the power of social media in a way that helps the average patient get to the signal?

How about starting with the patient?

The first step is getting the patient hardwired into the delivery system. A patient that contributes clinically significant data to his healthcare team every time he’s at the office is going to be able to differentiate signal from noise much more effectively then the patient who is not a hardwired member of his care team.
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The second step is building a social network directly off of the patients hardwired input. Rather than having a network designed to accommodate any and every kind of input, signal or noise, have the network tied directly to the same system where the patient and his caregivers store the rest of his healthcare data.

Third, insure data security that is patient driven. The patient can have an “intro” page that gives just enough information to allow others they might want to communicate with to find them through a search function. The patient can then contact and share clinically significant data with those they believe can contribute meaningfully to their decision making process. The patient can decide what format this communication will take place in. The patient can request access from others that they want to talk to.

Social media is a powerful tool and there is no question it can and will be used to improve healthcare delivery. By placing the patient at the center we can create fact driven, patient lead networks that cut out the noise and focus on the signal.