A few years ago, Livingston, an OB/GYN doc, was doing outreach to local high schools by giving presentations on pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and other pressing teenage health issues. But he worried he wasn't really making a connection with teens. After watching his daughter hold court on MySpace, the light went on.
"I realized that even though I had made it a mission to reach out to teenagers, I wasn't communicating with them in a way they were communicating with each other," says Livingston, a partner at five-provider MacArthur OB/GYN, Irving Texas.
He cajoled his daughter into building a MySpace page for him, and mentioned it during his next talk at a local high school. Within a few hours, he had 50 teens asking for information about pregnancy prevention and STDs. Since then, he has dialed into a variety of social media networks-Facebook, Twitter and YouTube among others-and now considers social media an integral part of his practice. He has more than 2,000 followers on Twitter and traffic to the group practice's Web site continues to climb.
"There is a branding aspect to this, sure, but more importantly there is a connection aspect," he says. "Every hospital and most group practices have Web sites, but there's really no reason to go to them-they're just static info. We've made our site functional, dynamic and interactive and it has absolutely helped us grow our business-plus we are benefitting the community in ways we couldn't imagine before."
Many physicians equate social media with more work and HIPAA violations. In contrast, Livingston gets steamed just thinking about the litany of excuses he has heard from his peers. "I always hear those excuses-blah, blah, blah," he says. "The truth is it's not more work-what you're putting out there is your professional opinion about issues and topics within your field."
In the women's health arena, new federal guidelines for mammograms and pap smears are huge issues. "I had to do research and have an opinion about them-just like everyone else in my field-the day after the guidelines came out because patients were asking pointed questions," Livingston recalls. "It wasn't any additional work to send my opinions out via social media." The physician uses a Twitter widget to update all his social media sites with one click.
And he slaps aside concerns about running afoul of the law by communicating via social networks.
"You don't answer specific medical questions through social media. It's against the law. So that solves that problem pretty easily. But therein lies a misperception-you won't get hammered with specific questions because the vast majority of users understand those limitations. And they also understand that asking questions means those questions are broadcast to the world. So that has in no way been a problem for us."
The practice's Web site (www.macobgyn.com/index.html) provides Twitter updates, links to Facebook and other social networks and includes a blog called Kim's Korner.
It also features a practice portal-part of MacArthur's suite of Sage Intergy products from Tampa, Fla.-based Sage North America-that enables secure patient/physician messaging as well as appointment scheduling, prescription refills, lab result checks and patient access to their EHRs. The portal is interfaced with the Intergy EHR/PMS system used by the practice.
"The practice portal and the online services it provides are really the icing on the cake," Livingston says. "We reach out via social media and use the practice portal to communicate with our patients in a HIPAA-compliant way. And yes, patients do notice, and they do tell people it's cool they can get their lab results online and look at their medical record."
For more on group practices, visit healthdatamangement.com/portals/group_practices.html.
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