3 Benefits of Healthcare Tweet Chats
Do you have a diagnostic or treatment question and wish there were a place you could visit to find answers outside of your practice? Do you ever wonder what your diagnosis and treatment is like from your typical patient’s perspective? How about reaching into the minds of other healthcare leaders on communication, patient safety, insurance issues? Imagine if you had a place where you could visit regularly that could help provide answers to all of these questions.
Welcome to Healthcare Tweet Chats
So what are Healthcare Tweet Chats? According to our friends at Symplur:
“A tweet chat affords Twitter users the opportunity to engage in conversation with each other. A tweet chat can either emerge from a new community that coalesces around a particular subject or keyword, or serve to focus the conversation of an existing community.“
At Perron Insurance Services, we have been participating in the weekly #hcldr tweet chat for about a year now. We find ourselves increasingly involved in reaching out to others, like yourself, to spread the word about the #hcldr community and other healthcare tweet chats. So, why do we believe in this medium and, how can it benefit you?
Benefits of Healthcare Tweet Chats
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- Education – Participants gather with common interests and, since participants may be from different interest groups, such as patients, consultants, and other healthcare professionals, there are a variety of opinions, sharing and learning from one another.Healthcare Tweet Chats can be specific to a medical specialty, diseases and conditions, leadership and many others. I am especially excited when I participate in a tweet chat that provides valuable information that I can bring back to my clients.Here are some examples of some current weekly scheduled tweet chats:
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- #bioethx bioethics, healthcare, medical ethics, medical humanities, nursing ethic
- #AlzChat Alzheimer’s Disease, alzheimer, caregiving, dementia
- #bccww Breast Cancer
- #solvePT Physical Therapist Issues. physical therapy
- #MedEx doctor, Medical Education physician
- #CPHC crowdsourcing, empowerment, healthcare information, transparency
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- No Geographic Location Boundaries – Communicate with participants in your field, who could be in the same state as you or found internationally. The #hcldr tweet chat has participants in the United States, Canada, Philippines, and Australia.
- Participate in International Healthcare Conferences – Without being there! Our veteran #hcldr participant, Bernadette Keefe, MD @nxtstop1 was not physically present at the Doctors 2.0 (#doctors20)conference held in Paris earlier this year, but she was able to take in information and tweet it out to her followers. Why is this a benefit of healthcare tweet chats? Well, without #hcldr, we wouldn’t have gotten to know Doctor Keefe who willingly shared this information.
Need more convincing? Here are some comments from our #hcldr community when we asked them why they participate in healthcare tweet chats.
@PerronServices meet like-minded and interesting people from a variety of disciplines to talk #HCLDR
— Eddie Cliff (@Eddie_Cliff) August 12, 2014
@PerronServices For Me It’s About Connecting With a Diverse Group of People Passionate About Improving Healthcare #hcsm #hcldr — Dr. Brian Stork (@StorkBrian) August 12, 2014
@PerronServices @nxtstop1 feed back from peers and talking to people who “get” what we do. #hcldr
— Sermo (@Sermo) August 13, 2014
@PerronServices @nxtstop1 level collaborative playing field for pts, med, med orgs etc Like-minded positive approach to change. — Rusty Hoe (@RustyHoe) August 13, 2014
@PerronServices I enjoy meeting new people who seem to appreciate an interdisciplinary approach to care. #HCLDR
— Amy Ziettlow (@RevAmyZ) August 13, 2014
@PerronServices Because I love learning, discovering communities of like-minded and hearted people, and it beats traveling to a conference! — MeredithGould (@MeredithGould) August 13, 2014
@PerronServices Good evening.I participate in #hcldr because collaboration and learning impacts health outcomes for many. I can share also
— Sanford Jeames (@JeamesSailor) August 13, 2014
@PerronServices I participate in #hcldr & other tweetchats to hear new points of view. To get new ideas. — Isabel Jordan (@seastarbatita) August 13, 2014
RT+1000 @RevAmyZ: @PerronServices I enjoy meeting new people who seem to appreciate an interdisciplinary approach to care. #HCLDR
— Joseph Babaian (@JoeBabaian) August 13, 2014
@PerronServices also To break out of old thought processes. To make new connections. #hcldr — Isabel Jordan (@seastarbatita) August 13, 2014
@seastarbatita @PerronServices Key! We hear new ideas or old ideas presented via a different lens! #hcldr
— Joseph Babaian (@JoeBabaian) August 13, 2014
Resources for Healthcare Tweet Chats
Take a look at Symplur’s web page on Healthcare Tweet Chats. Within it you will see a schedule of healthcare tweet chats, including related hashtags.
When you select a tweet chat from the list, you will be able to see details of the chat, including the description, top influencers, transcripts and analytics. Check out our #hcldr tweet chat page. This is serious stuff here! Go ahead. Try it.
Find a tweet chat that interests you and search Twitter for that hashtag and participate. Or, check out our favorite tool for tweet chats, which is tweetchat.com. Just go there at your scheduled time, sign in, enter the healthcare tweet chat hashtag and voila. See the stream of chats. If you are nervous in the beginning, feel free to observe, and check it out. We won’t tell.
Most chats have a dedicated topic of the session and some, like #hcldr, maintain a blog where participants to visit, read about the topic of the session, and see the questions we will be discussing.
We also recommend Symplur’s Healthcare Hashtag Project, which tracks hashtags for healthcare tweet chats, conferences and diseases.We’d love to hear from you. Share your comments below. If you like what you see, please consider sharing this post by clicking the share buttons above. Thank you.