Last year I attended the Mayo Clinic Social Media Residency at Jacksonville, Florida. This was what I wrote. Many of the lessons I learned last year still hold true today.
Today, I attended the Residency again, this time in my hometown of Melbourne Australia as part of the #MayoInOz Social Media Summit. I was one of the Chief Residents, and there were about 35 attendees. There were, I think, only 2 doctors in the group. The rest are hospital executives, organisational policy makers and communications officers.
I learned 3 important things:
- There are a lot of gifted, passionate and influential people in Australia & New Zealand willing to work hard, learn hard and network well for the benefit of their patients. And they’re not necessarily clinicians!
- Australia and New Zealand are soon going to have their tipping point when it comes to social media adoption. There are enough champions at each state, organisation and leadership level to effect real change in the next couple of years. The ripple effect of meetings like this is going to be significant.
- The future of Australian and New Zealand Health Care is bright. We spent the day talking about Social Media, but we all knew that it was just a tool. The primary goal and objective is always going to be patient well being. All these administrators and hospital executives spoke little about marketing, but a lot about patient engagement and education. That makes me real proud.
Social Media is nothing more than a medium. It is a new medium. It is another tool in our armament. Just like any new tool, we need to learn to use it well. When used expertly, we have one of the most accessible and powerful tools to effect social change and improve health outcomes.
Photo credit to @Lisa_Ramshaw, one of the champions of Social Media in Health Care in Australia.