Where Have We Come in a Year? Social Media and Its Impact on the Healthcare Industry

Last year I had the privilege of chairing and keynoting the Healthcare New Media Marketing Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. I enjoyed the event because the attendees were practitioners from the provider space (many hospitals, health systems, etc). This year I was invited back to the 2nd Annual Conference, which is being held in Chicago next Monday and Tuesday, to talk on the topic of “Where Have We Come in a Year? Social Media and Its Impact on the Healthcare Industry”. Given his experience in the area and their specialty in the field, I invited Joel Selzer of Ozmosis to join me in this “State of the Industry” address next Monday morning at 09:00 AM Central Time. The nice folks at Q1 Productions will be broadcasting it live on UStream.

Here’s the abstract of the presentation (courtesy of Joel):

Today, 650 hospitals now have an active presence on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter and numerous healthcare organizations have turned the corner to engage in conversations online. For example, health systems such as Henry Ford have begun to broadcast surgeries and answer clinical questions live via Twitter, new communities like WiserTogether have made it easier for patients to share novel practices around specific conditions such as pregnancy, and services such as iGuard have changed the way we think about drug safety. The FDA’s public hearings in November also gave hope that the cloud of regulatory uncertainty would soon be lifted and the Dose of Digital Wiki now lists hundreds of active pharmaceutical social media programs. This session will look back on the impact social media has made across the patient and provider landscape, examining specific examples over the past year, and offer a compelling vision of what the future may hold.

I hope you’ll be able to join us at the conference itself or remotely via webcast.