How much are Hospitals really using Social Media?

At HIMSS 2011, there was a big emphasis on social media in healthcare.  As an attendee to this conference I utilized the HIMSS social media presencse to stay in touch with daily events.  However, this began me thinking about how much hospitals are actually using social media and which of these tools are actually being used.  With this thought in mind I started collecting information based upon some common "Top Hospital" lists that are published on a yearly basis.

First off, I examined the list of the "Most Wired Hospitals" that was published by Health Forum for the year 2010 and was able to compile the following usage of social media tools.

Next, I reviewed the usage by the "Top Hospitals" as rated by LeapFrog for the year 2010 with the following results.

From these numbers it is obvious that social media tools are being used and especially by the "Top Hospitals" but how does this usage compare to the Top 100 Fortune Companies.  Per a survey conducted by SysComm the Top 100 Fortune Companies have the following usage of social media.

From a comparison perspective, the Top Hospitals are in alignment with the Top 100 Fortune companies when it comes to social media usage.  I suspect we will continue to see both hospitals and companies continue expand their use of social media tools as they figure out how it can help their respective business.

HP Slate Review for Healthcare Fails

Over the past several months, more and more operational areas of the hospital are inquiring about using a tablet/slate type device to help improve work flow for their respective areas.  As part of this inquiry, I have been reviewing devices other than the iPad to see if any of them stack up.  Recently, I was provided an HP Slate 500 to review for use within clinical and back office operations.  This device was initially intriguing as it comes with Windows 7 which would allow for the device to be managed under traditional corporate tools (i.e. SCOM, SCCM).  This intrigue faded very quickly as I began using the device and came to the following conclusions.

External Hardware
Screen
The Slate supports a 8.9" diagonal WSVGA wide-viewing angle touchscreen that allows for interaction with touch or via a stylus.  The responsiveness of the screen when using touch is very slow to respond and is not completely accurate on first touch. This makes for very poor experience when trying to navigate through various applications.

Internal Hardware
Processor
The Slate comes with a 1.8Ghz Atom processor which is completely undersized to support Windows 7.  In using this device for standard productivity tasks the processor gets completely overwhelmed and the performance noticeably suffers.

Memory
In addition to having an inadequate processor, the Slate only supports 2GB of memory.  For anyone, who has ever used Windows 7 should know that this enough memory in order to have an optimal performance experience.

Wireless
The wireless NIC comes with Integrated 802.11b/g/n which should be more than adequate in most situations.  However, after a review by a wireless network administrator, the lack of an "a" radio may be of issue in some Healthcare organizations as they try to balance devices across the different radios.

Absent from the Slate is any cellular wireless connectivity which is a major miss for those that are truly mobile such as outreach physicians.  Granted a USB cellular card could be used but who really wants to carry this with them when they are trying to minimize devices while on the road.

Other Hardware
Some of the nice features of the Slate is that it comes with the following other hardware that is desired by a lot of organizations that are looking at tablet devices:

• USB 2.0 port
• Integrated 3 MP camera which took adequate pictures for documentation purposes
• Integrated VGA web cam which worked well when doing a video conference  with the Cisco client

Software
Operating System
The Slate utilizes Windows 7 Tablet operating system and it's associated features.  Windows 7 tablet is fa fine OS when used on adequate hardware such as Fujitsu Lifebook.  However, it is not suited to run on hardware that is being used in most tablet devices today.

Other Reviews
Just to make sure that I wasn't giving the Slate a fair shake, I provided the device to a clinician and an inventory specialist to round with in order to garner their feedback.  In both instances, they contacted me to come back and pick up the Slate after less than hour of use.  Both of the testers indicated that the performance and responsiveness of the device was not acceptable.

Google TV for Healthcare Patient Edutainment

So after watching the Google TV & Logitech Revue announcement several weeks ago I began thinking about how Google TV could be used in a healthcare setting. One of the ways it could be used is a "Patient Edutainment" solution.

So you may be asking yourself what is "Patient Edutainment".  This is a system that is accessed and utilized by the patient during their stay in the hospital.  It usually consists of TV, the ability to access patient education materials, surf the web, on demand movies and some have online games.  The problem with most of the "Patient Edutainment' systems is that a lot of the require a dedicated network and server hardware (movie server) to provide these services to the patient room.

 By utilizing Google TV the content that is typically hosted on dedicated hardware by the hospital would now be hosted by Google (YouTube) or Netflix for movies.  Obviously, this assumes that Netflix would provide a subscription solution to a corporation.  At the time of this post I have been unable to confirm whether or not Netflix would provide this service offering.

Other advantages that Google TV provides is that will ultimately will provide the ability to access various applications like Facebook, Games, and Google Docs.  By providing a solution like the Logitech Revue then this eliminates the need for hospitals to either provide laptops to the patients or ensure that every room has Internet access.

The above are just a few thoughts I have had on this idea and really haven't had a chance to confirm how it would be excepted by the patients and clinical staff in the hospitals.  Hopefully, as offerings like Google TV is further developed hospitals will consider them as alternatives to traditional entertainment solutions for patients.

Jeremy

Leadership: Organizational Culture & Team Building

This morning I attended a leadership development series that featured Chancellor Charles Bantz of IUPUI and Coach Tom Crean from Indiana University. Provided below are my notes from their session on leadership. Both speakers were exceptional in what discussion that they presented to the group.

Chancellor Bantz from IUPUI - Organization Culture for Leadership
"Leadership is constructive"
Organization Culture Can be Broken Down To:
1. Meanings - spiderweb of significance
2. Expectations - agendas, motives, communicate, roles and responsibilities

• All organizations cannot exist without communication.
• Need to know what is expected of you in an organization.
• What is your motive for working in an organization?
• Agenda is the notion of time within in an organization
• Leaders need to understand the characteristic of an organization
• Culture are not uniform across an organization
• You also need to understand how you communicate within the culture. This will help in implementing change in an organization.
• Listen to what is valued in an organization and align that with the change you are trying to implement.
• Understand what has been successfully changed in the past

If culture gets locked down then it gets stale, a successful organization needs to have the ability to change.

Tom Crean "Leadership - Building Your Team"

• Building team is about building confidence
• You have to find the one thing in a person to establish confidence
• You can't begin to build confidence unless you find that one thing
• Every person on your team has a story and you need to understand that story so you know what they can bring to the table
• Team members need to be inspired; as a leader you need to bring inspiration to your team
• Inspire team members to be greater than they think they can be
• Need to understand that team members can be selfish and greedy
• Motivation only lasts for 3 days inspiration can last for a lifetime
• Confidence comes 3 main area:

1. Character - trust your instinct when no one else does
2. Toughness - both mentally and physically, consistency on a daily basis
3. Mindset - your mindset will move you forward do you have the ability to put fun in fundamentals,

• Communication can always be approved
• You can't have real confidence if you don't have real communication
• "Everyday there will be 5 things that you will not plan for and how you deal with them will separate you" - Bill Parcels
• Communication and leadership are not an entitlement
• Stay charge of your communication
• Your team confidence needs to permeate through the organization
• If you have people that communicate then you have a team that can deal with change
• "Don't be combative with each other be competitive with each other" - Jim Caldwell, Indianapolis Colts Head Coach
• You have to remove/work through the stumbling blocks and sometimes this may be people
• Stumbling blocks can be removed/worked through communication

My iPad Review

Provided below is my review of the iPad after 2 weeks of testing it in a healthcare setting.

General Comments

• Form factor of the iPad initially appears to be the correct size for viewing various applications. The ability to zoom in and out using your fingers is a plus when needing to view specific details in an application.
• The device is based upon a mobile OS means that most applications will not function properly on the device. The only real option for connecting to enterprise applications is via the Citrix client for the iPad. This is specifically true when using applications that require Internet Explorer.
• Will require a protective case if going to be mobile with the device on a regular basis. These cases are going to be around $50.
• The review of applications was focused on connecting to the primary clinical applications (EMR, Lab, Intranet (Order Sets), PACs, SharePoint).
• Like the iPhone 3GS, the iPad is encrypted at the same level.
• The iPad allows connectivity to the Exchange server in the same means as the iPhone.
  

Application Connectivity

• Utilizing the Citrix client, connectivity to the EMR was successfully established.
• In order to get EMR to work the Citrix client has to sign-on to the Citrix farm via dedicated AD account. This was accomplished using a generic account and does not pose any security issues as it is used only as means to be able to display the applications that are published in the farm.
• One issue that was identified with the Citrix client is the way it handles a disconnected session. The client disconnects properly but when you reconnect it sometimes establishes a new session versus re-establishing to the disconnected session. This could pose to be a performance issue on the Citrix Farm but could be addressed by adjusting the time out settings for disconnected sessions
• The Citrix client also provided access to Labs and Intranet (Order Sets)
• Was unable to connect to PACs from the iPad via Citrix. This is not an issue specific to the iPad but rather PACs not being supported on the Citrix Farm.

Battery

• The iPad battery is rated for 10 hours of run time and from initial testing this rating is pretty accurate. A physician at Harvard Medical Center was able to round through the ED for his whole shift with a single charge.
  

Wireless

• Connectivity to the enterprise wireless network works with no problems. However, I did notice that going from one wireless network to another required me to manually go in and select the enterprise wireless network in order to establish connectivity.
• Apple has admitted that there are wireless issues with the iPad. In testing, I did not experience wireless issues here at work but did notice at home that it had trouble connecting in locations where my laptop connected with no problems.
  

VPN

• The iPad supports Cisco VPN but to get it setup requires that the secure key be manually entered. In order to keep the VPN settings secure would require someone from IS to manually enter the settings on the iPad.
• VPN connectivity would be required if a physician is going to want to access applications on the iPad while outside the hospital facilities.
  

Support

• If iPad’s were provided to staff there would need to be additional research into the Enterprise tools that would allow to fully manage these devices. In addition, there would need to be a support model developed to support the devices. This will be key if the iPads being used are enabled with the 3G cellular connectivity.
• Would need to ensure the enterprise Citrix farm has enough resources to support connectivity to the applications that would be accessed by the staff from the iPad.
  

iPad & Healthcare

With the release of the iPad this weekend and mine coming on Monday, I thought I would do some research on the iPad's usability in healthcare. Provided below are some links that provide some insight on preliminary review of the iPad in healthcare.

Apple iPad: Healthcare industry weighs in

Apple iPad in Healthcare: Pros and Cons

The iPad and Healthcare

One of the other concerns not commented mentioned in the reviews above is that the device is not encrypted and hence it poses security/compliance concerns.

I can wait to review this new device and its functionality with the various clinical systems at work.