According to the Guardian (see BBC tells news staff to embrace social media).  BBC news journalists have been advised to use social media as a primary source
of information by Peter Horrocks, the new director of BBC Global News. He took
over last week and said it was important for editorial staff to make better use
of social media and become more collaborative in producing stories. They quote
him, "This isn't just a kind of fad from someone who's an enthusiast of
technology. I'm afraid you're not doing your job if you can't do those things.
It's not discretionary."

I would agree. Getting material for
articles is one of several ways that traditional television news media needs to
make use of social media to survive the social media onslaught. For BBC news
editors, Twitter and RSS readers have now become essential tools and aggregating
and curating content with attribution are essential skills. In addition, BBC's
journalists have to integrate and listen to feedback for a better understanding
of how the audience is relating to the BBC brand.

At Darwin, we have been talking with
a number of major traditional media organizations about using the Darwin
Awareness Engine™ to help with their news harvesting efforts. It allows you to
see what is going on around a topic and find the unexpected, as well as the
news breaking in real time.

The BBC also created a social media
editor post in October. This is another related trend I have reported on here
(see Mainstream News Take on Social Media Directors.  The Guardian concludes by noting that as technology is
changing the nature of journalism, the BBC is trying to keeping up with the
pace. Horrocks is quoted again, "If you don't like it, if you think that
level of change or that different way of working isn't right for me, then go
and do something else, because it's going to happen. You're not going to be
able to stop it."

Here is the eleventh in a new series of posts that provide
access to my favorite tweets that contain links to useful information. 
Some of these I did to link to things I found useful and others are RTs that I want
to save for the same reason. Since Twitter archiving is an oxymoron, I am now
going to post my favorite links for the month so they can be easily accessed
later. I will repeat this once or twice a month depending on volume.

The focus of this session is on use cases in using Social Networking in the Health IT world.  I thought I would attend to see how these tools are being used here.

• Patients want to feel connected
• Recruitment is an ongoing challenge, the next generation is connected
• Promote discovery, better treatments and efficiencies
• Large gap between seeing the value and using the tech in Healthcare (90%  to 35%)
• Some Risks
  • Public domain when using common tools
  • HIPAA violations
  • Health professionals “friending” patients (Thinking that practices would have fan pages)
  • Value vs Time Wasting (People have always found ways to goof-off and waste time)
• Like phone conversations, communications through Social Media need a policy around them.
• (Social Media Policies are under discussion. I added to the conversation that the policy should address communication with external entities and not focus on the tech.)
• You have to be out there monitoring because people are talking about you out there.
• Enterprise 2.0 came up in conversation. It was noted that it isn’t a slam-dunk deployment, but worth investigating.
• Another risk is medical advice. “This is not Medical Advice, you have to pay for Medical Advice.”
• A warning against hiring Social Media “Experts” without researching to be sure that they actually know what they are doing. (Check references. If they don’t have them, maybe they aren’t worth the money.)

One more session left and then heading home.  Heading to see the Military Health Portal.

Disclaimer

All information in this post was gathered from the presenters and presentation. It does not reflect my opinion unless clearly indicated (Italics in parenthesis). Any errors are most likely from my misunderstanding a statement or imperfectly recording the information. Updates to correct information are reflected in red, but will not be otherwise indicated.

Aneesh Chopra is talking so why wouldn’t I attend?  Need I say any more?  Even before he starts, you can tell he is an energetic speaker.

• Innovations in Health IT would be good for the economy.
• We are coming from “There’s a form for that.” to “There’s an app for that.”  Government reality doesn’t reflect public reality.
• The US is 15th in Higher Education, 22nd in E-Government, and 40th on the Innovation Trends.  This was out of 40 countries.  The US had 2.7% growth.  Obama wants to return to number 1 by 2020. (Reasonable, but challenging) 
• Perceives Healthcare and Energy as the growth areas for the economy.
• Stimulus act called for an increase in health It R&D.
• Broadband is important.  If patients don’t have broadband, how do they access their records remotely.  Same for doctors at home.  (Suspect that doctors have a higher percentage of broadband than patients)
• Trying to bring the R&D side of the house with IT procurement (CIO Vivek Kundra).
• Told story of how in Virginia it took 1.5 years to procure a 150K, 6-week, web application.
• Text4baby is a partnership with the wireless carriers, who are waving fees, to send SMS updates to expecting mothers based upon the due date.
• (Trying to sell how things are changing in Washington. Haven’t seen it yet.)
• Prioritization, transparency, engagement, and rapid results (90-day measurements) are the Core Principles on how they are trying to get Washington to work.
• Releasing next week, guidance to federal agencies on prizes and rewards for innovation.
• Open Government plans will be published April 7th.
• NHIN: A set of policies, standards, and services that enable the Internet to be used for secure and meaningful exchange of health information to improve health and health care”
• NHIN Direct: Open transparent collaborative process to evolve the NHIN.  An Gov20 initiative that was launched today.
• Don’t abandon 5 9s reliability for core systems, but look for the innovation for new ways to serve.

Say what you want about the president, the CTO has a good vision and the enthusiasm to push towards it.  That is a very good thing.

Time for the exhibit hall until close.  Always interesting as the vendors are tired and giving everything away.

Disclaimer

All information in this post was gathered from the presenters and presentation. It does not reflect my opinion unless clearly indicated (Italics in parenthesis). Any errors are most likely from my misunderstanding a statement or imperfectly recording the information. Updates to correct information are reflected in red, but will not be otherwise indicated.

Here to hear Capt Michael Weiner talk about the Defense Health Information Management System (DHIMS) and the lessons that the DOD have learned.  I have a personal interest as I grew-up in the military health system and my parents and a large number of family members are in it now.  I haven’t been posting a lot of notes as I’ve just been absorbing, but this session should has lots of good information.

• This isn’t a technical issue.  It is a “cultural, paradigm, shift”.
• Don’t  be HIPAA compliant for the sake of compliance.  Be compliant because it will protect your patient’s information.
• Challenges to be faced when implementing:
  • Development of functional requirements
  • Maintainability/Interoperability
  • Acquisition Process
  • Enterprise Architecture
  • Theater Communications and Bandwidth
• Steady and reliable network is critical
• Buy-in from the team, physicians and support staff, is critical
• EHR will not fix a broken process. Take time to document the workflow and understand How You Do It. Used a great analogy for that by talking about Starbucks’s great workflow and a hotel coffee shop’s poor workflow. (I had a similar bad experience at a coffee shop at the airport. Had to find the spot with the lids and crossed paths twice.)
• Try it out first.  Pilot it and include it everyone in the office from day one.
• New and Shiny May Not Be Best.  Test the ergonomics of the hardware.  Different participants may need different hardware options.  A tablet has to be carried, so they put a computer on wheels that let them move other things as well.
• System needs to be intuitive.  IT guys aren’t always around.  The system needs to make it easy for the physicians that may not be technical.  Needs visual feedback mechanisms.
• See One, Do One, Teach One: hybrid education efforts.  Classrooms, 1-on-1, over-the-shoulder, and computer-based resources for training.
• Use the Web: Look at web hosting and virtualized solutions, especially for smaller clinical offices. (Talk of using the cloud without the term “Cloud”. Awesome.)
• Wireless networking and no mice.  Wires are bad and cause problems.
• Use multiple methods to input clinical healthcare data.  Use templates, auto fillers, macros, scribe, speech recognition (not everyone can type), dropdown menus.  It should support Workflow.
• Change is not always accepted, so empowering staff to get their “buy in” will help with adoption.  The team has to be involved, though that doesn’t diminish the need for a champion.
• Make it Personal: Patient centric care and patient portals is a shift for the patient community.  It will be a generation+ transition for the patients.
• Sharing is Caring. The Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) is the “dial-tone” for the future.  Every EHR is going to have to fit in.

Captain Weiner was a great presenter.  Loved the presentation.  Lot’s of good lessons that apply to large and small facilities.  Now off to catch-up with my colleagues.

Disclaimer

All information in this post was gathered from the presenters and presentation. It does not reflect my opinion unless clearly indicated (Italics in parenthesis). Any errors are most likely from my misunderstanding a statement or imperfectly recording the information. Updates to correct information are reflected in red, but will not be otherwise indicated.

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism is out with fresh survey data on how Americans consume their news.

The findings have big implications for any organization for which content management and content strategy play a role in supporting, interacting with and delivering information to customers. Read: this has tentacles that reach far beyond news organizations and news consumers, deep into the evolving behaviors of all consumers in the age of iPhone and Twitter.

First, the key findings: the Internet, according to Pew’s research, is now the third most popular news platform, behind only local and national TV news. It’s ahead of newspapers and radio – no surprise there.

But the more compelling info relates to the Three P’s of the research study’s findings. According to Pew:

‘The internet and mobile technologies are at the center of the story of how people’s relationship to news is changing. In today’s new multi-platform media environment, news is becoming portable, personalized, and participatory:

• Portable: 33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.
• Personalized: 28% of internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.
• Participatory: 37% of internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.’

For news and non-news organizations, the Three P’s pose many questions around content (and content management) that beg answers and point to opportunities:

• Do you have an effective strategy for delivering mobile content to your diverse audiences? With the rise of the iPhone, iPad and other phone and reader devices, what is your plan, and will you get left behind as your readers/customers move their experience to these platforms? Content management platforms are part of the solution here, but require extensive planning and prioritization to prepare to roll out effective content experiences tailored to these platforms.

• Do you have an effective strategy for personalizing the online content experience? This question also goes far beyond the personalized news feeds or news content tailored to your preferences – if you’re a corporation, or a brand, or a college, or a non-profit: are you prepared for this inexorable shift to more personalized content experiences? The good news is CMS platforms are working overtime to deliver on the promise of if not personalized then (at least) lightly customized content experiences.

• Do you have an effective strategy for utilizing social networks for connecting your information to readers/customers? Implicit in Pew’s research is that social networks have fast become not just platforms for dissemination of information, but also effective filters on the river of news and information that flows toward us all. Your trusted friends (even the 1,000 people you follow on Twitter) serve as unofficial editors delivering their ‘best of’ links and news and content they think you should know about. It’s a stark wake up call to traditional publishers and communicators whose branded influence (hello, networks and newspapers) are waning perhaps even faster than they think. The opportunity if you’re a corporation or brand is to determine how best to harness social networks and turn these trusted sources of information into active distribution channels for your content.

Related posts:

1. Shifting from Content Management to Content Delivery
2. The increasing importance of global content accessibility
3. The sweet spot for WCM services

Recently I was fortunate enough to meet with David Pullinger from the UK governments Central Office of Information (COI), who are driving our government’s citizen engagement strategy  and mandating the policy around which government must adhere to.
It was an incredibly absorbing meeting as we took a fast ride around all elements of where a citizen [...]

So I missed the keynote due to a conference call that was not to be missed.  I also realized that coffee is going to be a battle in lines.  Luckily I had heard those rumors and planned ahead and brought chocolate covered espresso beans.

To kick things off, I’m going to listen to the Governor of Vermont, Jim Douglas.  He is going to be talking about how HIE (Health Information Exchange) is important for the States in their interactions with the Federal Government.  Let’s see what I can learn.

• (This is a little more like a speech, with a healthy political bent, than I would have liked. Will likely lead to less notes.)
• Wants to turn patients into consumers of their own health information.
• Vermont uses health teams centered around the Primary Care Physician (PCP) to break down silos of information at different locations.
• (A lot of examples of WHY to go electronic and have interoperable information.  Vermont seems to be making some solid strides in that direction, but I suspect that many here already are sold.)
• Federal and State officials, providers, insurers, vendors, and patients need to all work together to make HIE work.
• What will work in one state may not work everywhere.  Same applies to physicians.  Need to maintain flexibility on the details.
• Long-term funding for information exchanges is important after the recovery money runs out.
• Health IT is not the end, but the means to the end. (Obvious, but important to reinforce)
• Vermont has a 0.2% assessment on insurance claims to assist with sustainable funding for HIE.
• State lines cannot demarcate HIE as hospital systems and patients don’t stay in one state. (Where I live in DC metro, we have Virginia, Maryland, and DC, so this is an important point.)

Enough of the Q&A as I need sustenance.  Heading to a pair of Federal Health Community Synergy Sessions next.

Disclaimer

All information in this post was gathered from the presenters and presentation. It does not reflect my opinion unless clearly indicated (Italics in parenthesis). Any errors are most likely from my misunderstanding a statement or imperfectly recording the information. Updates to correct information are reflected in red, but will not be otherwise indicated.

“It’s standard practice at many companies to conceal information as a way of controlling employees – a formula that’s toxic to trust”

Gary Hamel

“In the knowledge economy everyone is a volunteer, but we have trained our managers to manage conscripts.”

Peter F. Drucker

This is going to be a busy week for me.  I am off to HIMSS 2010 in Atlanta for a two primary reasons (and about a thousand secondary).  The first is to support my Healthcare colleagues from Washington Consulting at the conference.  The second, which will make the first all the more challenging, is to learn more about the vertical that is Healthcare IT.

Before I jump into it, a funny little joke.  When I was in a meeting and we were talking about the trip to HIMSS, someone mentioned HL7. Being one of many new terms to me, I didn’t ask them what it meant, just glanced at them with a curious look on my face.  They told me, and I kid you not, Look it up later. Just remember that there is no HL6 or 8.  Thanks for the help guys. ( I did learn what it was later and actually understood the “7″ reference.)

Haven’t I Heard This Before?

So as I did research to get ready to hit the ground running, I saw a lot of challenges that the Healthcare industry is facing on the IT side.  I had heard most of it from a high level before in news reports and in Information Management/ECM case studies.  I had also picked some information up in planning for this year’s AIIM CMIS Demo.

When you strip out the names of the federal mandates and the acronyms that are common in the industry, I saw a lot words that I understood quite well:

• Interoperability: The Interoperability Showcase is a big piece of HIMSS.  I understand this problem from Content Management.  In fact, as you may have noticed, this is one of my favorite topics to discuss.  Between AIIM’s iECM Committee and all my efforts with CMIS, I think I understand the core needs well.
• Standards: Very related to interoperability, but separate.  There are several standards out there for Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Electronic Medical Records (EMR), not to mention other standards in the Healthcare space.  How do you evaluate those standards for usability, adoption, and sustainability?  Once again, not that much different from the evaluations of CMIS and the ECM standards before that.
• Legacy Paper Records: Wait a second, this I know. You have all these patient records in paper format.  You need them in your EMR and EHR systems.  New records may be electronic, but a patient’s medical history from pre-electronic days needs to be part of the integrated whole.  Scanning of those records, capturing key data elements, and making them available is the same thing we’ve been doing for years just about everywhere.
• Records Management: How long do you keep a patient record?  How do you manage it?  What about records about maintaining hospital equipment?  This is the same problems that federal agencies and companies dealing with SOX compliance have been solving, or attempting to solve, for years.
• Privacy: This is very important.  You don’t want a patient’s health information being compromised.  That is the most personal of your information.  Information needs to be secure, yet shared, all at the same time.  Once again, this is not a new problem.  In the federal government, information about citizens are stored and used all the time.  Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is a source of a lot of auditing and control in many systems.  Even the exact queries that people use to retrieve information needs to be tracked and reported upon.

You know something? Maybe I know a little something about Healthcare IT after all.

Wandering, Learning, and Posting

So I am going to be attending sessions and talking to people for five days down in Atlanta.  I am hoping to define the size of the gap in my domain knowledge, and work towards filling that gap.  I am also going to post notes from some sessions in a similar fashion to my EMC World posts.  I will throw in the following disclaimer:

All information in this post was gathered from the presenters and presentation. It does not reflect my opinion unless clearly indicated (Italics in parenthesis). Any errors are most likely from my misunderstanding a statement or imperfectly recording the information. Updates to correct information are reflected in red, but will not be otherwise indicated.

If you find anything of interest in these posts, and are at HIMSS, feel free to reach me on Twitter (@piewords).  I’m looking for people to talk to that will expand my knowledge and deepen my understanding of the Healthcare industry.

Like all industries, there are unique challenges and environments in Healthcare IT.  Like all industries, when you look at the core of the Information Management problem, you see similarities across the board, and lessons that can be brought to bear to solve them.

Going to be quite a ride this week. Stay tuned to see how I fare.