A Thanksgiving edition of Grand Rounds is up this morning at Colorado Health Insurance Insider. One of my favorite posts comes from Laika's MedLibLog, where a web 2.0 savvy health librarian shares a list of scientific journals that she follows on Twitter.
Maybe Twitter lists like this speak to me because I remember what accessing quality medical information once looked like: finding time to go to the university library, scrounging around for change, countless hours spent looking for high-end resources, doing the bump and grind with a recalcitrant copy machine (so that the prized materials might be made readily accessible in places more welcoming than the nasty, drafty, dirty library). And leaving with the nagging sense that I probably missed the best things anyway.
People who think that Twitter is a place where bores report the outcome of their children's travel soccer games are missing it. There are bores in Health 2.0. (There are bores everywhere: The 2009 word of the year is unfriend and I suspect unfollow, what you do to bores on Twitter, will pop up next year.)
But the ability to piggyback onto lists used by medical librarians, gaining access to real time output from 90 (just a start, no doubt) scientific journals a health information practitioner relies on.... well, it's enough to make you drop your dimes.
When you let go of old ways of doing things, it's nice to find something as a useful as a "follow" button.
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Safety Nurse's Top 25 Tweeps for Patient Safety
Patient safety is a healthcare discipline that takes a critical look at how well intention meets outcome. It's one of the six key dimensions of quality described in the IOM reports that first quantified how often people are harmed as a result of seeking care, then outlined improvement strategies. The other 5 dimensions are: effective, timely, patient-centered, efficient, and equitable.
Broken down to its simplest, patient safety doesn't cure cancer. It exists to be certain that no one dies as a result of a chemotherapy overdose.
The systems used to deliver care and the culture of the organization where care is provided influence how often inadvertent harm occurs. Transparency, disclosure, error reporting, and an urge to prevent errors by learning from others are hallmarks of patient safety. People who champion the science of patient safety borrow from cognitive psychology, systems engineering, and human factors, recognizing the inherent fallibility of humans. They use proven strategies that mitigate the consequences of human error. Like other worthy endeavors, this one is realized with high-end metrics, and, like others, patient safety relies on IT solutions.
That said, my Twitter network is comprised of consumers, patients and professionals, all of whom value patients and their safety. The healthcare dialogue on Twitter is rich, and the perspectives and causes diverse.
Today's list allows me to share 25 tweeps I've identified as valuable patient safety resources, visionaries, or exemplars; their approach is consistent with the science of patient safety and they're currently active in the Twitterverse.
In keeping with the spirit of Twitter, I'm using only 140 characters to share why I follow each one.
Broken down to its simplest, patient safety doesn't cure cancer. It exists to be certain that no one dies as a result of a chemotherapy overdose.
The systems used to deliver care and the culture of the organization where care is provided influence how often inadvertent harm occurs. Transparency, disclosure, error reporting, and an urge to prevent errors by learning from others are hallmarks of patient safety. People who champion the science of patient safety borrow from cognitive psychology, systems engineering, and human factors, recognizing the inherent fallibility of humans. They use proven strategies that mitigate the consequences of human error. Like other worthy endeavors, this one is realized with high-end metrics, and, like others, patient safety relies on IT solutions.
That said, my Twitter network is comprised of consumers, patients and professionals, all of whom value patients and their safety. The healthcare dialogue on Twitter is rich, and the perspectives and causes diverse.
Today's list allows me to share 25 tweeps I've identified as valuable patient safety resources, visionaries, or exemplars; their approach is consistent with the science of patient safety and they're currently active in the Twitterverse.
In keeping with the spirit of Twitter, I'm using only 140 characters to share why I follow each one.
- @dirkstanley Hospitalist, CMIO. Prolific tweeter, excellent networker. Watches healthcare, strategic.
- @ePatientDave Has a dog in many dimensions of the fight to improve healthcare. Gives new meaning to transparency. Rock on, Dave.
- @ecri_anderson Editor of ECRI Institute's risk management & pt safety publications. Tweets make high-end PSO info widely available.
- @IHIOpenSchool An interprofessional educational community giving students in health professions skills to change healthcare culture.
- @INQRI Does research to understand how nurses contribute & improve the quality of pt care. Frequent #patientsafety sensitive tweets.
- @ismp1 President of ISMP, a nonprofit, multidisciplinary, drug safety agency. A wealth of knowledge & practical med safety tools. Unflinching advocate.
- @JCommission A not-for-profit organization, TJC accredits, certifies health care organizations. "Aligns & defines" pt safety standards.
- @jfahrni Pharmacist, infomatics. A good barometer for how it's hitting the frontline. RTs high-end stuff & not afraid to push back.
- @jkfaw Parent-founded collaborative, bringing providers & patients together to create a culture of safety. http://bit.ly/xDWdr
- @JohnSharp Infomatics research. HIT should be the great patient safety enabler, a window into how it can work. More, please.
- @JustinHOPE Parent founder of children's patient safety org. Determined advocate for transparency: http://bit.ly/DeptR
- @medusesafety Tweets from the American Society of Medication Safety Officers. Leaders in a high-stakes, interdisciplinary milieu.
- @midwifeamy Advocates for safety in birth and offers wise counsel, "Don't fix it if it ain't broke." http://bit.ly/jJX0i
- @MissMedSafety Seasoned clinical nurse & med safety expert in the trenches every day. Lives it & finding her voice in the Twitterverse.
- @NPRhealth Follows it all. If it's big, they'll have it and link to high-end analysis. Not for those looking for a Happy Meal.
- @paulflevy Healthcare CEO. Models transparency, leader engagement. Blog worth daily read in busiest schedule. http://bit.ly/pkMaO
- @pharmaguy Knows his mission & how to tweet to accomplish it. Gets around and says the hard things. Needed. http://bit.ly/4zGV0z
- @PSadvocate Patient Safety perspectives by a non-clinician, exposed to process improvement tools OTJ. Finds & RTs are credible.
- @PSeditor Editor HCPro, Inc. Fosters patient safety engagement. Nurtures, networks effectively using 2.0.
- @quantros PSO, tweets to improve patient safety & reduce medical errors in the US healthcare system. Often prolific & always on target.
- @sevinfo Pharma/Biotech information researcher, librarian. Voracious reader & mom has a good eye for safety sensitive stuff. Authentic.
- @SusanCarr Editor, Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare magazine. Just plain gets it. Plus her info is readily accessible online. A find.
- @tully3000 Excess med mal claim manager. Keeps an eye on all things healthcare & reliably separates the wheat from the chaff.
- @WSJHealthBlog Not patient safety only, but some of the best stories there. Check regularly. When it's there, look for more coming.
- @writeo An ex-editor at The Oregonian; now 1 of 2 consumer members of OR Pt Safety Commission. Tweets & RTs big picture info to broad base.
Thanks for updating your patient safety tweeps. The main problem with making this list is that the patient safety community isn't as visible as it could be and the list is way too short. Keep in mind that many highly credible patient safety initiatives and individuals haven't yet made it to Twitter, so check back often to update your follows.
If I missed you or one of your #patient safety favs, leave me a comment so I can adjust my filters or begin following you!
Thursday, July 16, 2009
More than a moment for patients
The third edition of Patients for a Moment is up at Duncan Cross' place. I get fresh insight every time I visit patient blogs and wonder if the healthcare system wouldn't improve if every single blogger shared their most recent experience about being a patient. I have a working title for a post I'm going to write called, If I didn't give birth to you, resist the urge to call me "Mom."
I learned this week about Twitter's potential to provide aggregate data that could be useful in disease management and research. (The majority of people I know still think Twitter is for people who care whether Ashton Kusher buys one or two ply toilet paper.)
In addition to providing real-time information about the bathroom habits of the stars, Twitter could help inform "nature versus nurture" issues. Say you have a child with a difficult-to-manage-and-treat condition, like autism. A condition that could be influenced by things like weather, season, age, stress, medications, exposure to certain foods, chemicals, and so forth.
140 character tweets allow parents and caregivers to send real-time, structured observations to a central repository where others with similar conditions are also tweeting. Data can be aggregated and overlaid with other variables (like barometric pressure; temperature; phase of the moon) with the net effect being more comprehensive information about the state of individuals within the state of the environment they're in.
Sweet. (Tsweet?)
I learned this week about Twitter's potential to provide aggregate data that could be useful in disease management and research. (The majority of people I know still think Twitter is for people who care whether Ashton Kusher buys one or two ply toilet paper.)
In addition to providing real-time information about the bathroom habits of the stars, Twitter could help inform "nature versus nurture" issues. Say you have a child with a difficult-to-manage-and-treat condition, like autism. A condition that could be influenced by things like weather, season, age, stress, medications, exposure to certain foods, chemicals, and so forth.
140 character tweets allow parents and caregivers to send real-time, structured observations to a central repository where others with similar conditions are also tweeting. Data can be aggregated and overlaid with other variables (like barometric pressure; temperature; phase of the moon) with the net effect being more comprehensive information about the state of individuals within the state of the environment they're in.
Sweet. (Tsweet?)
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Safety Nurse says, "Tweet this!"
If you have a professional or personal passion and haven't yet been to Twitter, the mothership of micro-blogging, you should! In the twitterverse, I am Safety Nurse. (Be patient, the taxonomy will chafe less with time.)
Why Safety Nurse?
I'd like to think that when I seek health care, I don't come out with more problems than I had when I went in. And I want the same for you. That makes me a patient safety advocate.
Here's why I find Twitter useful:
Twitter makes it easy to find others who have the same or parallel interests. I share resources and ideas I find worthy and evaluate what catches the attention of others. Filters and selective decisions about who I "follow" enable me to see tweets that are more likely to yield high-interest information, leaving minutiae tweets in the background. (There is something of an art to figuring out how not to see game results from someone's little leaguer. Again, filters are our friends.)
Twitter is a powerful virtual community, bringing people (and their opinions, insight, and networks) together with efficiencies not previously possible.
What can be said in 140 characters:
The 140 character limit can be a challenge, but often ignites creativity. Links to other sites are frequently included in the 140 characters, but the length constraint is actually desirable. Tweets exceeding 140 characters are the equivalent of "get a room" (or "get a blog").
This is what I tweet:
In 2001, the Institute of Medicine published a seminal report, Crossing the Quality Chasm, that identified six healthcare characteristics that lead to better, cheaper, and more reliable systems. They are:
Outlier tweets:
Occasionally I tweet something only tangentially related to heathcare, like: Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. -Ben Franklin. I also choose to follow a small number of folks who tweet outside of my primary areas of interest. For example, I follow Coldplay, an activity that leads me to free downloads when the band decides to reward their followers. (Whether Twitter leads you to freebies depends on your area of interest. I'm a medication safety advocate, meaning you shouldn't count on finding directions to a valium salt lick anytime soon.) I also follow Marlee Matlin because she's a high profile deaf person who tweets helpful things about captioning and deaf advocacy that I like to know about.
Tweet at ya later!
Why Safety Nurse?
I'd like to think that when I seek health care, I don't come out with more problems than I had when I went in. And I want the same for you. That makes me a patient safety advocate.
Here's why I find Twitter useful:
Twitter makes it easy to find others who have the same or parallel interests. I share resources and ideas I find worthy and evaluate what catches the attention of others. Filters and selective decisions about who I "follow" enable me to see tweets that are more likely to yield high-interest information, leaving minutiae tweets in the background. (There is something of an art to figuring out how not to see game results from someone's little leaguer. Again, filters are our friends.)
Twitter is a powerful virtual community, bringing people (and their opinions, insight, and networks) together with efficiencies not previously possible.
What can be said in 140 characters:
The 140 character limit can be a challenge, but often ignites creativity. Links to other sites are frequently included in the 140 characters, but the length constraint is actually desirable. Tweets exceeding 140 characters are the equivalent of "get a room" (or "get a blog").
This is what I tweet:
In 2001, the Institute of Medicine published a seminal report, Crossing the Quality Chasm, that identified six healthcare characteristics that lead to better, cheaper, and more reliable systems. They are:
- safe
- effective
- timely
- efficient
- patient-centered
- equitable
Outlier tweets:
Occasionally I tweet something only tangentially related to heathcare, like: Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. -Ben Franklin. I also choose to follow a small number of folks who tweet outside of my primary areas of interest. For example, I follow Coldplay, an activity that leads me to free downloads when the band decides to reward their followers. (Whether Twitter leads you to freebies depends on your area of interest. I'm a medication safety advocate, meaning you shouldn't count on finding directions to a valium salt lick anytime soon.) I also follow Marlee Matlin because she's a high profile deaf person who tweets helpful things about captioning and deaf advocacy that I like to know about.
Tweet at ya later!
Friday, May 22, 2009
All riding is therapeutic riding
used with permissionWhen my daughter was eleven, I sent her to stay with her grandmother in rural New Mexico for a month, as the brewing storm in our relationship seemed certain to explode in the long, hot, empty Georgia summer days. When she returned, our suburban family included a devoted horse enthusiast, and none of us have ever been--or really wanted to be--the same.
My daughter is deaf, and she uses a cochlear implant to hear. If you're not familiar with what that means in functional terms, it's this: my daughter hears, but not always or well. The precision, quality, and reliability of the sounds received are not the same as what a person with normal hearing experiences. Distance, background noise, and lack of contextual cues bother people with cochlear implants more than they bother others. Toilets flushing are easy to discern. Speaking voices are hard. Giddy-up!
Early-on, I remember spending a fair amount of time and energy at Radio Shack, purchasing, then returning, an array of electronic widgets that might help the trainer's voice reach across the dusty, windy arena to further "level the playing field" for my daughter. But the most vivid memory I have from that era is when the trainer, now a dear friend, called me to say, "I know you know your daughter doesn't hear well. But she doesn't listen either."
I knew that.
I think there are times when we all know things like that. People who work in quality and patient safety are learning that it's impractical to rely solely on linear approaches to improve outcomes in a highly complex system, like healthcare (especially if you're looking for changes that are both safe and satisfying). Just ask anyone who is still hungry after being fed their Core Measure Happy Meal.
Therapeutic riding programs are often used to bring horses and people who have profound physical, developmental, and emotional disabilities together, with results that often exceed the primary objective for showing up in the first place. My daughter never enrolled in a riding program that claimed any particular expertise in facilitating the needs of hearing-impaired people. But hang around horses and the people who love them for any sustained amount of time, and you'll likely conclude what I have: All riding is therapeutic riding. How easy it is to see what's broken is what distinguishes riders with special needs from others.
I didn't go to the National Patient Safety Foundation Congress this week. But I followed tweets from people who did, giving me the opportunity to be pleased in real-time when I saw that teamwork and relationship-building, as vehicles to enhance outcomes, were championed. We need results that exceed the articulated primary objective, results that, as equine activities model, can be predicted to come through relationships centered around high-stakes activities and hard work. Sounds like healthcare!
Giddy-up!
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