Our pal Kevin MD presented in Washington, DC this morning at the eDTC Revolution 2012 Conference. From looking at their website, looks like it was primarily a pharma crowd. I presented at an industry conference in San Francisco and let me tell you, it was a little bit of a tough crowd. Those pharma people really want and need access to physicians/providers.
Below are the tweets (via storify) from his talk via the hashtag to the conference #eDTC2012. I don't know if he is making his slides available, but you'll get a good idea of his talk from the tweets. Enjoy and have a great weekend everybody!
On his new website, Doctor Rob announces that he is leaving is primary care group to create a solo practice using a model of care called "Direct Care." This has also been called "Direct Primary Care" or "Direct Medicine." This quote is from his website.
Direct care has several things that define it as such
Insurance is not accepted
Patients pay a monthly subscription fee for access
Office visits are free or very low cost
Patients have much more access to their doctor via phone, internet, or immediate appointment availability
The number of patients is kept relatively small
During tonight's program, I'll be asking him the process by which he made this decision to start his own solo practice. In addition, you may have read about this different model of practice that is starting to pop up out there in America. I am in what is considered a traditional patient practice model right now, and I have many questions about the logistics of how something like this would work.
Doctor Rob was my first guest on the old Doctor Anonymous Show podcast. Just for fun, I have included the audio player for Show Number 5 below which took place five years ago this month. Doctor Rob was calling in from a medical conference, and I mainly asked him about blogging back then. This five year old show is a great looking glass into where medical social media was back then. Download Show Number 5 here.
So, I hope you can listen to our conversation tonight, Thursday, September 13, 2012 at 8pm Eastern Time on Blogtalkradio for Family Medicine Rocks Episode 277. As always, if you cannot listen live, you can download the archived podcast later and listen anytime. Hope you can join us!
This post is inspired by the facebook update by my long time social media friend Dr Gwenn. And, I know that this post is going to sound like I'm an "old guy" of social media ("Hey kids, get off of my lawn" LOL). I started blogging six years ago, and, at that time, the community was very small - especially the medical social media community.
But, as the natural evolution of media goes, as things get more "mainstream" (however you define that), more and more commercialization comes about (defined by Dr. Gwenn above as corporate robots). With that comes discussions about topics like this: "Scheduled tweets: Yes or No."
So, do I long of those "old" days (just a few years ago) of medical social media? Of course. It's getting more and more difficult to navigate through the fluff to get to the quality content. It's even gotten to the point where there have been apps and sites created to help us sort through the information overload.
This entire whiny post can be encapsulated in the video below from one of my fave cartoons of all time: A Charilie Brown Christmas when Charlie Brown says, "My own dog gone commercial. I can't stand it." Yup, that sums it up. And, yeah, I'm talking to you. Get off my lawn you kids LOL
In the twitter medicine world, @BurbDoc is one of the most intriguing, yet polarizing individuals out there. I really should not be posting this essay because of the e-mails that I received today about my previous post. A lot of people out there viciously defend what @BurbDoc does, which I find very interesting.
What really was interesting to me was the tweet about "gallows humor" and venting. For those who don't know, I was anonymous once out here on the internet as @DoctorAnonymous. So, I definitely understand and lived that point of view.
Shifting to today's @BurbDoc tweets, they are below courtesy of storify. Even though it was on twitter, the tweets was essentially a long blog post - 140 characters at a time. I saw this unfold in real time today. And, if you don't know anything about "Meaningful Use," the one thing that you are able to gather is that it is a bunch of "clicks."
So, do I think @BurbDoc is all bad - Well no. Do I think that @BurbDoc is all good - Well no. (I welcome all the hate mail that you're going to send me - HA!). I do think that @BurbDoc is a real doctor (not a fake), on the west coast of the US (guess), who is finding a unique way of self-expression. Once you cut through the cussing and the thick sarcasm, there is painful truth there about our broken health care system. Am I wrong? Let me know :)
I know it's not news that there is conflict on social media. In a recent example, a flamewar happened on yelp following a pizza owner giving the President a bear hug. Comments started, then supports from both sides weighed in, and we're off to the races.
Example two: Everyone in the medical social media world remember what happened a year and a half ago (has it been that long already), when a blog post was written by our good friend @Doctor_V pointing out some tweets from @mommy_doctor. That blog post, entitled "Unprofessional Physician Behavior on Twitter," had 129 comments and had to be closed to further comments. There were numerous other blog posts written about this. I even did an entire podcast on the topic, which was one of the most exhausting podcasts I have done.
This most recent episode occurred on September 9-10, 2012 on twitter. The tweets are below for your review via the service called storify. It started out with a doctor making a comment about a patient and a patient objecting to the negative characterization about the patient. The doctor then states that this is "gallows humor" and a means of venting. Someone else asked the question about the role of self-censorship in social media. The patient closes the twitter war with this point: "treat me like I was there in front of you, IRL it is pretty simple."
I mean, this is nothing new that is happening. But, it is an opportunity to re-open the topic about twitter behavior. Is there a certain etiquette that should be followed? How far is too far to push things on twitter and other social media outlets? Or, is it as simple as "just unfollow me" on twitter and that's the end of it. What do you think?
From a behind the scenes standpoint, I was very nervous going into this interview. And you could tell that it took me about 20 minutes to ease into things. The 2nd half of the interview (at least for me) had better flow than the first part of the chat. And, Dr. Epperly is a natural who has done dozens of interviews, which really help settle me as the interviewer.
One of the center pieces of our chat is talking about the Patient Centered Medical Home. We also talked about the system needs to reward higher quality care instead of volume based care, and how patients should also be emotionally invested and financially incentivized to value higher quality personal wellness.
To close the interview, I asked about the process by which he put the book together and he talked about the people who helped him edit the book into its current form. I also asked if he considered running for public office, and he gave a great answer to that.
In the video above, you'll see his closing comments of our interview giving advice on action steps that patients, physicians, and govermental entities should do. You can always listen to the entire audio podcast below, or download the entire audio podcast here.
Welcome to those of you who are new to this website. I encourage you to check out my twitter feed, the facebook page for this site, my youtube page, my linked in page, the podcast site, and subscribe the iTunes feed for the podcast.
We'll be talking about his book "Fractured: America's Broken Health Care System and What We Must Do To Heal It." Dr. Epperly has said in interviews that the American public does not know about the US healthcare system, and I agree with that. I even work at the grassroots, and I don't see the forest for the trees. I encourage everyone to read this book to at least give you an idea of how complicated the system is, and why it will be complicated to fix the system.
On last night's podcast, Episode 275, I share my struggles in trying to learn about the health care system, and through reading this book, how I have a better understanding about what really needs to be done to transform the US healthcare system. You and also listen to the player below or download the show here.
Later this morning, I'll be speaking at my medical school, Northeast Ohio Medical University, about Digital Professionalism and Social Media. I'm honored to be asked to talk about the subject. In my final preparations last night, I asked my social media community what they thought and they gave some great advice here.
For those who are curious, my slideshare presentation is below with the essential slides. I always add a few more along with a couple of videos to sharpen the point, but you'll get the idea. Of course, there is not one right way to talk about professionalism to a bunch of first year medical and pharmacy students.
Tips for Digital Professionalism in Social Media
Do NOT be Anonymous: For those who didn't know, I used to blog under the name Doctor Anonymous. In my social media infancy, I quickly learned the highs and lows of social media. If you want to make a difference in your professional life, give up the myth of being anonymous. I learned that people can learn who you are very quickly. So, be yourself...
Do NOT talk, post, tweet, or share anything about patients on social media (without their permission): Obviously, this violates federal patient privacy laws. Sharing patient information with their permission is useful when you're a patient advocate. For example, when talking to legislators, it's effective to share the story of your patient who would be affected with a piece of legislation that is coming up for a vote - like the impending SGR Medicare Cuts that is schedule to take place at the end of the year again.
Be an advocate on social media: Advocate for your patients because they need us. I'll also talk about the efforts with the Family Medicine community to be advocates for our specialty through #FMRevolution (Shout out to the Family Docs!)
Use social media for Patient Education
Use social media to tell your story: In the Family Medicine Community, I share how medical students and residents share their stories on the Future of Family Medicine Blog.
Welcome those of you who are new to the website. I invite you to look around. In addition to this website, I have a podcast, you tube channel, facebook page for this blog, and a linked in page that you should check out. I hope you enjoy what you see, and, as always, I welcome your feedback. Cheers!
What an amazing show last night with guests Gerry Tolbert, April Foreman, and Tony Wood. Thanks also to Ben Miller for calling in and to Gregg Masters and Kirk Ackerson for participating in the chat room. What is the best way to market Family Medicine? This is a question that I have been continually asking on the show.
And, it was this healthcare video contest that really sparked another chance on how to tell the Family Medicine story. At the beginning of Family Medicine Rocks Episode 272, we were nowhere, and I really thought that after an hour, we would graciously give up and say that we gave it a good try.
However, as you'll see in the video above, a magic moment happened at about minute 55 or 60 of the podcast. The idea to look toward the words of Family Medicine's founding fathers to be the backdrop of the video and show the ideas and concepts back then are the exact same ideas that we're still talking about today. Core beliefs than span generations.
We're on a very short timeline, but I do want to reach out to the Family Medicine and #FMRevolution community to assist us in this project. I encourage you to watch the video above, listen to the audio podcast, and reflect on what kind of story you would tell for Family Medicine.
You can download the entire audio podcast here or in the link below. Watch the video highlights of the show here. I also encourage you to follow me on twitter, "like" the facebook page for the show, watch my youtube page, and check out my linked in page. Enjoy!
