Fresh ID recently designed and monitored an Intefy page for Meers Advertising, one of our partners and neighbor down the hall. Meers hosted a social media panel discussion at Children’s Mercy Hospital here in Kansas City and invited our CEO, Lisa Qualls, to join the panel of experts (for a full list of those on the panel, click here).  The event was extremely well put-together and highlighted a lot of extremely interesting topics for the physical/virtual crowd in attendance. You can view the recorded video here. Since Lisa was speaking as part of the panel, we did a lot of research on social media and healthcare in the days leading up to the event, and have to admit, we were all blown away!  We’ve been doing more and more proposals lately for sites that involve something related to healthcare or disabilities, but have not been immersed in this segment of the social media space and it was refreshing to see all the many ways people are incorporating social media into healthcare: from advocacy to patient support, many organizations are discovering new ways to connect people with information about their health, wellness, or particular issues. We decided to use this panel discussion as the beginning of a blog series. There was so much good information presented and uncovered in our research, that we think this is a topic that deserves more attention. So for the next few weeks, we are going to try and wade through all of the information available and share what we discover about social media as it’s being used by healthcare organizations, doctors, nurses, patient advocates, insurers, special needs, the government, and others that touch people via a health or wellness interaction. The panel discussion was guided by a list of questions Sam Meers asked regarding the use of social media by hospitals, doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals. These questions will guide what we discuss in this blog series. We are avid students in this area and would love to see your comments and hear your stories. Have you had a personal experience related to social media and healthcare? One of the most innovative things we’ve heard of recently is from a hospital system that is thinking about using our Intefy product for online surgery lessons… they would have cameras in the room as doctors perform surgeries, and students watching would be tested later for college credit. During the surgery, a moderator would be present so they could answer questions and facilitate conversation about what people were seeing. We would never have dreamed of our product being utilized this way – it just goes to show the power of all these social tools and platforms in the hands of creative people who see how to use them to meet a need. Hopefully, together, we can come up with some pretty awesome ideas on how hospitals, doctors, etc. can use social media to improve patient care, disseminate information or gather feedback and data. Be on the look-out for new posts on Tuesdays and Thursdays, starting tomorrow.