Background
As social media is rapidly becoming a collection of mainstream communication tools for all, there is an opportunity to explore the use of this approach to promote communication between the public and health providers and how it can drive improvement in the system.
Purpose
To understand the strategic use of social media in engaging the public and health providers as partners and how it can drive improvement in the health care system.
Consultations with health care working groups and committees, a workshop with experts, a public forum, a survey, and a literature search was used to create a recommendations report.
Highlights
On February 3, 2014, a workshop was held during the day with stakeholders and experts to identify strategies for implementing social media within the health care system of BC.
In the evening, a public forum was held led by Gillian Shaw, Digital Life Writer, Vancouver Sun, to discuss ideas for leveraging social media to improve health care. The two hour forum was attended by 126 people (in-person and online) and generated 554 tweets on Twitter and 1.2 million impression. Check out the conversation on Twitter through #sm4health
A report with findings and recommendations is currently being written and will be made available to the public upon completion.
Project Partners/Funders
The eHSO would like to thank the BCPSQC for funding and co-leading this project.
Project Team
Christina Krause Project co-lead, Executive Director, BCPSQC
Kendall Ho Project co-lead, Director, eHSO
Keith White Project steering committee member, Doctors of BC, BCPSQC
Gillian Shaw Project steering committee member, Vancouver Sun
Kemp Edmonds Project steering committee member, Hootsuite
Catherine North Project steering committee member, Patients as Partners
Helen Novak Lauscher Assistant Director, eHSO
Erica Amari Project Manager, Project contact
Jen Cordeiro Research Coordinator
For more information, please contact Jen Cordeiro.