Usually operating rooms are closed to the public, but yesterday one surgery was broadcasted live on Twitter right from the operating room. Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center performed brain surgery to remove epileptic sections of the brain to control seizures on Geoffery Nester whos medicine was not controlling his seizures. The surgery was performed while the patient was awake, and the hospital’s social media manager, Peter Balistrieri, was present in the operating room tweeting live news about the surgery, commentary the doctors had to communicate, and even what the patient wanted to communicate. He also tweeted back answers to what followers had to say, receiving both positive and negative feedback about allowing physical social media tools to be present in a sterile environment.
The hope in this case for providing a live feed of the operation was to broadcast and get the word out about this option and help ease fears and encourage those suffering like Geoffery to go through with the procedure. Only 10% of those who should get the procedure actually do. Aurora’s social media manager comments, “Our social media program is right up on top with some of the major players in the United States. We've taken a lot of steps to be more transparent and social media has been an excellent way for us to get out there." This is an interesting way to merge social media with surgeries, how do you feel about it?
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3 comments:
I think that social media being used in the medial field is awesome! I wish I could have participated in the Twitter streaming surgery that you mentioned in the article. I think that as long as the patient is well aware that they are being a participant in something like this, there is no harm done. Stuff like this could potentially be used as a great tool to enrich people’s knowledge of the medial field.
I think social media can be used in several different ways... but I think it should not be used in an actual operating room. What if somebody dies... what exactly would the next twitter statement say? "Patient just died" How DEPRESSING would that be? Now yes, I think twitter could be used to help communicate to the public about public figures, but don't you think there is a conflict of "social media interests" and don't you think "HIPPA" would have a field day with this? And do you think HIPPA has updated their rules to include social media usage? I think if used correctly, it could be very useful.
I don't know if any of you watch Grey's Anatomy or not but a few episodes back the doctors on the show experimented with tweeting from the operating room. During the course of the episode the doctors performing the surgery were able to get real time advice from other doctors following on twitter. I just find it interesting that a popular show like Grey's Anatomy is trying to keep up with the social media world. In regards to this article though tweeting a surgery could provide almost instantaneous feedback from other medical experts. I think that as long as it is done right it can be very helpful.
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