August 17, 2010

• Facebook and Medicine

  I have a patient on Facebook.

  I mean, I’m sure I have a bunch of patients on Facebook, but I mean here, in the hospital, I have a patient who brought his computer, accessed the hospital wireless and he is on facebook when I round on him in the morning. I check facebook a couple times a day. In the resident lounge and physician workstations, there are usually a couple of interns or residents browsing photos, updating their status, etc. Nurses will be on facebook on their iphones playing those games where you match colored balls. Everyone is on facebook.

  I wonder about a future where Facebook has replaced all current medical communication. You’re in your room, and you start to feel funny, why page the nurse? You page the nurse, it takes time for the nurse to respond. Just update your status. I’ll see it, the nurse will see it, the intern will see it… even if we’re not your Facebook friend, I’m sure we have friends in common, or friends of friends– what, they say everyone’s no more than six degrees separated, right? So everyone can comment on your status and I’m sure soon enough I’ll see it on my screen.

  So I find out you’re not feeling quite right, and I can send a Facebook message to the nurse, reminding her to check on you– easier than picking up the phone, and if the nurse is away from the nurse’s station I know she’ll at least be carrying around her iPhone and checking Facebook– so it’s a faster way to get in touch.

  And why have to call a consult, and then circle back with the fellow, and make six phone calls to get everyone on the same page? I can just update my status with my patient’s status, and let everyone else comment on it. Maybe there’s another doctor, not involved with the case, who has something useful to add. We’d never know without Facebook.

  And maybe we don’t want to schedule that MRI quite yet, because the MRI technician is pretty busy with his Farmville, and we should probably wait until all of that slows down before we wheel the patient in for a test.

  And why wait for the scan results to be read by Radiology, anyway? Just post the picture on Facebook, we’ll all see it, thumbs-up if it looks clean, otherwise we can just tag all the notable spots on the photo.

  And don’t worry about HIPAA, everyone can just set their own privacy settings, it’s no problem at all.

  Food for thought…

  • 8:36 pm
  • 5 Comments