Tweet, tweet from the consulting room
GP columnist Neil Paul is fascinated by the latest technologies for reaching out to patients. So fascinated, that he’s put his practice on Twitter.
In my last column, I talked about improving practice websites and trying to get patients to use them as their first point of call for accessing the NHS.
However, a website is no use if nobody sees it; so it’s also necessary to think about the best way of advertising it, getting it to come up high on relevant search engine searches and even partnering with other services and businesses in order to get more links.
“People might be keen to have a space for their GP surgery on their home page if the information was relevant and specific to them.”
One idea that I have had to pull in more hits is to blog about health related news, giving a local perspective and - possibly - a different interpretation to the Daily Mail’s take on topical stories. I’ve never had time to set up a blog, but the essential point is that instead of expecting patients to come to us, we need to get out to them.
This is where web 2.0 products like Facebook, My Space, iGoogle and Twitter come in. These products essentially provide a personalised window onto the internet, through which people can keep track of friends, family and others, teams and interests and hobbies.
Push services: a short history
People have always used a variety of IT sources for information, from dial up bulletin boards, to subscription based email lists and website based forums that a lot of companies use for supporting their products.
Then came RSS feeds, which are brief messages issued by a website that users subscribe to and view in their email or reader software. These are automatically updated whenever there is a new article or news item published.
The latest thing is clever web pages that trawl all your favourite sites and link emails, instant messages, blogs, RSS feeds and many more together. I use iGoogle as my default homepage, so I get the same view and same information on every computer I use.
“One follower announced on his feed he couldn’t believe his GPs were on Twitter and that it was ‘cool’.”
It allows you to install widgets which can present information or perform actions – ‘to do’ lists, a calculator, cartoon of the day, calendars, even games. These widgets with the right passwords collect information from other sources on the Internet. Other sites do similar things.
So, I would like to develop a gadget for my practice to sit on my patients’ homepages for whichever service they use. It could list surgery news and even remind them of when their next appointment is and allow them to order more prescriptions.
If it was linked to the clinical database, it could provide relevant information about events, such as public health campaigns, and advertisements for services we offer. Information about new treatments could go out to people with certain conditions; alerts about medication would only go to people on it.
People might be keen to have a space for their GP surgery on their home page if the information was relevant and specific to them.
GPs are cool – at least on Twitter
As a first step, I have set up a Twitter feed for my surgery called SandbachGPs. Twitter was originally created as a form of micro blog. People are meant to regularly type in an answer to the question “what are you doing?” Friends and family might follow you - and others will too, if you are interesting or famous. Lots of business are now on Twitter.
I have only advertised our feed on our surgery LED boards and after two weeks we have 35 followers; most of them patients. Average age of users seems to be 20s to 30s, with quite a lot of men. One follower announced on his feed he couldn’t believe his GPs were on Twitter and that it was “cool.”
So far, I have just put out bland messages about the services we offer and I am trying not to overwhelm people. Messages can only be 140 characters, which means you have to be brief, but this can be a plus – you can’t end up having the sprawling conversations you can get drawn into on email.
We have had several questions online, such as how to get urgent prescriptions and how to register for online services. There is a facility for private messages, but I am keeping confidentiality my highest priority - and don’t want to get into any consultations via Twitter.
It remains to be seen how long Twitter stays popular and how many follow us but it seems a good first step and my reception team seem keen to start using it to send messages.
About the author: Dr Neil Paul is a full time GP working at the Ashfields primary care centre in Sandbach. He sits on his primary care trust’s professional executive committee and has a lead role for IM&T and Payment by Results.