Guest Editorial
Why Academic Radiologists Should Use Social Media James V. Rawson, MD, FACR What do you think of when you think of social media? Do you think of lost productivity due to ‘‘playing on smart phones’’? Or do you think about access to people, articles, concepts, and relationships that you might not have otherwise encountered or may have encountered less frequently? I suggest that in a time of great uncertainty in health care and in academic medicine, access to information and relationships is a critical tool. Social media can be a vehicle to access material that you might not otherwise encounter in your daily routine. Using Twitter as an example, I hope to show you that interactions using social media can bring value to you, your department, and your profession. First, I want to make sure we all speak the same language. There are many social media platforms. Some share photos (eg, Flickr, Picasa); others share video (eg, YouTube). Twitter is a microblog and is used for sharing short messages. How short? One hundred and forty characters. Can you say anything meaningful in 140 characters? Yes, but not always in complete sentences with perfect grammar. A message sent out through Twitter is called a tweet and often consists of abbreviations. Where do tweets come from? Think of Twitter as a television and you choose the channels you want to watch and when you want to watch them. When you follow people or organizations on Twitter, their tweets are collected in a data stream called timeline. If you see a tweet that you want to share, you can retweet to people who are following you on Twitter. If you had a Twitter account, you could follow @RadiologyACR or @DrGMcGinty (the Chair of the ACR Economics Commission), to get timely updates on health policy and economic issues in radiology. Or if you were interested in a more broad view of health policy, you could follow @CMSGov or @OIGatHHS, which are the Twitter feeds from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Office of the Inspector General, respectively. If you were not interested in health policy but were interested in research funding you might want to follow @PCORI, the account from the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute.
Acad Radiol 2014; 21:1499–1500 From the Department of Radiology and Imaging, Medical College of Georgia, Georgia Regents University, 1120 15th St, Augusta, GA 30912. Received September 17, 2014; accepted September 23, 2014. Address correspondence to: J.V.R. e-mail: [email protected] ªAUR, 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acra.2014.09.007
You might also encounter Twitter at our national and international radiology conferences. The radiology literature shows that the use of social media has been increasing at our professional meetings (1). Many radiology conferences now have a conference hashtag for attendees to use when tweeting (eg, #AUR14, #RSNA14). In addition to brief messages announcing lectures, demonstrations, or other activities, a tweet can direct you to a multimedia presentation. Although Twitter messages must be less than 140 characters, software is available to reduce the length of a Web site’s address. Thus, tweets from radiology conferences may contain a shortened Web site address which in turn will take you to a YouTube video, a photo, or a document. One advantage of conference hashtags is you do not need to be at the conference to follow a conference hashtag on Twitter. Anyone who has access to twitter can follow the conference hashtag (and hence the conference) from anywhere. People who are not at the conference can interact with participants at the conference creating a virtual dialog. Some researchers tweet links to their publications, whereas others use social media as a virtual seminar to discuss their research with people who are geographically diverse or may even be from different professions or points of view. Social media activity linked to journal articles is associated with increased web views of the associated articles (2). Periodically, there are scheduled discussions on social media called chats. Multiple health care tweet chats exist and are actually inventoried by Symplur (@symplur). These can be found at www.symplur.com/healthcare-hashtags/. Currently, there are over 5000 health care hashtags registered and tracked by Symplur. These include tweet chats, conferences, and hashtags for specific diseases. Hashtags identify people, themes, concepts, or activities and are searchable. You can use social media to data mine and learn about topics by performing searches on hashtags such as #radiology, #mammography or #patientengagement. Patients use Twitter and tweet about what is important to them in their health. Social media may be helpful to identify patient dissatisfiers and could be a critical data source as patient satisfaction surveys become linked to reimbursement. If you wanted to share a helpful blog, Web site, or news announcement, social media is a vehicle that allows you to do this. If you read news articles online, most articles now have a ‘‘share’’ option where you can share the link to the article via social media including Twitter. Could Twitter be an educational tool? I have learned from Tweetchats that I 1499
RAWSON
have participated in and even given a lecture over Twitter with Web links in my tweets directing the reader to supplemental material. Social media provides an opportunity to make connections with colleagues or organizations that might have similar interests but perhaps work in a different discipline. You can also interact and learn from people outside the health care industry. The global community of colleagues that you can interact with through social media is enormous. What are the risks of social media? Privacy is often the biggest concern. Very little of social media is private. These virtual conversations occur in the public domain. Like any other tool, this tool can be time consuming. You could get lost in virtual conversations and reading ‘‘thought-provoking’’ editorials and blogs about the future of health care and forget to do your day job. Twitter is just a tool, and you decide if and how you will use this tool. If you see a potential value in social media, who should you follow in Twitter? Many of our professional societies are on Twitter, for example, @AURTweet (Association of University Radiologists). You may want to follow the top Tweeters in radiology that @AuntMinnie identified earlier this year—@GarryChoy, @RichDuszak, @DrGMcGinty,
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@Jim_Rawson_MD. Once you have set up an account, you do not need to Tweet content. You could choose to just follow the content shared by others. Just because you follow someone on Twitter, does not mean they will follow you. You may be interested in the content they post, but they may not be interested in the content that you post. So if you already know all the decision makers in health care and they call you before making any decisions or announcements, you probably do not need social media. If you already have learned everything you need to ride through the turbulent times that health care is going through, do not bother with social media. Otherwise, it is probably time to set up an account and occasionally check it.
REFERENCES 1. Hawkins CM, Duszak R, Rawson JV. Social media in radiology: early trends in Twitter microblogging at radiology’s largest international meeting. Journal of American College of Radiology 2014; 11(4):387–390. 2. The impact of social media on readership of a peer-reviewed medical journal, Hawkins CM, Hillman, BJ, Carlos RC, Rawson JV, Haines, R, Duszak, R, Accepted for publication in Journal of American College of Radiology
Why Academic Radiologists Should Use Social Media James V. Rawson, MD, FACR What do you think of when you think of social media? Do you think of lost productivity due to ‘‘playing on smart phones’’? Or do you think about access to people, articles, concepts, and relationships that you might not have otherwise encountered or may have encountered less frequently? I suggest that in a time of great uncertainty in health care and in academic medicine, access to information and relationships is a critical tool. Social media can be a vehicle to access material that you might not otherwise encounter in your daily routine. Using Twitter as an example, I hope to show you that interactions using social media can bring value to you, your department, and your profession. First, I want to make sure we all speak the same language. There are many social media platforms. Some share photos (eg, Flickr, Picasa); others share video (eg, YouTube). Twitter is a microblog and is used for sharing short messages. How short? One hundred and forty characters. Can you say anything meaningful in 140 characters? Yes, but not always in complete sentences with perfect grammar. A message sent out through Twitter is called a tweet and often consists of abbreviations. Where do tweets come from? Think of Twitter as a television and you choose the channels you want to watch and when you want to watch them. When you follow people or organizations on Twitter, their tweets are collected in a data stream called timeline. If you see a tweet that you want to share, you can retweet to people who are following you on Twitter. If you had a Twitter account, you could follow @RadiologyACR or @DrGMcGinty (the Chair of the ACR Economics Commission), to get timely updates on health policy and economic issues in radiology. Or if you were interested in a more broad view of health policy, you could follow @CMSGov or @OIGatHHS, which are the Twitter feeds from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Office of the Inspector General, respectively. If you were not interested in health policy but were interested in research funding you might want to follow @PCORI, the account from the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute.
Acad Radiol 2014; 21:1499–1500 From the Department of Radiology and Imaging, Medical College of Georgia, Georgia Regents University, 1120 15th St, Augusta, GA 30912. Received September 17, 2014; accepted September 23, 2014. Address correspondence to: J.V.R. e-mail: [email protected] ªAUR, 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acra.2014.09.007
You might also encounter Twitter at our national and international radiology conferences. The radiology literature shows that the use of social media has been increasing at our professional meetings (1). Many radiology conferences now have a conference hashtag for attendees to use when tweeting (eg, #AUR14, #RSNA14). In addition to brief messages announcing lectures, demonstrations, or other activities, a tweet can direct you to a multimedia presentation. Although Twitter messages must be less than 140 characters, software is available to reduce the length of a Web site’s address. Thus, tweets from radiology conferences may contain a shortened Web site address which in turn will take you to a YouTube video, a photo, or a document. One advantage of conference hashtags is you do not need to be at the conference to follow a conference hashtag on Twitter. Anyone who has access to twitter can follow the conference hashtag (and hence the conference) from anywhere. People who are not at the conference can interact with participants at the conference creating a virtual dialog. Some researchers tweet links to their publications, whereas others use social media as a virtual seminar to discuss their research with people who are geographically diverse or may even be from different professions or points of view. Social media activity linked to journal articles is associated with increased web views of the associated articles (2). Periodically, there are scheduled discussions on social media called chats. Multiple health care tweet chats exist and are actually inventoried by Symplur (@symplur). These can be found at www.symplur.com/healthcare-hashtags/. Currently, there are over 5000 health care hashtags registered and tracked by Symplur. These include tweet chats, conferences, and hashtags for specific diseases. Hashtags identify people, themes, concepts, or activities and are searchable. You can use social media to data mine and learn about topics by performing searches on hashtags such as #radiology, #mammography or #patientengagement. Patients use Twitter and tweet about what is important to them in their health. Social media may be helpful to identify patient dissatisfiers and could be a critical data source as patient satisfaction surveys become linked to reimbursement. If you wanted to share a helpful blog, Web site, or news announcement, social media is a vehicle that allows you to do this. If you read news articles online, most articles now have a ‘‘share’’ option where you can share the link to the article via social media including Twitter. Could Twitter be an educational tool? I have learned from Tweetchats that I 1499
RAWSON
have participated in and even given a lecture over Twitter with Web links in my tweets directing the reader to supplemental material. Social media provides an opportunity to make connections with colleagues or organizations that might have similar interests but perhaps work in a different discipline. You can also interact and learn from people outside the health care industry. The global community of colleagues that you can interact with through social media is enormous. What are the risks of social media? Privacy is often the biggest concern. Very little of social media is private. These virtual conversations occur in the public domain. Like any other tool, this tool can be time consuming. You could get lost in virtual conversations and reading ‘‘thought-provoking’’ editorials and blogs about the future of health care and forget to do your day job. Twitter is just a tool, and you decide if and how you will use this tool. If you see a potential value in social media, who should you follow in Twitter? Many of our professional societies are on Twitter, for example, @AURTweet (Association of University Radiologists). You may want to follow the top Tweeters in radiology that @AuntMinnie identified earlier this year—@GarryChoy, @RichDuszak, @DrGMcGinty,
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Academic Radiology, Vol 21, No 12, December 2014
@Jim_Rawson_MD. Once you have set up an account, you do not need to Tweet content. You could choose to just follow the content shared by others. Just because you follow someone on Twitter, does not mean they will follow you. You may be interested in the content they post, but they may not be interested in the content that you post. So if you already know all the decision makers in health care and they call you before making any decisions or announcements, you probably do not need social media. If you already have learned everything you need to ride through the turbulent times that health care is going through, do not bother with social media. Otherwise, it is probably time to set up an account and occasionally check it.
REFERENCES 1. Hawkins CM, Duszak R, Rawson JV. Social media in radiology: early trends in Twitter microblogging at radiology’s largest international meeting. Journal of American College of Radiology 2014; 11(4):387–390. 2. The impact of social media on readership of a peer-reviewed medical journal, Hawkins CM, Hillman, BJ, Carlos RC, Rawson JV, Haines, R, Duszak, R, Accepted for publication in Journal of American College of Radiology
