BlogWorld Expo Wrap Up and Impressions
I’ve been home two days and my head is still spinning a bit from all I learned and heard at this meeting. It’s easy to think this meeting is just about blogging when you see the title, and yet it’s really not. It’s a social media conference so it covers a lot of materials. Every niche group under the sun seemed to be represented as well. I saw somewhere that there were over 5,000 attendees.
As a first timer to this meeting, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’ve been to lots of conferences related to the healthcare industry, but this was different for me. This was where the “gurus” of the world I am entering come to share their expertise. I was simply a novice there. What I found was a program packed with great information, an amazing exhibit hall, and some great networking opportunities. Let me share a few things I heard and saw that I think will interest you.
Social Health Track
I attended two of the sessions on how social media in playing a role in the world of health care today. I found it pretty amazing to see how much things are changing from what they have always been. One speaker, e-Patient Dave, told his story of beating Stage IV cancer and how he used the internet to become an “e-patient” to find the best treatment options available. If you think about it, how patients find information is indeed different than it has ever been. Here are some interesting stats for you to ponder:
- 61% of Americans go online for health information
- 41% get information about health concerns from reading others’ commentaries
- 24% consult online rankings for physicians and healthcare facilities
- 39% use social networking, such as Facebook
- 12% use Twitter
- 60% say the information found online affected their decisions related to their healthcare
- 56% say the information online changed how they did things
- 50% of physicians visit Wikipedia for professional purposes (now, this one just might scare me a little!)
The term “e-patient” is a relatively new one to our world. It relates to those people who are using online resources to empower themselves related to healthcare. It is a movement where patients are working to be sure they can actually participate as a partner in their healthcare. It was interesting in the second panel I attended to hear the discussion between patients and industry (being places like Johnson & Johnson and healthcare facilities) and wondering how they can work together. The e-Patient Scholars Working Group has published a white paper on E-Patients: How they Can Help us Heal Healthcare; while it’s 126 pages, it is pretty interesting reading. After learning all I did from this, I plan to join the Society for Participatory Medicine as it seems to be an interesting group to get involved with.
Speakers and Presentations
You’ve already seen my post about Scott Stratten’s keynote on Unmarketing. If you haven’t, be sure to take a look as we’re going to take his book on a little book tour among our group!
I was happy to be able to meet some of the bloggers I have been following the last year or so. One of the sessions I attended as on Building Community by Darren Rouse. It gave some great ideas on things to do to increase a sense of community among a group. It also showed that we are doing some things right here!
I also went to a session on Treating your Blog like a Business. This one was a panel with David Risley, Nathan Hangen, Lisa Morosky, and Jordan Cooper. This was a great panel with solid ideas. David Risley runs the Blogmasters Club, which is a program I took this year. Nathan Hangen has an interesting story as he began an online business while deployed in Afghanistan while he was in the Army. Lisa has a virtual assistant business, where she provides virtual assistant services for many of the big name bloggers. Jordan is a comedian who runs a blog on social media and marketing. That was a lot of brain power in one session!
Exhibit Hall
The exhibit hall was full of great information. There was even a new Guinness World Record broken, as Gourmet Gift Baskets created the new record for the largest cup of coffee, 2,010 gallons! They did this as a way of supporting the Susan G. Komen’s Passionately Pink for the Cure through donations. Do take a look at this cup of coffee, which held 32,160 cups of coffee! I also found some great information about a new company that will be doing educational programs and am hoping to explore that more now that I am back home! I had a chance to see some of the best chefs around at work in the exhibit hall as the food bloggers had a complete Jenn-Air kitchen set up and lots of famous chefs coming in to cook something. That was amazing and I now want all new appliances! 
One thing that was absent here compared to other meetings I’ve attended was that there were no box lunches in the exhibit hall! Each attendee received a coupon for $20 each day that was good in several of the hotel restaurants or food court. I love this idea and hope other conferences will copy it! It gave us a choice of where to eat and there were no long lines of people waiting to get their box lunch!
Takeaways for Us
There were so many others that this post would be way too long so I’ll stop there. Let me add this, though. What was evident to me in this meeting is that many people are seeking alternative careers in this economy. And many are succeeding. The way we do business is drastically changed from what it was even five years ago. I believe it will be those who learn how to do things differently who will survive and even find ways to thrive. I only hope our own industry sees some of this.
I’ve heard of MTs who are seeking jobs and can’t find one. I’ve heard from new graduates who did everything they were told,went to an AHDI-approved school, got credentialed, and yet still no one will test them. I’ve even heard of MTs being told their computers were “too new” for the technology. We are indeed behind the curve and need to move fast to get ahead of it! As long as we continue to try to change our world using the same techniques of five or ten years ago, I don’t believe we will make the impact we need to make.
New things have the power to change our lives. That’s sure been the case with this meeting. This new world of social media and how it is changing the world DOES impact us. What can YOU do today to make a difference and become proactive in your own part of the world?
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Tagged with: BlogWorld Expo • industry updates • tales from the blogosphere • using social media in medical transcription
Filed under: Industry Updates • Professional Development • Tales From the Blogosphere
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I enjoyed reading about e-patient Dave. I have been doing that same thing for years. Doctors never seem willing or do not have the time to share with the patient very much information. I have not come across many that will “think outside the box” when it comes to healthcare. I do lots of research online or in the library because I want to know what they are talking about and I want to be able to bring up other ideas they might not have thought about. I will be looking into the one group you mentioned, the Society for Participatory Medicine. I do not like the idea of a team making medicial decisions about me without my input or my knowing what they are talking about.
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Kathy Reply:
October 20th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
His story is pretty remarkable. One thing I was struck by was him telling stories of how sometimes all that is approved by the FDA for information about a medication is old information. Only by going to patient network sites was someone able to find up to date information. With all physicians have to keep up on, it’s a good idea for us to be informed and empowered!
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As a patient, I enjoy researching different diseases and conditions. I’m by no means an expert on anything, but when my doctor diagnoses me with something, I check it out to make sure my symptoms are appropriate to his diagnosis. Also, probably a good 6 years or so ago, I got out of bed one morning and pretty much fell flat on my face from pain in my heels when they touched the floor. I don’t remember what group I was “talking” to online at the time, but when I mentioned it, they said it sounded like their symptoms (after I explained more, of course), and told me that they had plantar fasciitis. I hadn’t even had time to consult a doctor about this, but I researched the condition online and it appears that is what I have. Since then, quite a few years have gone by, but finally at my last doctor appointment in September, I asked my doctor about it since I’m still having a major problem with this with my left foot, and he agreed that plantar fasciitis is my problem. We talked about stretching exercises (which I already do, but they truly do not help more than 5 minutes or so) and about other things I can try. I have a thingy I put on my foot at night that is supposed to help stretch my arch, which is supposed to help the plantar fasciitis. Although it’s not meant to be worn outdoors, you can walk indoors with it on, so you can wear it for longer periods of time than just while you are sleeping, but you really need to kind of “pad” your foot (arch) and shin since it will rub and can really make you doggone sore. Anyway, just my 2 cents’ worth on how social networking and internet research can answer questions for a person that you might otherwise NEVER even think of, just trusting in whatever a doctor tells you. This is not to say you should 100% trust what other NON-medical people tell you, but it does give you another vantage point to view your situation from and research symptoms, etc.
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You know, I have to say this. I have always believed that NOBODY knows my body better than I do. I live in this skin 24/7, and when something isn’t “right,” I’m the one who notices and has to describe it to a doctor and find out what’s going on. So, that being said, WE AS PATIENTS have to know enough about what feels “normal” to us about our own bodies that we recognize when something ISN’T normal, and we have to be able to convey this to a doctor in a manner that THEY can understand. I know that they use language that people not all that familiar with medical terminology and diseases/conditions don’t know and it’s scary, but basically the unknown IS generally scary. It is the PATIENT who has the ultimate responsibility for making sure that the doctor who is providing treatment is actually providing the RIGHT treatment! I will provide an example here, and it’s close to my heart.
When I was a kid, our family doctor was considered one of the top diagnosticians in the United States. My dad had a sore throat (which we later found was strep throat). He also had bad belly pain. When he went to the doctor, whatever questions and answers transpired led the doctor to just believe that it was a bad cold or something like that. He told dad to go home and take aspirin and rest and come back in a few days. Within 24 hours, my dad was lying on the front seat of our car in my grandparents’ driveway and basically screaming and crying. (Mom had already gone in the house with my baby sister.) I was only about 2 years old, you know, and I can remember my dad screaming for me to “go get Joe the cop” who was this old grampa-type policeman who lived across the street from my grandparents. I must’ve been a sight tearing across the street–lucky there probably wasn’t any traffic ’cause I’m sure I didn’t look for cars when I ran across the street. Anyway, my dad’s appendix had burst, and evidently our doctor hadn’t thought to check Dad’s appendix because of the sore throat or something. Some diagnostician! I know there are probably MILLIONS of different diseases and medical conditions out there, but honestly….you have to make your doctor listen to you when you talk about how you feel and what your symptoms are and WHERE they are! When all is said and done and you get your diagnosis, you should take it upon yourself to ask if there is a chance it could be anything else, and don’t give up on checking out more than one diagnosis. It could be a matter of life and death….yours! NOBODY KNOWS YOUR OWN BODY LIKE YOU DO…PAY ATTENTION TO IT.
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Kathy Reply:
October 20th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
Sherry, wow what a story. You are absolutely right that we, as patients, have to take responsibility for being sure we are heard and for making someone listen. I found myself also wondering what role MTs can play in helping patients even understand their records as so much of it isn’t in “layman’s language.”
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Kathy, your comment about wondering what role MTs can play in helping patients understand their records is an interesting one. I don’t know how it could work on a one-on-one basis but it might work if there was a site where a patient could look at some of the basis information in a report and see what it means in terms they can relate to. Take a phrase like “The patient was afebrile.” Share with them that it means they have no fever. “Patient has microcytic anemia.” Share that this is a generic term for any anemia characterized by small red blood cells. I looked up that very term myself when I was told I had microcytic anemia, it would have been easier to understand the other way.
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