Physician Social Networking

Medical Economics covers the developing world of physician social networking websites in Behind doctors' social networking websites.

Interestingly the article begins with a story about a West Virginia physician, Danine Rydland, MD, using Sermo to search for information to help her treat one of her patients.

Sermo Physicians Launch Doctors Unite Campaign

Can online social networking by health care professionals be the catalysts for group action and change in the health care industry?

Fellow friend and health blogger,Fard Johnmar,at Healthcare Vox explores this question and more in his post, "Sermo Docs Launch An Online Health Reform Movement: Will It Matter?". A current effort social networking campaign lead by the physicians who participate in the physician-only social network Sermo (think Facebook for doctors).

The online effort - called "Doctors Unite" is an open letter to Americans to highlight the challenges physicians face in delivering appropriate patient care and targets three industry groups: insurance companies, government and malpractice attorneys. The counter currently shows over 5,200 signatures by Sermo physicians. You can click on the tabs "Our Story" and "Why Sermo" for more of the back story on the effort. Also check out the Sermo press release.

This effort will be interesting for those involved in the health care industry to watch develop. Will this be the grassroots social networking effort that drives change from the bottom up?

Scott Shreeve, MD On Sermo and Knowledge Prostitution

Scott Shreeve, MD one of my favorite Health 2.0 thinkers skeptically examines Sermo's business model of incentive pay for physician opinions and gives us non-physicians a glimpse (with screen shots) of how Sermo works in his post, "Change Agents: Knowledge Prostitution."

I've followed and posted about Sermo's development over the last year. Recently Sermo entered into a strategic affiliation with the AMA mashing up the old school health care industry with Health 2.0.

As these new health care business models evolve they raise all sorts of interesting legal questions for health care lawyers. For example, what impact will the recent outing of flea have on the reluctance of physicians to post recommendations/comments on sites like Sermo? Could specific content posts by physicians ultimately be used against them in future litigation to highlight prior inconsistent statements by the physician on a particular course of action or treatment? As Sermo continues to grow what impact will this online collaboration have on the definition of standard of care? How will Sermo respond when it receives a subpeona for records in a pending health care related class action or medical malpractice action? Just a few of the many questions that come to mind.

David Harlow at HealthBlawg looks at some of the same issues and explores others in his post on "the strange case of the arrogant physician, and related musings on the propriety physician blogging and other online behavior. "