Recently the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media brought on board a new Medical Director – Dr. Farris Timimi.  As part of the Advisory Board for the Center, I wanted to get to know Dr. Timimi a little better and share with you some insights into his work and his new role. We’re really happy to have him on board and I’m personally looking forward to seeing him move forward the mission of Mayo.

Here is a brief video where he touches on his interests in this new role:

You can also find Dr. Timimi here on Twitter! Now onward to the interview -

P/S: Can you give us a little background as to how you got involved in the medical world and what prompted you to focus on cardiovascular disease?

FT: My interest in Cardiology reflects the opportunity to merge physics and medicine. I have consciously chosen my clinical practice, advanced heart failure/transplant cardiology, as it is one of the few sub-specialties within cardiology that allows for continuity care, i.e., the opportunity for a long-term relationship with a patient and their family, all too rare in Cardiology practice.

My interest in engagement reflects lessons I have learned as to the value of partnership. Several years ago, I established a small indigent Cardiology clinic in rural Minnesota, to provide cardiac care in an underserved community clinic. As a product of a state funding mandate, one-half of the community clinic board was to be made up of patients and their family members. It became readily apparent, truly after the first meeting, that many of the barriers to health care that my patients encountered were issues that I only discovered about when we met as a group to discuss operational clinic issues. This lesson, the value of that transparent conversation, led to my subsequent exploration of patient-family advisory councils as a broader means of capturing patient and family input, particularly at the level of policy and procedure development, ideally at the moment of content creation.

Social media, as applicable to health care, is the logical extension of those value lessons to a realm that has no geographic or time barriers.

P/S: What contrasts do you see in today’s medical practice versus 10 years ago, as it relates to the treatment of patients?

FT: I believe we are in the midst of a fundamental and frank evolution of the patient-provider compact, a transition from a transactional encounter, to one of two-way partnership and open engagement. There is clearly a developing expectation on the part of patients and their families of partnership that is evident now, much more so than when I first finished medical training. This applies to all levels of the care continuum, ranging from the intimacy of the patient-provider interaction, to the level of institutional policy and procedure development, and now more evident at the level of national health care policy. I also believe more providers have begun to recognize the value of this conversation, the value of bringing all stake-holders to the table.

P/S: With the development of the Clinic’s Center for Social Media – where do you see the organization playing a role in the next 10 years of health/medicine?

FT: Social media represents a group of tools that specifically allow conversations to occur regardless of geography, and in an asynchronous fashion. My primary focus will be seeking and identifying opportunities in the arenas of clinical practice, research and education, where these tools can be used. My second focus will center on insuring that these tools, as often as possible, foster a conversation as opposed to a transaction. In essence, we need to extend the lessons we have learned from the evolution of the patient-provider compact, namely the transition to open, two-directional engagement, to the digital domain. The more transparent and the more conversational, as opposed to transactional, that we can be, the better we can serve others and the more value we will all garner.

P/S: Where do you see the limitations of social media and what crucial aspects will help sustain its role in providing a better health/medical community?

FT:It can be all too easy to view social media as a purely marketing strategy. Fundamentally, in health care, it represents an opportunity to extend the conversation with patient and providers, with teachers and learners, independent of typical constraints. Critically, it is only by keeping this mind set, that authentic content of real value to all parties can be fostered.

P/S: What do you hope to accomplish in your new role as Medical Director?

FT: I have seen, repeatedly, the value for both patients and for providers, in open partnership. That conversation, the capacity to listen productively, has been powerful. I want to insure that we continue to apply Mayo Clinic’s primary mission, namely, “The needs of the patient come first”, to the digital domain, by insuring that we continue to evolve the capacity for constructive partnership. We face many challenges in health care and are in the midst of a paradigm shift; community design has the capacity to allow us all to build a better iteration. Gandhi said “We must become the change we want to see in the world”; by using social media tools to truly working together, we can crowdsource the change we want to see in health care.

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Excellent feedback here Dr. Timimi and truly looking forward to the next chapter in the Mayo Clinic’s Center for Social Media! More details on the appointment can be found here on the Center’s blog.

This week at Games for Health, I had the pleasure of meeting Tara Cousineau, PhD, founder and CEO of BodiMojo, Inc. Tara is a clinical psychologist and eHealth innovator. Bodimojo.com, the flagship product, is a health engagement platform for teens leveraging web and mobile technologies. When I learned about this online health community, I thought about the impact it could have on the health literacy of the teens and promptly asked Tara for an interview. I hope you find our discussion as inspiring as I did!

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BC: What was your inspiration for creating BodiMojo?

TC: The inspiration for “BodiMojo” arose from the need to personalize health information and skills to the individual teenager during a time that is pretty chaotic, demanding and distracting.

Originally, BodiMojo was developed as an obesity prevention program, to motivate teens to eat more fruits and veggies and get out and exercise. But we learned quickly that those goals are pretty much non-starter with this age group!

We talked with many teenagers to get a good understanding of what mattered to them about their wellbeing and what a novel online platform might contain to keep them engaged and educated. Teens also helped us to name the program – and it’s been great to hear over and over, “BodiMojo. That’s a cool name!” And really, that’s our mission: to make health cool for teens; to make it about being your best self, inside and out. We definitely take a holistic view.

BC: What do you mean ‘holistic’?

TC: Teens’ bodies are changing throughout the high school years; their brains are in a hormonal soup and undergoing rapid cognitive changes. Think of the teens you know (orthe one you were): they can be spaced out, clumsy, moody, stubborn, ditzy, giddy, and sleepy and so on.

On the social side, fitting in is paramount. How they look and feel is centerstage. “Health” is not compartmentalized like it might be for grownups. While teens may be getting many of the critical prevention messages for high-risk behaviors (e.g.,safe sex, no drugs, no alcohol), they aren’t actually getting health information that is meaningful to where they’re at in the moment based on their current behaviors or attitudes.

BC: Health literacy is not only a hot topic in public health but also an important aspect for consuming health messages and translating them into behavior change. One’s health literacy starts to take shape early in life and is influenced by a multitude of factors. Have you approached any aspects of BodiMojo with health literacy in mind?

TC: Health literacy and media literacy is top of mind for us. The very nature of adolescence is that it is a time of transition. Teaching to the task, rather than teaching to the individual teen, is problematic because the message will only get through to whoever is paying attention at the time or who cares about the issue. For example, a high school student might get a nutrition module in gym class (if they even have PE), or a human reproduction lesson in a 9th grade biology class – that may be it over the entire course of high school! And really you have to teach health messages again and again, because a 13-year old girl is dealing with different issues than a 17-year old guy. There are many missed opportunities when it comes to health ed.

BC: What’s unique about BodiMojo?

TC: What we do that is new and different is that we that tailor health information. In their “My Page” teens can create tap into their “Health Mojo” through a series of self-assessments called “BodiMojo Snapshots.” These are customized reports in nutrition,fitness, body image, and stress. The feedback is based on gender, age, BMI and whether a teen is on a sports team. Over time we want to drill down even more, so the messages can be as relevant as possible. Teens can then set goals, track them and earn points as they engage. They can share their goals on their Facebook profiles and send themselves reminders via SMS. By personalizing the information we are helping teens to be more literate, or mindful, of their own health and that of others.

BC: The Games for Health conference was held this week in Boston and it seems gaming is gaining momentum in this space. Who designed the games on BodiMojo, how have teens responded to them and what plans do you have for additional health gaming?

TC: Our funding is from a National Institutes of Health Small Business Innovative Research grant, and we pulled together a team of programmers, designers and writers as well as health experts and teens, to create the platform. We then tested it in 4 area high schools in  Massachusetts, suburban and urban. Our results were very positive. For girls in particular, exposure to the BodiMojo over 4 weeks significantly improved their attitudes about their own body image relative to those who did not get the program (results will be presented at a scientific conference in the Fall). So we tapped into some of the issues that are important to teens, but not typically addressed in obesity prevention or wellness campaigns. From what our teens tell us we also know that under-addressed issues are sleep and stress. And if you think about it, you really want a teen to be well rested and emotionally balanced first and foremost!

We hope that tackling the psychosocial issues will then nudge teens in to making healthy decisions related to healthy food choices, physical activity, and stress management, among other behaviors. BodiMojo is going mobile next. We’re creating a mobile browser version and an iPhone app. Stay tuned. In the meantime, send teens to the site and check out some interactive tools: Headspin, Body Talk and  Mood Cloud.

BC: How are you going to promote BodiMojo?

TC: Good question! An issue that came up at the Games for Health conference was around getting research and academic inspired programs to the public and what business models could work. We plan to integrate with body sensor devices so that we can provide real-time feedback for teens. We’re set up nicely to be the “teen wrap-around” for wellness devices. Importantly, we believe that parents and caregivers will want to support their teens in taking healthy action, through a health allowance program,for instance, and through communities or schools with shared goals. We’re talking to strategic partners now and welcome a conversation with others!

BC: For those who haven’t yet checked out www.bodimojo.com, would you give them your elevator pitch?

TC: Really, the pitch is a single question: What’s YOUR bodimojo?

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You can find out more about BodiMojo at www.bodimojo.com.

Help spread the word!  Like BodiMojo at www.facebook.com/bodimojo and follow them at twitter.com/bodimojo. And while you’re at it, check out their YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/bodimojo.

- Bridgette

Bridgette Collado is a free-lance health communication consultant and recent addition to the Pulse + Signal team. You can find her on twitter as @bcollado.

If you’ve read my online bio, or follow my activity around the net, chances are good that you know how passionate I am about the issue of health literacy. This piece marks the start of a new series I’ve been invited to write on Pulse + Signal, called Bridging the Communication & Health Divide. The focus (you’ve guessed it!) is on health literacy and those working to help us ‘obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions (Healthy People Definition)’.

First in the series is an interview with my former classmate and colleague, Jonathan Emerson Kohler, MD, MA. Like me, even before pursuing a  Master’s degree in Health Communication, Jonathan recognized the importance of one’s health literacy and combined his many interests and talents to form RxCreative, a company creating ‘medical narratives and narrative medicine.’ Jonathan and his team are a diverse set of physicians, scientists and entertainment industry types working to craft accurate portrayals of medicine and science while engaging the audience, whether in ‘Hollywood or the hospital.’

I asked Jonathan a few questions about RxCreative and their work toward improved health literacy…

BC: How did Rx Creative come to be?

JEK: For as long as I can remember, I’ve been interested in merging my interests in theater and science.  I really see them as being synergistic: both, at their best, are about understanding what it means to be alive — whether at the molecular level or as part of a family or a society.  In college I majored in biology with essentially a minor in theater, and I was always struck by the stories of science, and the force of narrative as a way of teaching and learning it.  If you look at science as a series of facts and figures to be memorized, it seems really hard and really boring.  But if you understand the story, the plot, the characters, then it’s incredibly interesting and dramatic and, honestly, easy.

Once I got to med school I started looking for ways to use theater to teach people about medicine — both patients and doctors.  That started with a group of friends and I doing a play about death and dying, as a tool to teach medical students about empathy and the dying process. We ended up touring that show around the country, on and off, for a year.  The response we got was got was just tremendous. It was clear that using stories to teach people about something, rather than just doing another PowerPoint lecture or showing a boring, emotionless video, was allowing us to teach something unique.  Plus, it was really, really fun.

At the same time, I was watching the rise of the current crop of medical dramas on television, and I was pretty alarmed at the way that medicine was portrayed, and at the way that what people saw on television was shaping their expectations of what would happen to them in the hospital.  On the one hand, I was really depressed by the facile inaccuracies that were finding their way onto the air, and on the other hand, I kept finding myself thinking that if these shows really understood medicine, they could do much more exciting stories with accurate medicine than they were doing making stuff up.  Modern medicine really is stranger than fiction.  You don’t need to misinform people to entertain them.

So that’s when I came up with the idea for RxCreative…a company that would use doctors and scientists who were also great storytellers to bridge what I still think is a false divide between science and story.  We would help people in the medical and scientific communities to use stories to teach their peers and their patients in a compelling, engaging, entertaining way.  At the same time we would also help television and film producers access the real stories of medicine and use them to provide a public service while at the same time creating even more compelling stories.  And it’s worked out better than I ever imagined that it would, on both fronts.  We’ve got an amazing group of consultants, and we come together to brainstorm ideas for everything from major television dramas that are seen by millions of people, to patient education videos for parents of kids with rare conditions, to written summaries of the latest in battery physics.  I’m just constantly amazed by the ideas our hive-mind comes up with, and the response from clients on both sides has been great.

BC: I don’t see direct mention of the term “health literacy” on your site but it is clearly a focus of your work. How do you approach the issue when creating patient-facing communications?

JEK: The work we do is firmly based in understanding, writing for, and improving health literacy.  But we think about health literacy less as a standalone element and more as an essential part of our primary focus, which is story.  Obviously, you can’t appreciate a story if you can’t understand it.  So as we think about ways to make our stories accessible, we always come back to the question of how to tell the story so that our target audience will understand and appreciate it.  One of the things that has been invaluable for that is the Masters degree in Health Communication that I got from Emerson College in Boston.  That’s where I first really understood how poor health literacy is in our society — how most people understand language at the fifth-grade level, and how you have to be constantly vigilant about forgetting that the language you speak every day at work in the hospital is, for all intents and purposes, a completely foreign tongue to most of the people we’re talking to and talking about.  Medicalese is more like Mandarin than English.

We do the standard things to make sure our health literacy level is right, when we’re writing our own projects: we write to a fourth or fifth grade literacy level, and we focus group and have expert review by members of our target audience.  But one of the tricks that I’ve found to be most effective in making sure that the language in our patient education projects is aimed at the right level is by putting the target audience into the project.  If we’re making a video about ostomy care for babies, then we get parents whose babies have ostomies to talk about their experiences in their own words, guiding their responses with questions that will make sure we cover the areas we need to cover.  What’s hard is getting doctors to speak plain English…it’s hard to talk at the level of an elementary school student but not feel like you’re talking down to patients, and it can be a fine line.  So we try to be a bit more scripted with medical professionals, while at the same time trying to keep things extemporaneous, and always, always focusing on the story that they’re telling.

BC: How do health literacy concerns play a role in your consultation with the entertainment industry, if at all?

JEK: If there is one overarching theme to our work, it’s that we want to help shape accurate expectations about science and medical care.  And unquestionably the most powerful way to do that is with mass media like television and film. The process of television production is actually a great crucible for making sure that our messages are understandable.  You’re working with a writer, who in turn has to explain his script to a producer and a director, who have to explain it to the actors, who have to explain it to the audience.  So if you start going over people’s heads, you find out about it quickly and there’s a whole team of people who make sure that it gets fixed.  But what you lose in that process, obviously, is fidelity of your story.  You try to create a story about a headache, and by the time you see the final script someone is getting a brain transplant.  Which is when you have to explain why the headache is actually really interesting…you’ve got an atypical migraine, and your character can have crazy hallucinations, and wouldn’t that be cooler in a way than remaking Frankenstein?   That’s overstating things a bit, of course.  I’ve actually been really impressed with the teams that I’ve worked with.  They have all been really interested in — usually fascinated by — the medicine, and committed to the accuracy of their projects.  But it’s alien territory for them.  So we try to be very accessible and involved and constantly willing to go back to the drawing board to revise the medicine to do what the writers want it to do.    We need to be a resource to them, and to be understanding about the needs of their story while at the same time advocating for the accuracy medicine and the science.  It’s not our show, our job is to make the medicine work for them.  So again, it’s story first, and our job is find the medicine that fits the story they want to tell.  And the great thing about the stories of medicine and science is that, so far at least, we’ve always been able to go back to them and say, “I see what you’re trying to do with this brain transplant thing, but did you know that in the 1950′s scientists in Russia did head transplants on dogs? And it worked?”  Because that’s more interesting, more amazing, more visually compelling, and yet completely true.  In the end, they can tell whatever story they want…being right about the medicine won’t improve their ratings.  So you have to add value by showing them how accurate medicine can actually make their stories better.

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Many thanks to Jonathan for his time and insights! Feel free to leave questions or comments below, or tweet at Jonathan (@jekohler).

- Bridgette (a.k.a. @bcollado)

Last July, the Ashoka Changemakers organization in partnership with the Amgen Foundation, launched a competition around patient empowerment that spanned the globe. For 20 years, the Foundation has been working with organizations to increase visibility of innovations around this area. I wrote about it last year on the blog with some added thoughts on the e-patient revolution. Since then, the competition closed out and announced three winners of the $10,000 prize in December.

I decided it would be a great idea to interview the winners of the prize and give you all some additional insight into what they are doing and how they came about. These are the people who are thinking outside the box and putting their ideas to work to impact the health of their communities.

My first interview of the winners comes from good friend Alexandra Carmichael and CureTogether. I first met Alex a few years ago at the Health 2.0 conference and was thoroughly impressed and intrigued with what she had been doing around patients empowerment. Needless to say, I was also pretty happy that she was won of the winners.

Pulse/Signal: Give us a brief overview of CureTogether (e.g. how it came together, it’s current purpose) and tell us why patient empowerment is so important to you?

CureTogether started in 2008 after I had struggled with a decade of chronic pain. It was so hard for me to find information that I wanted to share what I had learned with other patients in a structured, quantitative way. So my partner Daniel Reda built CureTogether, starting with 3 conditions, and it started spreading by word of mouth – today we have over 500 condition communities, all added by patients themselves. Empowering patients is so important to me because so much needless suffering can be avoided if patients are able to share what they know and have multiple sources of information to make good health decisions.

The purpose, or problems we’re trying to solve at CureTogether are:

1. Under-funded Diseases. The most popular conditions at CureTogether are chronic diseases, mostly affecting women, that are poorly understood and inadequately funded by research granting agencies. Our top conditions include depression, migraine, vulvodynia, and chronic fatigue syndrome. CureTogether helps people share their experiences and eventually do their own research into these conditions, amplifying research efforts to find successful treatments.

2. Embarrassed Isolation. For acute, terminal conditions, patients are supported and more likely to be open about their conditions. For chronic, sensitive, and rare diseases, there is more of a stigma associated with them, so patients suffer in silence. CureTogether provides an anonymous place to connect, and we often hear “I thought I was the only one with these symptoms!”

3. Unverified Anecdotes. Patients often have to rely on low-quality information around them — on the web and in under-served medical communities. We hope to bring some rigor to anecdote.

Pulse/Signal: Can you give us some examples about how you know it’s been a value add to the community? Any success stories of impact?

When we get wonderful quotes like the following, I feel like we are definitely adding value to the community. Now the challenge will be to reach as many people as possible.

“CureTogether seriously changed my life.” — Christopher

“This site is really a fantastic idea!! Absolutely magnificent!” — Mayke

“Crowdsourcing health knowledge to find cures – Terrific!” — David

“I just wish doctors got this information and applied it…” — Amanda

“I thought I was the only one with these kinds of symptoms.” — Faren

“Your website is helpful beyond words… I feel connected to people who are suffering from the same symptoms as myself. You have made me feel empowered…” — Pam

Pulse/Signal: How will the Ashoka prize and recognition help you advance your work?

The Ashoka prize is a great honor that will bring added credibility and exposure to CureTogether, which will help us to spread the word to more people who can be helped by the data we’re gathering and the discoveries we’re making. Two recent examples of the kinds of discoveries we are making as more people join are the recent discovery of a migraine biomarker that predicts a negative reaction to the drug Imitrex (http://curetogether.com/blog/2011/01/11/migraine-symptom-predicts-response-to-imitrex/), and a chart of popular vs. effective treatments for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (http://curetogether.com/blog/2011/02/03/surprising-new-data-what-really-helps-patients-with-chronic-fatigue-syndrome/).

Pulse/Signal: I firmly believe that the spotlight is on people such as yourself, entrepreneurs/changemakers, to make a difference in the health of communities. What are your thoughts on competitions like this to gather together and reward new ideas, specifically in health?

I think competitions are a great way to gather and highlight ideas that have yet to be broadly discovered, but that can have a massive impact. With health in particular, competitions can encourage more people to create solutions for the public good, instead of focusing only on financial gain.

Pulse/Signal: How do you see CureTogether improving patient empowerment in the next 5 years?

In 5 years, CureTogether will have many more research partnerships and be translated into multiple languages, so anyone with a cell phone will be able to access this patient-driven health information in their own language. If there is no physical medical facility nearby, the online health world can help ease the burden of suffering. Also, with the level of data we will have in 5 years, we will be able to publish discoveries daily with statistical power that is on par with traditional forms of research. So patients will really start to benefit from the investment of their information.

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Thanks so much Alex for the opportunity to dive a bit deeper into your mission. For those of you interested in Alexandra’s work in the QuantifiedSelf movement (see recent blog post on behavior change support), she is putting together a fabulous conference in the next few months that you may want to check out.

Stay tuned for the next installment of the series with the SMS Now!

One of my public health colleagues/friends in the area, Ann Houston Staples, recently caught my attention as I was looking at her status on Facebook. She did something that struck me as interesting – she started sharing her eating habits on the social network. Having a food journal is nothing new, but with the opportunities that social networking brings, she is able to share for more eyes. I decided I needed to pick her brain on why she did it and hoping that this would yield great information for those in the social marketing world.

Pulse/Signal: What prompted you to think of this as an idea? Most people would be scared of sharing their diet with Facebook.

I lost 30 pounds during 2010 by adopting and sticking with a more healthy lifestyle all-around. But some old, bad habits kicked in around Thanksgiving, and an emotional family issue got me back on a roller-coaster of emotional eating — that it, eating when I was not hungry, and making food choices and eating portions that were not healthy. Every day or two I would start over, using strategies that had worked for me before, such as keeping a food log. I discovered that since no one was reading my food log but me, I was lacking accountability, and that made cheating very easy to do — and I was doing it with no end in sight. By the end of January, I had gained back 13 pounds of the 30 I had lost. Devastation!

I noticed that a lot of my FB friends occasionally posted photos and descriptions of their meals. I thought that if I made myself do that for everything I ate, I would have more accountability in my eating life, because I would be ashamed to post the way I had been eating.
So — I know what is right, in terms of how to eat — I just need some accountability to keep me on track.

Pulse/Signal: Why choose Facebook as the platform and not something like Flickr or maybe even Twitter?

Simple answer here. I’m pretty active on Facebook — and I’m not doing Flickr or Twitter. My friends are already on FB and are already supportive and care about me and my success.

Pulse/Signal: Do you think that social networks can help improve behavior changes such as better eating?

I worried a bit that some of my Facebook friends would get bored with my "What’s Ann eating" postings — and maybe "hide" me. And some may have done just that. But many friends are telling me that my postings are making them more mindful about what they eat, making them consider making healthier, dietary changes as well.

For me, this strategy is working, because it is helping me be more mindful about what I eat. There’s this time there to consider that comes while I’m preparing to make a photo of what I’m getting ready to eat something. Maybe I don’t need those cookies after all. I can wait until my next meal — or have something healthier instead. This combination of accountability and mindfulness is helping me make this behavior change.

Pulse/Signal: In case others were interested in doing the same – what are the details behind your FB diet sharing plan? Taking photos each time? A description of the meal and calorie count?

I know how I want to eat: more fruits, veggies and whole grains. Healthy fats. Less dairy. Less meat. As little sugar as possible. Not eating after 7 or so at night. No sugary beverages. I photo everything before I eat it and post it with a brief description of the meal. I also talk about what I may have done that was even more healthy for the future — no cheese, for example.

Pulse/Signal: When did you get started and do you think you will carry this on for a while?

I started one week ago tomorrow. I will probably carry on for a little while. My daughter has suggested I remove this from FB at some point and start a blog. I don’t follow a lot of blogs, but my daughter’s roommate especially likes "healthy lifestyle" bloggers and is going to send me some links of ones she likes for me to check out.

For right now, FB is working really well for me. Like I said, my friends are already there — cheering me on to success! I’d like to lose the extra 13 pounds and another 30 by the end of 2011!

Pulse/Signal: What do you think you will get out of this plan? Have you had good support so far?

My FB friends have been wonderful support. They tell my how yummy my healthy meals look. They encourage me to keep going when I stumble. They even make suggestions on how I can make my snacks and meals even more healthy.

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Andre’s Notes: Such great, valuable information here for those interested in social marketing and innovative ways to approach positive behavior change in health. So many things hit me from this interview – mainly from the first question that gave insight into why she started it. She was already tracking her food but needed accountability and for her support system to help her do that. Facebook is a perfect tool for this. Also, the use of the social network to put more thought into her decisions because other people were watching is a fantastic nugget of information.

Another piece is that she is already informed of how she wants to eat – now she just needs a way to keep it a lifestyle, something engaging.

Relevant Resources:

• HealthSeeker game on Facebook
• Quantified Self movement (tracking data relevant to your life)
• Official blog
• TED talk
• Conference
• Other Quantified resources
• Tweet What You Eat

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Ann knows a thing or two about health too – she is a health educator in the state health department here in North Carolina. Her main areas of expertise are in media relations and media advocacy. Ann’s interests include poetry, the arts, history and Chinese culture. She has studied Tai Chi for about 12 years.

I know it has been some time since the American Public Health Association had their annual meeting in Colorado last November, but I am just getting around to watching a video of Dr. Cornel West’s opening session talk.

Wow.

I don’t believe I have ever seen as much energy in a gathering of public health professionals as this speech. The theme of the conference was around Social Justice and I think Dr. West knows a thing or two about that subject. After introducing some of the leaders at the event, he drops some knowledge. Now I’m not fully aware of all of Dr. West’s political leanings or beliefs, but here at the APHA event, I can say that more of this is needed.

Pay particular attention to the last minute of the video discussing the origins of public health and what needs to be done…

It was a great day in April last year when I spotted a tweet from the Salt Lake Valley Health Department. This was during a time when local public health organizations weren’t really talking about social media (we still have a ways to go) and much of it was taboo anyway. To me, it signaled the beginning of something good in the field and I was more than happy to reach out to them to find out more.

During my interview with Kate Lilja (who has since left the position), we learned about some of their great campaigns, how they use social media tools and a bit of advice. After some interest arose around a follow up, I decided to once again reach out and check in on them to see what has been updated since we last spoke:

It’s been over a year since we last took a look at SLVHD. Could you tell us a little about yourself and your role?

My name is Vanna Livaditis, and I’m the Multimedia Coordinator for SLVHD. Our communications team consists of our Communications Manager, our Public Information Specialist and me. My background is in Broadcast Journalism, and I’m the eye behind our videos which I shoot, edit and produce. I also manage our Twitter and YouTube  accounts, and co-manage our Facebook page.

Since 2009, what campaigns and initiatives around social media has the HD been involved in?

This year we’ve been highly focused on expanding our video program. We’ve received excellent feedback and a devoted fan following, and so we feel the need to constantly keep delivering. We have two media veterans on our team of three, and we don’t wait or rely on local media to push our messaging. If ever one of our events isn’t covered by local media, we act as our own press. 

Not only do we use Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to communicate with Salt Lake County, but also to connect with other local and national public health organizations. This year we participated in observances like The Great American Smokeout, Teen Driving Safety Week and Mashable’s Social Good Day, where our STI/HIV program offered free HIV testing to homeless people at Pioneer Park in Salt Lake City. Take a look at pictures from the event here. This year we also used social media and video production to recruit volunteers for the first Salt Lake County Medical Reserve Corps

In our first interview, we discussed the issue of res tape and bureaucracy around being able to participate in social media. How has that changed, if at all?

Since the inception of our program, we’ve had unwavering support from SLVHD management and Salt Lake County. Perhaps our Executive Director, Gary Edwards said it best in our 2010 Annual Report; that during tough economic times, SLVHD rose to the occasion and found innovative, cost effective ways to communicate with our community.

Can you share some highlights from the 2009 H1N1 outbreak and how you all approached it with new ideas and social media?

H1N1 was a learning experience and for SLVHD it solidified that social media is essential to our communication strategy, especially during an emergency. Twitter and Facebook became a forum where concerned patrons could ask questions and even vent frustrations about vaccine availability. We paid close attention to reactions and comments, some of which were laden with fear and anger, and used this as an opportunity to adjust our plans. How we used Social Media during H1N1

One of the changes we made was switching to an appointment system instead of having people wait in long, unpredictable lines. That same day our Facebook page and Twitter feed were inundated with overjoyed responses about the switch. We even received a personal thank you and apology from one of our Facebook fans who previously left an angry comment. He commended us for our professionalism and hard work in trying to vaccinate and entire community. We realize that some people do have reservations about dealing with government organizations, and we’ve found that the best remedy is honest and transparent messaging, whatever the circumstance. We want people to know that when they’re giving us suggestions, or comments, our small team of three reads every one, and we do take them into deep consideration.

How do you feel the HD has benefitted in the past year from all these efforts?

Our hope is that people regard our program as honest and informative. After almost two years on the social media front, we’ve developed a good system to get timely and accurate public health messaging to our communities. We firmly believe that our presence on social media sites, especially Facebook and Twitter, have really enhanced our communication with the media and public.

What’s on the horizon for SLVHD and do you have any advice for health departments currently involved in social media?

We have a few video projects on the horizon that we are really excited about, including the fifth episode of our Public Health Professionals series. Episode 5 will showcase the work of our STI/ HIV clinic. We’re also planning to re-launch our One Small Change campaign in January, 2011 which focuses on the simple things you can do to improve your health.

My advice to other health departments: start implementing video into your program! We’ve come a long way since our first video which was filmed using a flip camera- sans tripod- but it was a great starting point.

We are grateful to those who have help spread our messaging and who have answered our social media questions along the way. We are still learning, but if we can offer advice, or help answer your questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us. 

Vanna Livaditis

Multimedia Coordinator/

801.468.3166

vlivaditis@slco.org

Today the world looks at and observes a public health issue that has been plaguing millions – the AIDS virus. Since it’s discovery (first cases in 1981) and subsequent spread around the globe, AIDS has become one of the leading diseases to garner attention – for good reason.

Quick statistics (from Kaiser Family Foundation – PDFs):

• More than 33 million people living with the virus today
• HIV has led to a resurgence of tuberculosis (TB), particularly in Africa, and TB is a leading cause of death for people with HIV worldwide
• Most new infections are transmitted heterosexually, although risk factors vary. In some countries, men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, and sex workers are at significant risk

Quick Social Media bits:

Foursquare: http://foursquare.com/joinred (unlock your RED badge on the popular location based platform)

Twitter: #WAD2010 is the hashtag for all tweets related to World AIDS Day

Videos:

I’ve put together a sampling of some great video content for today’s observation:

President Obama message discussing national strategy to fight HIV/AIDS

Two videos from my friends over at AIDS.gov and their Facing AIDS media campaign

Discussion with University of North Carolina professor/epidemiologist, Dr. Ada Adimora on the impact of HIV infection.

Video message from AVERT on Universal Access and importance of prevention

London’s HIV ambassador and celebrity, Annie Lennox, with her World AIDS Day message

Pulse + Signal is taking part in the virtual book tour Maddie Grant and Lindy Dreyer are doing to explore concepts from Open Community: a little book of big ideas for associations navigating the social web. In this post, Maddie and Lindy answer a few questions for our readers. 

P+S: What prompted you to even begin looking at the connection between social media and associations?

Maddie:  Actually, Lindy and I both independently started blogging a few years ago; her blog was about association marketing (she worked for a association marketing agency), and mine was about association management (I was COO for a small healthcare association) – and we both started talking more and more about social media and how associations could benefit by trying these new social sites where their members were.  We met online first, then started speaking together on the subject of social media for associations, then eventually launched our consulting firm – so this connection has been what we’re all about since the beginning.

Lindy: On top of that, we grew up professionally in the association industry – and associations’ lifeblood is community (through networking).  We knew associations could achieve great things with social media if they only figured out how to translate that real-life, face to face relationship building to online community-building.

P+S: What are the main 3 challenges you have seen regarding associations and social media adoption?

Lindy:  Associations, like any other company or organization, have gone through a stage of fearing the perceived loss of control (of their messages and branding) that comes with social media.  And they have long-standing internal hierarchical structures which don’t allow for just any employee to speak for the organization.  Those are the first two challenges I’d choose, although slowly but surely as social media adoption grows we’re seeing less of the first "fear" challenge.

Maddie: Agreed. The third challenge – which we are seeing a lot of right now – is in figuring out the internal process and framework for doing social media work – in other words, who’s going to lead a social media team, who should be on the team, how will they communicate what they hear on the social web, how will they put in place escalation procedures should something fall under "crisis communications" – all of this infrastructure building is what associations are struggling with right now.  Most of the associations we talk to all the time really want to incorporate social media, but they get stuck on who’s going to manage it and how.

P+S: With associations that have several different affiliates or local levels (such as where I work at the American Heart Association), social media management can be a bit of a daunting task. Do you have any top level suggestions?

Lindy: We actually talk a lot in the book about the concept of the "ecosystem" – any open community will be messy, will have push and pull between the organization’s homebase website, for example, and it’s outposts (such as Facebook or LinkedIn).  The messiness, as you’re experiencing first hand, only increases when you start adding chapters and components, who will each have their own homebase and outposts….

Maddie: So the key is to invest your time and energy into making sure your entire open community knows what you as an organization are trying to achieve (your mission, in other words), and giving them the tools to help you do just that.  Making it easy for people to share the right information.  Making it easy for people to collaborate in the ways that they want to, but to find each other through you.  Really a lot of the book is about how to do this! 

P+S: Do you have any examples of associations doing well with social media?

Maddie:  We’re going to be cheeky here….

Lindy:  …and tell you that we are going to be collecting case studies of organizations who are putting into action the concepts we discuss in the book.   We’ll be sharing them through our book website (www.opencommunitybook.com) and we hope that if any of your readers are doing interesting things with social media and online community building that they will share those experiments in the comments.   We very deliberately did not include any examples in the book – we wanted people to be able to immediately start reading through the lens of their own organizations and asking themselves how particular ideas might work for them. 

P+S:  Despite what many pundits may mention about the "end of.." a given social media platform, I feel there are plenty of people and organizations still struggling to understand why social media is important. What do you feel will be the main takeaways from the book?

Maddie:  Honestly, I feel that the whole purpose of the book is to answer that very question.  I think the answer gets far too easily lost in the deluge of information online about all the latest tools and tactics – and in those discussions we might forget the essential reasons why we’re doing this in the first place.  It’s about building relationships, it’s about people and how they want to interact with organizations in this digital age, it’s about aligning business objectives with new technology, it’s about changing individual behavior, changing traditional internal structures, and changing organizational culture because these changes are becoming essential in order to flourish in a fast-evolving business environment.  That’s not so much a takeaway though – that’s just truth.

Lindy: Hehe – well by coincidence, I wrote a recent Book Tour post for Thanks For Playing on the top five takeaways from Open Community – see what you think!  We can’t wait to talk more to you, Andre, and your readers about how you’re building your open community online.

Thanks so very much ladies for dropping by and shedding some light on the new book and what it’s all about! If you’re in an association and want to find out how to best dive into social media and build great community – this is the place to start!

Earlier this summer DC based health communications agency, TogoRun, hosted a panel discussion around public health and the digital revolution. The event drew experts in the space such as Susannah Fox of the Pew Internet Project, Dr. Val Jones of the BetterHealth Network and Maya Linson of the National Association of Public Hospitals & Health Systems.

Although I didn’t get a chance to attend in person (I do miss living in DC sometimes!), I got a chance to catch up with Erin Enke, VP of Digital Communications at TogoRun, who was also a panelist at the event. TogoRun graciously provided a wonderful recap for those of us who couldn’t make it, including video coverage. Here is my interview with Erin:

P/S: You mentioned during the Public Health: What’s Digital Got to Do With It? event that companies should not just jump haphazardly into conversations that are already happening in the blogosphere. What advice would you give an organization just entering the space to take part in the ongoing conversation and engage with their audience?

EE: LISTEN, LISTEN LISTEN. Too often, we excitedly jump online attempting to join conversations without paying respect to those currently talking. It is their conversation, and we should respect that and not interrupt with our own agenda. If an organization wants to join the conversation, it should take the time to read the conversation threads, regularly follow the various conversations, and then, when appropriate, ask questions about the topic at hand, and contribute and respond.

P/S: What are some of the pros and cons to greater access to information and everyone having a voice to share thoughts?

EE: PROS – Authenticity, marketplace of ideas, multiple opinions. CONS—Misinformation, intimidation and information overload

P/S: How do you feel this impacts the public health world?

EE: Education has always been critical to public health and, without a doubt, this accessibility greatly expands our opportunity to educate and inform using multiple channels. 

P/S: Describe the goals for the Hepatitis campaign you discussed during the event and how you came up with them.

EE: The main goal of the hepatitis B campaign was to increase awareness of the various aspects of the disease, including signs and symptoms, and, by doing so, encourage those at-risk to self identify and get tested and, if appropriate, treated. Early treatment can delay, or even stop, disease progression. We knew it might be hard to reach certain demographics and identified online as a way to extend the reach of our message through building an hepatitis B information portal online. 

P/S: The Hepatitis campaign was launched globally in countries in the Middle East, Europe and Africa. What are the challenges of designing a global health campaign and how did you meet them?

EE: Whenever you work on a global campaign, you are naturally going to face cultural and economic and social differences. But what makes a multi-country digital campaign complicated is that you are dealing with vastly different levels of access and literacy. (Some regions are still predominately using dial-up.)  In the end, we kept the language simple and the graphics bold and inviting, and thus were able to reach across audiences.  We credit this approach with the site’s success.

P/S: How did you use social media in the Hepatitis campaign to get the word out?

EE: We worked with regional team members to help them identify and connect with local press and health organizations who helped promote the link on blogs, Facebook pages, and even YouTube campaigns.

P/S: Were you able to reach more people than if you used only traditional methods?

EE: Yes, especially in the last year, as social media has grown in popularity.

P/S: Some social media networks fizzle out or lose momentum while others like Facebook and Twitter seem to have more staying power. Can you share your thoughts on what impacts longevity and relevance in this fast paced and often times temperamental social environment?

EE: In my opinion, the reason Facebook and other popular social media sites endure are because they are so incredibly user friendly. It is that simple. There were other sites before Facebook that, in essence, did  the same thing, but Facebook took a good idea and made it amazing. It  even made photo-sharing easier and more fun than the actual photo-sharing sites.

P/S: How would this have an impact on areas such as healthcare and social change?

EE: I think we often are looking for the next great amazing thing. Why not look at what is already out there and pick something that is good and make it great.

Fantastic thoughts on this growing field, Erin – thanks so much. I’m particularly excited to see more and more case studies that the public health field can point to for success.

TogoRun is also on Twitter if you want to keep up with what they’re doing!