6 Smart Social Media Tips: How You Can Use Social Media to Get Ahead in Your Healthcare Career

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Mastering social media is important for a successful career in any industry, and healthcare is no exception. There are special challenges when using social media in the healthcare setting, however.  If you share patient information by mistake, you could violate HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. This is the law that protects the patient’s privacy, secures the patient’s medical record, and includes steps for notifying the Office of Civil Rights, or the OCR, when a security breach occurs and the patient’s medical record is illegally accessed.  In light of these considerations, you may be wondering where to start, or how to use social media to further your career as a healthcare professional. Here are six things you can do to invent or improve your social media presence as a healthcare professional:

1. Start a social media account (or several social media accounts).  

You might choose to start a social media account to invent or improve your social media presence in the healthcare field. Some of the most popular and recognizable social media platforms include LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. LinkedIn is popular with many industries, and healthcare is no exception.  If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, you should definitely create a LinkedIn account, as well as an account on Twitter and Facebook for networking purposes, if you don’t already have one. Remember that you may want to create a separate business account, so that you don’t mix the information pertaining to your personal account with your business account.

2. Add anyone you meet.  

Make sure you add, follow, connect with, and friend as many people as you can to increase your professional network.  People from your classes and your professors are great first connections and serve as a great starting point to further your healthcare career.

3. List all the skills you can think of.  

This tip is specific to LinkedIn. Don’t be shy about listing your skills, as well as your educational and career achievements on LinkedIn. Recruiters use those skills to search for good healthcare candidates like yourself, especially when new positions open up, so give yourself credit and include as many of your accomplishments as possible on your LinkedIn page.

4. Follow healthcare businesses and leaders. 

Make sure you add healthcare-related businesses near you, or businesses that you are interested in. You can also follow Avidity Medical Design Consultants, LLC on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and Reddit, for example.

5. Find things to share.  

Share information relevant to healthcare.  Pick things that interest you so your network can see you are passionate about healthcare.  Make sure not to share anything that can be seen as controversial; remember, future employers may see these posts.  The Avidity Medical Design Blog is a good place to get posts to share; there are many articles on the blog that pertain to a wide variety of healthcare subjects. 

6. Post and share often. 

The more you post and share, the more your name will come up in other people’s feeds, and the more your followers will look forward to new posts on different healthcare topics. These topics may pertain to pursuing a career in healthcare, advancing in the healthcare field if you’re already a healthcare professional, or preventative healthcare tips.

You can use these tips to enhance your social media presence on just about any platform.  In summary, no matter what social media site you choose, just remember these two rules when using social media as a healthcare professional:

  • Don’t share confidential information.  Again, HIPAA violations have serious consequences, including possible financial penalties, up to and including criminal prosecution. Be aware of this and avoid sharing confidential patient information on social media. You do not want to risk violating HIPAA law by posting confidential information about patients.
  • Don’t share controversial information.  This is another reason why you may want to have a professional account separate from your personal one. The information that you share may potentially be controversial from a healthcare treatment or technology standpoint, so you want to be careful about the information that you share.

You can start finding useful information to share by reviewing the articles on the Avidity Medical Design Blog. You may also want to follow the blog for useful, up-to-date, and pertinent insights on healthcare trends. 

Is Facebook A Good Tool For eLearning?

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We’ve all heard the business benefits, but what about the benefits of Facebook in eLearning? There are actually numerous uses for Facebook in the classroom. Many of these uses most people might not think about, while others are little more obvious. However, they all increase the education quality for the students using them.

  • Trends, polls and reviews are great way to incorporate Facebook into the classroom. Using trends and newsfeeds, students can use Facebook to track new information pertaining the role of Facebook in eLearningto subjects covered in class. The polls and reviews can collect opinions in order to maximize class experience for the students. Giving the students the ability to have their input integrated directly into the class structure.
  • A Facebook page is a more obvious use of Facebook in the classroom. Offering an open flow forum for information that is very beneficial, much like classroom discussion. This can allow students to utilize each other for personal benefit as well as the class as a whole. This also gives the professor easy access to understanding where their students are in the learning process.
  • Facebook Groups are an easy way too literally get everyone on the same page. Groups have the option of privacy so that only the people invited can see what happens in the group page. This is a great way for a professor to assign assignments and delegate questions from outside of the classroom.
  • Facebook events allow professors to update the date and time for tests, as well as for make up opportunities. It is also beneficial for classes where students are required to attend outside lectures and activities. Because the events on Facebook have the capacity to sync with smart phones, students no longer have excuses for missing tests or activities.
  • Brainstorming and sharing are two benefits that Facebook has that you don’t see as much in the classroom. Because it is text-based communication, you don’t have to worry about the conflict of people trying to talking simultaneously. This allows for sharing of discussion topics, URLs and information seamlessly among students.

Facebook and other social medias have a wide variety of uses, both inside and outside the classroom. Contact us for more information about how you can integrate eLearning in your classroom.

Ten Effective Ways to Use LinkedIn for Healthcare Education Networking

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ten ways to use LinkedIn for healthcare education networkingLinkedIn has over 300 million users and 2 new users join every second. These statistics put LinkedIn well on its way to achieving its stated goal of 3 billion total users. This immense and fast-growing network of professionals is a gold mine to numerous professions, and healthcare education is one of them. Here are ten ways to use LinkedIn for healthcare education networking:

  1. Start big – A simple initial search for “healthcare educator” returns over 74,000 results. Large numbers are encouraging when starting out because it means you have lots of room to narrow your focus and find the contacts you want to make.
  2. Narrow the field – Increase the fidelity of your results by adding on additional keywords to your initial search. Using the example search above, the next step would be to add a location, institution or specialty. For example, “healthcare educator Iowa” returns a more manageable 900+ results. Keep narrowing until you have between 10 and 25 results to work with.
  3. Reach out – Once you have sufficiently narrowed your results to a pool of professionals that best suit your interests, take the time to read through their profiles. Hit the connect button and add to your network.
  4. Make sure your profile is complete – Listing degrees and certifications, like M.S. in Instructional and Performance Technology or certified in Dreamweaver will allow your profile to show up in searches done by other healthcare educators.
  5. Join relevant groups – There are at least 5 groups for healthcare educators. Groups allow you to interact with large groups of people that may not have appeared in your previous searches.
  6. Leave your comfort zone – Search for certifications that you might aspire to but don’t yet hold. Networking with other professionals who have already achieved your goals can be a valuable source of lessons learned.
  7. Remember your past – Think back to individuals you may have worked with or gone to school with who had interesting ideas for healthcare education. Chances are they have had a chance to implement those ideas or formulate new ones. They can be a valuable source of inspiration.
  8. Read the articles – In addition to individuals and positions, you can search LinkedIn for articles on healthcare education, tools and technology. Connect with authors of articles that you find interesting or informative.
  9. Follow up on views – As you spend more time on LinkedIn and make more connections, you will receive more views – other people looking at your profile. Be sure to view their profiles after receiving notification, and make connections.
  10. Go beyond the first level – Chances are that the individuals you connect with have other worthy connections. Don’t be afraid to look through their profiles and connect with healthcare educators once or twice removed.

If you have questions about any aspect of healthcare education, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Three Ways to Use Facebook to Train Healthcare Students

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Facebook has become not only a way to find old friends or learn about the weekend’s events, it is also an incredible learning tool, for students of healthcare and countless other topics.  Teachers can utilize Facebook for class projects, for enhancing communication, and for engaging students in a manner that might not be entirely possible in traditional classroom settings.  Be creating a page specifically for the class, managing the privacy settings to exclude outside visitors, and connecting the class blog or online learning homepage to Facebook, healthcare students have a relaxed, inviting atmosphere of learning that encourages How to use facebook to train healthcare studentsparticipation and engagement.

Facebook encourages participation in class projects and class discussions where classroom learning often fails.  Healthcare students could be instructed to follow current news feeds.  There are dozens of pages related to the medical field, updated daily and broken down into sections for relevancy, keeping current information flowing through the class.  With the wealth of information available to healthcare scholars, students can review assigned topics, then post their abstracts on Facebook for other students to read, discuss, and peer-review.  An excellent way to ensure that healthcare students are more engaged in the learning experience—whether in a traditional classroom or at accredited online colleges—is by strengthening the communication between students and student-to-teacher.

Educators can create groups, schedule events, send messages, share multimedia, post class notes, make announcements, and post homework on Facebook, providing direct communication with instructors, facilitating classmate connections, and allowing shy students a way to communicate.  Healthcare students can even practice doctor-patient communication and bedside manner through Facebook messaging and comments.

Facebook for education offers students the opportunity for active communication on a level playing field.  Since students are likely familiar with Facebook already, implementing it into healthcare education and training provides comfortable, easy student access.  Facebook promotes collaboration, teaches personal responsibility, and keeps schools current in many medical and professional fields.

Please contact us to learn more tips on How To Use Facebook to Train Healthcare Students.