Comments on: From Twitter to Life Flight

By: Jennifer flores

Jennifer flores — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 05:09:45 +0000

This was a very interesting post because I have worked in the healthcare industry for years. In the healthcare industry we are always taught to follow the HIPPA law in any circumstance.As a healthcare professional I’m scare to get sue just because I released information. I always try to think and ask my coworkers and supervisor before I release any patient information. In this case it was a life threatening situation and in my opinion they did not break any law. In the tweet they did not release major information. The tweet helped the grand daughter get the attention of the personnel of the hospital to help her grandmother. I believe that we must do anything that is whiting our hands to save any of our family memeber life.

By: Whittney S. Hoffman

Whittney S. Hoffman — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 00:28:28 +0000

I believe that in some cases, journalists make the right decision when bending the rules or breaking laws, if the information they uncover in the process (assuming it can be obtained by no other means) will benefit their audience in a profound way. Similarly, I don’t think that anyone recently saved by an exchange of tweets between themselves (or a family member) and a hospital would be too concerned about a medical staffer who violates HIPAA policy in the process. It’s the same idea: bending the rules is permissible in extreme situations. That being said, I can see how the real ethical issue concerning privacy and the use of Twitter in medical cases could come after the fact, if news organizations picked up on a remarkable story (such as this one) and published sensitive information about a patient in their publications. Perhaps hospitals that decide to utilize social media like Twitter or Facebook should warn patients on their websites of the possibility of privacy breaches that could occur if they initiate an online conversation with the hospital via social networking. As the comment above states, I too would be “apprehensive of using this as a primary method to receive emergent health care.” But as a last resort, I don’t think I’d care who knew I was dying (or found out after the fact) if I thought a tweet could save my life.

By: Stephanie Nichols

Stephanie Nichols — Fri, 27 May 2011 19:30:46 +0000

This is an interesting blog post. Being in healthcare…and in marketing, I realize the importance of social media, specifically Twitter. We often use Twitter to share health-related posts and links to other sources that are relative to hot news stories or current events in our community. I’ve never really thought of Twitter as a way to ‘save a life’ via a Tweet in an emergency. I can see where this helped in this instance; however, I am a little apprehensive about using this as a primary method to recieve emergent health care. I also agree with the privacy concern, in that everyone can see what is being tweeted, and that might have some legal ramifications – especially if it’s a hospital on the other side tweeting back (have you heard of HIPPA?).