John Sharp

Manager of Research Informatics in Quantitative Health Sciences, Cleveland Clinic

Biography

John has been working within the field in healthcare IT for 10 years and a Project Management Professional for five. He is considered an expert in his area and is a regular speaker at national and international conferences on Health 2.0. Furthermore he has been an active blogger at ehealth.johnwsharp.com since 2006.

Finally, he is a member of the Health Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS), the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) as well as the Advisory Board of Within3.com.

Cleveland Clinic

The Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit multispecialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research education. The Clinic was founded in 1921 with the vision to provide outstanding patient care based upon three core principles: cooperation, compassion and innovation.

The Cleveland Clinic has earned a reputation as one of the best hospitals in North America and constantly figures on the U.S. News & World Report’s annual ‘America’s Best Hospitals’ survey.

Presentation

Social media in health care – humble beginnings to patient engagement

E-health, Conference Day #2, Thursday May 6th, 4.00 pm - 5.00 pm

The evolution from unofficial early efforts with blogs and wikis to a strategy of customer and employee engagement transitioned through key milestones. For Cleveland Clinic, a large academic medical center, a physician blogger and residents creating a medical reference wiki lead early efforts. Soon our media production was uploading videos to YouTube. Parallel to this were eHealth initiatives My consult and MyChart PHR.

Then in 2008, the CEO blog was launched and there was a  proliferation of unofficial Facebook pages. The Google Health partnership and launch of redesigned website soon followed.

Then in 2009 a broader social media strategy was developed, approved by the board, and official Facebook, Twitter, YouTube channels were launched and social media committee established.

In 2010 – Social Media manager position created in marketing and a more comprehensive monitoring and engagement strategy has begun.

Philadelphia 2010: Social media milestones at a medical center