Friday, July 6, 2012

Social Media in the OR


Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children took a big step yesterday by allowing a social media team into the OR to report on the surgery of a three-year-old girl. This live stream of updates was a first for any hospital in the Orlando Health System. Of course the parents signed consent, but physicians allowing live feeds and updates to be reported from their OR are still rare. It is instead an upcoming trend that most are still VERY uncomfortable with.

The social media team posted updates on Facebook, blogs, Twitter, and live video on YouTube. They will also be covering the little girl’s recovery over the next few weeks. I can only imagine the legal nightmare that the hospital went through to accomplish this task, however, it did seem successful. When handled appropriately, live feeds from the OR can be educational and informative. However, handled poorly, and well……..your just asking for it ha-ha.

Questions are being raised though. Are the images too graphic for social media? Is it fair to the child to show her surgery when she doesn’t fully understand the privacy issues? Has social media gone too far? Etc. The outcome from streaming this surgery has created word of mouth, views and hits on the sites were extremely high, and the story is being covered both nationally and internationally. So I guess the question really is “Was it worth it” and the answer as of right now is “Yes.”

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