When it comes to adopting new practices, physicians as a group are typically “late majority” adopters. According to sociologist Everett Rogers, “These individuals approach an innovation with a high degree of skepticism and after the majority of society has adopted the innovation.” On one level, I understand the reluctance to integrate new clinical methods when people’s lives are at stake; of course, we want to minimize the risk of harm while assessing potential benefits. Yet if it weren’t for René Laennec, taking a chance 200 years ago and inventing something as crazy as, well, the stethoscope, we’d still be sticking our ear right up to every patient’s chest and hoping for the best.

The advent of social media in medicine has been met with the same skepticism. While a 2011 QuantiaMD survey found that 87% of physicians use social media personally and 67% use it professionally, most journal articles published on the topic read as four-alarm warnings to tread ever so carefully.

A prime example is the recent policy statement, “Online Medical Professionalism: Patient and Public Relationships,” published in the Annals of Internal Medicine by the American College of Physicians and the Federation of State Medical Boards. Though authors acknowledge that social media platforms present opportunities for professionals, their policy recommendations focus squarely on the challenges, cautioning us to maintain strict professional boundaries and guard our reputations.

While I agree that it’s important to understand the power and reach of what we post, I also agree wholeheartedly with Dr. David Shaywitz, who notes in his Forbes blog:

“I reject the view that the internet and social media are somehow degrading the culture of medicine, or causing it to change for the worse. Instead, I see emerging modalities as offering the profession an urgently needed chance to radically update its approach, and interact with patients, data, and each other in important new ways.”

I believe those who mindfully embrace new digital strategies will find incredible opportunities to engage patients and create what I call a “scalable community.”

With the spread of social media, digital health care initiatives are no longer simply about a one-way, top-down flow of information. Honestly, whether you offer health advice on your blog or publish it in the New England Journal of Medicine, you have to be cognizant about how your words are perceived. The idea of “Web 2.0,” though, is about interactivity, a back-and-forth conversation. It’s about connection and community, not simply information dumping and diagnosing.

Think of these interactive tools as complements to your patient portal. You and your patients can rely on the portal for secure, patient communication about specific health care issues while using social media to engage the community as a whole. Better yet, the most widely used social media are free and portable marketing tools. You just have to learn how to use them.

Medical practices have often been local sources of education and support, and now we’re able to take it to a new, global level. With mindful use of social media, we are able to leverage our positions as trusted community leaders to create and nurture a much larger community. Aamer Hayat, CEO of awc management and my co-presenter at this week’s athenahealth User Conference 2013 session, “Growing Your Business in the Digital Age,” agrees:

“Think of social media as an extension of your neighborhood bar, salon, or even the backyard. It’s a place where you connect with your neighbor, friend, confident and source of all the things you want to know. As physicians, caregivers, and healthcare advocates, that’s what we are supposed to do, connect with people. Social media is a B12 shot to that connection. Embrace it, own it, and you can manage that connection to achieve amazing results.”

Attending athenahealth’s 2013 User Conference? Be sure to check out the session I reference above on Friday at 10:45am in room 312, as well as a tweetup on Thursday at 3:25pm in the Coordinate section where we’ll tackle the following question: “How should social media help you contribute to the quality of care?” Be sure to follow the conversation on twitter at #athenahealthUC or my personal handle, @LawrenceRosenMD.

We’re in the home stretch, with just about a week left until our 2013 User Conference. And now, more than ever, I am truly honored to welcome our athenahealth family of clients, partners and colleagues to the proud city of Boston.

This year, we’ve aligned the three themes of User Conference 2013 with the very same ones that we have at athenahealth to help create our goals and work toward our mission: Jedi, Beautiful and Coordinate. Learn how we define these themes here. Today, I’d like to build on those themes by sharing a sneak peek into some of the sessions we’ve designed to prepare our clients for health care regulations and mandates coming out of D.C., such as Meaningful Use Stage 2 and ACOs.

Jedi: “Meaningful Use Stage 2: What You Should Know to Achieve the New Standard”
As the industry leader in Meaningful Use attestation—96 percent of our eligible providers received payment for Stage 1 Year 1 Medicare Meaningful Use in 2012—we’re committed to guiding and coaching our clients toward Stage 2 success. Our experts will review the new Meaningful Use Stage 2 requirements and how we’ll work with you during this new phase of Meaningful Use.

Quick tip: You can receive CME credit for attending this session.

Beautiful: “athenahealth and Epocrates: Redefining the Physician Mobile Experience”
Physicians and clinicians love Epocrates. As the first health care app in the Apple store, it was downloaded on iPhones at a rate of 2,230 downloads per day; its iPad app has over 86,000 downloads; and its beautifully constructed content is unmatched. During this session, you’ll learn why athenahealth and Epocrates have joined forces and our thoughts on how Epocrates will enhance your experience on athenaNet.

Quick tip: UC13 attendees can get six months of Epocrates Essentials for FREE!

Coordinate: “New Payment Models and Accountable Care”
Among the dizzying variety of newer reimbursement models, the Accountable Care Organization (ACO) can be among the most complicated—but it can also deliver a financial upside to practices and better care for patients. The ACO philosophy dictates that when a group of caregivers share accountability for a patient, they can also share savings across the care continuum. This session will discuss the upside and downside with today’s accountable care models and key things you should consider before starting your journey toward risk-based reimbursement.

Quick tip: You can receive CME credit for attending this session as well.

To find out how you can register for these sessions and more, be sure to visit the User Conference 2013 Sessions site. And for those of you procrastinators out there (don’t worry, I’m the queen of procrastination) you’re in luck because UC13 registration is open right up until go-time. But why hesitate? Register today!

Follow all the action at UC13 on Twitter at #athenahealthUC or @athenahealth.

As so many of our practices and health systems know, athenahealth User Conference 2013 is just around the corner (26 days away, to be exact), and we couldn’t be more excited to see all our wonderful clients in person. This year’s theme of “Get Better” really applies to everything we do in our mission to help caregivers succeed, whether we’re delivering advanced expertise of our cloud-based network (athenaNet) or bringing in just the right partner services to help you achieve greatness and focus on care (our More Disruption Please program).

This year, in addition to an unprecedented number of sessions, social events and general good vibes, I’d like to mention The Jedi Bar, where athenistas and clients share their expert knowledge, and our Beautiful Lounge, where you can see a usable, elegant athenahealth present and future — mobile and otherwise.

Speaking of the Beautiful Lounge, I’d like to introduce VP of User Experience Mary Kate Foley, one of the seven athenistas starring in a series of seven UC13 videos, all focused on telling our clients what to expect in Boston in April.

Want to see more? Check out all seven UC13 videos on our User Conference site, covering our one-on-one time with Account Managers to the athenahealth approach to care coordination. If you’re attending UC13, we’ll get you a roadmap to “wellness,” let you know the sessions and panels that would most benefit you, and give you actionable steps you can use as soon as you get back to your practice.

So check out the videos, and let us know if you have questions! And if you’re interested in attending and haven’t yet registered, be sure to visit the User Conference 2013 registration site. See you in Boston April 24!

It’s sobering to think about where I was 10 years ago in medicine, and in pediatrics specifically. The idea of having an EHR was a distant one: I was taking notes on looseleaf paper, using a rubber stamp to denote a well-child exam or an acute visit. Holding the folder that contained these stapled papers, other assorted documents and carbon copies would often lead to a mishap with pages fluttering to the floor, landing completely out of order. I would stoop down, gather them up and, after apologizing to the patient, try to recover and get on with the tasks at hand.

We scheduled on paper, we billed on paper, and we did not have a computer in the office.

It is hard to imagine the ways my practice has transitioned from the dark ages to an almost paper-free environment over the past decade. As I write this, we are about to put our paper charts in storage and use the newfound space for staff offices.

This is a testament to the magical accomplishment of athenahealth. They have married medicine—with all its intricacies and idiosyncrasies—and technology, unifying them in a partnership that has people from business, technology and medicine all working toward the same goal of better health care for all. athenahealth took the concept of the “physician partner” and put in into practice. Who would have ever thought that doctors, typically so protective of their exclusive medical world, would be willing to go along with this radical concept?

athenahealth is a link to other physicians around the country, as we are all connected to each other via our data in the cloud. This remarkable amount of information can facilitate endless collaborative efforts if we harness its power. Even though we all use the same platform and templates, the elasticity of athenaClinicals allows each of us to use it in different ways.

There are eight providers in my office and we are always surprised at how differently we perform functions on athenaNet. We teach each other, and marvel at how it’s possible for us to work in the same space and do things on the same platform, yet differently.

The same holds true for conversations I’ve had with other athenahealth pediatricians from around the country: We all can teach each other another way, if not a better way. We can provide solutions for each other and for the athenistas who work every day to make the system more functional and easier to use. We just have to take our solutions, and our challenges, and pay them forward.

athenahealth has leveled the playing field. We physicians are clients and customers, and we benefit from the changes athenahealth makes, just as they gain from our newfound functional efficiencies. They can improve health care by improving physician thoroughness in our charting, providing us with information to prevent medical errors, and even correcting our spelling. (Our handwriting isn’t even a liability any longer with an electronic health record.) We physician partners can make athenaClinicals better by providing athenahealth with insights from our medical expertise, insights that will help improve the products they develop for our use.

If we commit to working with athenahealth on these improvements, we can provide better, more efficient patient care and improve the overall health care system. This requires an investment of our time and our effort, but I believe the end justifies the means.

This year, the upcoming athenahealth User Conference has established a new group of programs that support this idea, specialty-specific interactive sessions where people in similar specialties can get together, share information, discuss, problem-solve and collaborate on relevant issues. We can create user groups to pass along information about using athenaClinicals, discuss changes in medicine, exchange relevant clinical information, and even work together on clinical studies using the power of athenahealth data and report-writing.

I hope this is just the beginning of physicians partnering with one other and athenahealth so we can all get better. Together.

As the excitement for User Conference 2013 builds, we proudly announce our first set of User Conference sessions, all taking place in Boston starting April 24. You can view the list of sessions here.

Wondering what User Conference 2013 is all about?

It’s sessions, panels and time with experts and peers, all designed to help you “Get Better” at every aspect of practice management amid a changing health care environment.

We’ll cover everything from tackling government mandates and succeeding with new programs that focus on quality outcomes, to making the shift to ACOs and other risk-based payment models. And we’ll also offer CME credits to those physicians looking to advance professionally.

Three themes: Jedi, Beautiful, Coordinate

We’ve aligned the three themes of User Conference 2013 with the very same themes we have at athenahealth to help create our goals and work toward our mission. Explore sessions via these categories, making it easy to find the right sessions for you:

• Jedi: Become an expert in in using athenaNet. These sessions will help you use the application to its fullest while enhancing your overall practice management, both financially and clinically.

• Beautiful: Simplicity, efficiency, purpose—to us, that’s beautiful. These sessions help you enhance the “beauty” of your workflow and beyond, so providers and patients can have a satisfying experience.

• Coordinate: It’s a new era in health care, complete with new ways of delivering care and being reimbursed for services. Learn how to grow your local and regional network to boost revenue and improve care coordination.

Early bird pricing extended!
Don’t wait! Take advantage of the low price before January 29.
Register now for User Conference 2013.

Stay tuned for more User Conference announcements right here on the blog, and on Twitter (#athenahealthUC). And we’ll see you in April!