By VINCE KURAITIS
My guess is you’ve probably never asked yourself this question. A quick preview:
- Technical barriers aren’t the limiting factors to Facebook becoming a care coordination platform.
- Facebook’s company DNA won’t play well in health care.
- Could Facebook become the care coordination platform of the future? If not Facebook, then what?
1) Technical barriers aren’t the limiting factors to Facebook as a care coordination platform.
Can you imagine Facebook as a care coordination platform? I don’t think it’s much of a stretch. Facebook already has 650 million people on its network with a myriad of tools that allow for one-to-one or group interactions.
What would it take to make Facebook a viable care coordination platform?
- More servers to handle the volume — not a problem
- Specialized applications suited for health care conditions — not a problem
- Privacy settings that made people comfortable — more on this later
- A mechanism to identify and connect the members of YOUR care team — really tough, BUT this is NOT a technological problem, but a health system one
Suppose you are a 55–year-old woman who is a brittle diabetic. Your care team might include a family physician, an endocrinologist, a registered dietitian, a diabetic nurse, a ophthalmologist, a podiatrist, a psychologist, and others. Ideally you’d have one care plan that coordinates the care among members of the team, including you.Continue reading…
