Editor’s note: The author is a member of the Sermo advisory board.
The doctor’s lounge used to be a great meeting place for doctors. A place where only doctors could go to discuss medical cases and share the stresses of everyday practice.
These days, there is just no time to go there. We see more patients than ever before. Patients are surviving longer and having more complex diseases. We need to stay current with all the new technologies out there if we want to provide our patients with the best care.
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And new mandates are being poured on our plates, from meaningful use to PQRS to MOC. Not only is it difficult to keep up with these new regulations but we are doing so while we mostly don’t agree with them.
Everyone, not doctors only, need to be able to vent our frustrations and share our concerns to be able to deal with these added burdens appropriately. When we try to manage them alone, we are often overcome with feelings of helplessness and eventually this leads to burnout. Yet, we do not have any more time left to meet with other doctors and share our concerns.
None of this will get resolved unless we join together with our collective voices.
The doctor’s lounge, as we have seen, has become a largely abandoned place. But that is OK. It is the 21st century and it was in need of innovation. More of our work requires us to be online, from charting our notes to searching medical facts. What better way to innovate it than to place it online where we spend so much of our time.
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Social media has boomed but doctors have been slow to pick up on this technology for many reasons. Time is one reason as well as resistance to change.
But the biggest obstacle in my mind is HIPAA regulations. We have to be very careful how we speak in the public and we all know what happens on twitter and Facebook is out there in the open for all to see. We certainly cannot share difficult patient cases with each other there. And much of the public does not truly understand the difficulties doctors are facing.
When we talk about rising overhead costs and shrinking reimbursements, people are quick to label us as greedy. And for employed doctors, there can be repercussions for doctors who speak up about their jobs on the internet. That is why a doctors’ only community is needed.
There are several doctors’ communities now. I am on the advsiory board of Sermo, which I like because I think it’s the only one that is truly available for doctors to speak our minds.
Giving physicians that freedom and anonymity should be central to anyone digital version of the doctor’s lounge. Thus, no repercussions are possible and HIPAA concerns are no longer an issue.
Being able to express myself with other physicians makes me feel that I am not battling this broken healthcare system alone and that others face the same struggles as I do.
The doctors’ lounge has not only been innovated, it has been improved. We can get this communication we need at any time of the day. If I have a patient who is complicated, I can get virtual consults from varied specialists all across the country in minutes. This would have never happened in the past.
