More than 200 e-savvy citizens descended on UBC Robson Square Feb. 4 to discuss the ways social media could improve their own health and wellness.
Panelists at the forum, left to right: Caroline Haythornthwaite (iSchool@UBC), Helen Novak Lauscher (Faculty of Medicine), Francisco Grajales (UBC PhD candidate), Leanne Currie (School of Nursing).
The public forum, Social Media and Health: The Good, the Bad and the Possible, was part of a Peter Wall Institute Exploratory Workshop spearheaded by Kendall Ho, Director at the Faculty of Medicine’s eHealth Strategy Office, and collaborators from the iSchool@UBC, the School of Nursing, the Faculty of Applied Sciences and the Sauder School of Business.
The Honorable John Yap, Minister of Advanced Education, Innovation and Technology and Minister Responsible for Multiculturalism, brought greetings on behalf of the provincial government and spoke to the importance of online platforms in facilitating citizen engagement in health and medicine.
“Social media spreads knowledge, informs and educates,” Minister Yap said. “Social media, in its many forms, is empowering people. The government is using various social media tools to get citizens involved and engaged in the decisions we make. It’s important to explore what role social media can play in improving lives and engaging communities.”
Moderated by Gillian Shaw, digital life writer for the Vancouver Sun, a panel of expert speakers from the Centre for eHealth Global Innovation, the Pan-American Health Organization/World Health Organization, Hoot Suite, and the UBC Biomedical Library prompted interesting discussions both in-person and online with over 861 Tweets and over 888,000 impressions following the #HCSMForum hashtag on Twitter. The event was also streamed live via webcast.
Speakers included:
- Gunther Eysenbach of the Centre for eHealth Global Innovation in Toronto, on “Medicine 2.0 and beyond: Where are we going with social media in health and medicine?”
- Ana Lucia Ruggiero of the Pan-American Health Organization/World Health Organization in Washington, D.C., on “Advantages of digital tools and dissemination technologies — Experience of WHO Network on Equity, Health and Human Development”
- Dean Giustini of the UBC Biomedical Library, on “Social Media in Health: History, movements, and current practice”
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Ashley Brookes of HootSuite, on “Huge help: the role of social media in healthcare”
“We need to engage the general public, health professionals, researchers, and innovators to work together to unleash the power of social media and modern information technologies,” said Dr. Ho, a Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine. “Proper research and evaluation can help us understand how these new and exciting approaches can truly help us live healthier lives, and to improve our health system’s ability and capacity to support each of us in wellness and sickness alike.”
The eHealth Strategy Office has compiled a list of the top social media and health-focused resources.