It's hard to escape Twitter these days. For the uninitiated, Twitter is an Internet-based application that allows users to communicate in 140 character bursts to friends, family and whomever else wants to subscribe to your "tweets". Everyone from John McCain to Britney Spears has a Twitter account. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, has 2,276 followers on Twitter. I was speaking to a marketer at a world class hospital and research center in New York who said that their surgeons were particularly interested in using Twitter because it would allow them to disseminate their opinions quickly in the short blog format (which is all they had time to do). While many busy medical professionals can easily dismiss Twitter as a waste of time (perusing the various tweets under the Everyone section is testament to that fact), here are a couple of easy ways that doctors and their staff can make use of Twitter.

Responding to New Studies/Therapies

Not only are some surgeons already experimenting with Twittering live in the middle of surgery to increase communication with families and loved ones, it is also a good way for them to communicate with peers about the latest in procedures and therapies. As already mentioned, doctors and researchers are often too busy to comment extensively on new studies and therapies but patients and peers would like to know their thoughts or topline observations. "Experimental therapy X -- Needs more clinical trials" provides enough information about how a particular doctor or researcher views an experimental therapy. Tweets can also link to longer opinion pieces if the individual doctor has a blog and provide more information.

Lessen Waiting Room Time

The idea for this blog was born while I waited 90 minutes in my doctor's waiting room. After being ushered into an examination room I waited yet another 30 minutes for the doctor to show up. My examination took roughly 8 minutes. The only excuse I got from the staff was that the doctor was "running late with other appointments." Fair enough I said, but if that's the case, was it really necessary for me to come in 90 minutes beforehand? One other time, I came in for an appointment and was told that my doctor had cancelled appointments for that day because she was unexpectedly called in for surgery.

The easiest fix I could think of was if she (or her staff) could set up a Twitter account that would provide the status of the doctor to patients (especially later in the day when the inevitable delays have pushed back appointments).

Are you a medical professional with a Twitter account? Tell us how you're using Twitter to increase communication with your patients.