I use this blog to teach my patients about retinal disease. It has also taught me much about social media and its potential for changing the quality of health information on the Internet.
More physicians should choose to create a blog for their own website.
Resource for My Patients
At the end of an office visit, I often will give my patient a link to one of the articles on this site for reference. I’ve found that it is a great way to reinforce the conversation in the office. Patients can then email me if there are further questions, or, even better, make a comment on the site. I have found that approach actually breaks down the “barrier” of a traditional office visit. In essence, by offering this blog, a patient continues to have a relationship with me.
Blogs Are Social Media
Any medical website, or small business website for that matter, should be a blog. Blogs are the purest form of social media. They are powerful because blogs allow readers to become active contributors…by leaving a comment. More and more patients are looking for physicians who are willing to actively engage the Internet, that is, physicians who are willing to start a “conversation” will become the most popular.
Blogs are Easy to Create and Maintain
Blogging software allows the creator, or webmaster, to add content from any Internet connection in the world. This is not possible with the older, more obsolete, “HTML” generated “webpages.” Blogs are also incredibly cheap to maintain. They can be free (e.g. WordPress.com, Blogger) or cost less than $10/month. You can see why so many blogs exist if no other reason than cost.
As the popularity of blogs has increased, so too have the different “themes” or formats. You can easily have any blog look like any other “webpage” that you can imagine. Best of all, the themes are now turnkey…you don’t need to know any programming. You can make any changes to the format, background, images, etc….all by yourself! We prefer to use themes created by Studiopress.
