Leadership in the social media and healthcare ecosystem

Lee Aase is an innovator,  improving the quality of communication between health professionals and clients for his organisation. From Lee’s talk at the 7th HARC  Forum (Sydney 2011) it became clear that there should be no fear or dismissive attitude towards innovation or commonly rejected under the famous statement – ‘reinventing the wheel’. He took what was assumed a ‘fad’ and turned it into a priceless tool. He took social media and turned it into a platform for strengthening the relationship between client and healthcare provider, thereby improving patient outcome without the billion dollar budget and a room full of scientists and policy makers. Anyone can innovate! We can stop fearing about whether we are reinventing the wheel or not and start thinking like an innovator. I’ll explain further.

I see no harm in reinventing the wheel because what I gathered from Lee’s talk is that, the intent to innovate, to improve the status quo and the expected outcome is not a linear process. Embarking on a mission to reinvent the wheel will not result in another similar wheel being created but will open up a whole new arena of possibilities. If innovation was a linear process, then the future can be predicted through a mere mathematical formula. The word innovation will also cease to exist as a result.

We can no longer demand, based on our rights for any resource from anyone either because we can now create our own bank of knowledge through collaboration and social media makes this possible. The young people at the Youth Health 2011 Conference in Sydney were talking about their ‘right to good and accurate
information’ to be made available but in reality, social media gives us the ability to investigate, connect, collaborate and bring out the truth for our peers without the need to demand from anyone. It makes us interdependent instead of dependent. It is no longer about rights and demands but about seeking the truth through collaboration and being open to critique and possibilities.

I hope that we can draw together people like Lee both from within our country and beyond to consult not merely about the technicalities of social media and its risk management strategies but of its intrinsic ability to generate solutions through sharing ideas and making knowledge available to everyone regardless of their background. I would like to see Dr. BJ Fogg from the Stanford University Persuasive Technology Lab address the 8th HARC Forum.