Healthcare social media (#hcsm) is a bustling area of the online world. Digital resources are becoming common practice, those living with rare diseases are finding their home, and water cooler talk is hopping on Twitter.

Healthcare is evolving; as is the role of how social and new media are being used in healthcare. Here are three great resources I think are changing the face of #hcsm today.

Symplur

I love Symplur! There, I said it.  But more than just Symplur, I love Symplur’s Healthcare Hashtag Project.

The project serves as a clearinghouse of Twitter hashtags around disease states, healthcare chats, and medical conferences. Did you know that the most discussed topic within healthcare chats right now is #BTSM, brain tumor social media? These groups bring together patients, advocates, and clinicians who are sharing research, support and gathering around these topics on a sometimes hourly basis.

Figure 1

Figure 1, in my opinion, is a real innovator in the healthcare social media space. Figure 1 has been dubbed the Instagram for doctors.

Not only do I think their concept is really interesting, and one that is truly taking the water cooler outside the institutional walls, they are doing so in a pretty bold way. One of the major obstacles in the #hcsm world is patient privacy and HIPAA. Figure 1 is tacking the issue of how image sharing can really improve patient care, and balancing that with how to best address patient privacy. I think it is an interesting concept and I’m looking forward to seeing how they manage their growth.

iMedicalapps.com

With more than 31,000 apps available for download in the medical, health, wellness areas, finding the great ones can be difficult. iMedicalApps is a great resource to distinguish the truly great from the absolutely horrible. The site also ranks top free apps for different platforms, most innovative, and categorizes apps targeted directly to clinicians.

What do you think? Do you use any of the resources I’ve discussed?