Doctors at Houston’s Memorial Hermann Northwest Hospital made medical and social media history last month by live-tweeting an open heart surgery for the first time ever.
Dr. Michael Macris performed a double-coronary artery bypass on a 57-year-old patient. Meanwhile, colleague Dr. Paresh Patel provided 140-character updates throughout the procedure, and answered questions submitted by followers of the hospital’s @houstonhospital Twitter account. Dr. Macris also wore a video camera attached to his head. Dr. Patel snapped additional photos, and posted some of the pictures and videos to Twitter. The procedure lasted two and a half hours, and the patient made it through fine.
More than anything, though, the feat is a powerful example of social media’s ability to connect people and shed light on even the most unexpected activities. Its success is a lesson in using creativity and digital innovation to educate mass audiences.
“We’re always becoming more connected as a society,” says Gary Kerr, CEO of the non-profit Memorial Hermann Healthcare System’s Northwest Hospital. “Information can’t be contained anymore, and that’s the most positive thing about the Internet.”
Hospital staff expected a modest amount of attention, but were surprised to see the event blow up online. Natalie Camarata, Memorial Hermann Healthcare System’s digital marketing manager, told Mashable the event delivered an estimated 125 million impressions through Twitter, Storify and media coverage in the weeks following the operation.
Since the surgery, Mashable interviewed several of the people involved in the groundbreaking idea, asking them what it means that social media can be leveraged in new, effective ways. We spoke with Dr. Macris, Dr. Patel, Kerr, Camarata and Beth Sartori, a Memorial Hermann marketing and communications executive. What follows is their inside story.
Pulling Back a Curtain
Memorial Hermann has embraced digital technology for the past several years. It has also hosted more than 50 webinars over the past year, and this week hosted a live social media-broadcasted Q&A about colonoscopies for Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. The live-tweeted open-heart surgery was born from that spirit of using technology to educate.
Camarata: We were talking about what we could do for Heart Month. Last year we did something where you could share a glass of red wine with someone online, but we wanted to take it farther. So we came up with the Twitter-cast idea to pull back the curtain on something that happens every day in all of our hospitals.
Sartori: We already had a social media policy in place, but this wasn’t exactly addressed specifically because it had never been done before. We got risk management and hospital executives [to approve] it. It’s a little bit different from just getting a news camera in the operating room. But it didn’t take a lot of arm twisting with Dr. Macris.
Dr. Macris: When Natalie told us all about the Twitter idea, we all thought it would be a pretty straightforward thing, not a big deal in terms of the attention it got. I said, “How many people are we talking about following along?” They said, “Oh, maybe 50 or 100.”
Kerr: Once they told me that had a process in place for the 1% chance something got more complicated in the procedure, I felt comfortable for it to go forward.
Preparing for a Social Media First
Once hospital executives signed off on the plan, the team had to find a willing patient and figure out how exactly they would pull the thing off. Turns out, it wasn’t as complicated as they predicted: A patient of cardiologist Dr. Patel agreed to have his operation broadcast for the world to see.
Camarata: People on Twitter expects things to be instantaneous, in the moment. Twitter is now, so it’s the perfect medium to use, and you can add Twitpics and videos. So that’s why we chose that vehicle. Dr. Patel was the patient’s cardiologist and works directly with Dr. Macris, so it was a natural fit. He was very interested and excited about the opportunity and more than happy to take some online questions.
Dr. Patel: I’ve done lectures and sessions for the public for Heart Month, but that was a much more limited number of people to reach. This way, you’re able to reach a lot more people.
Kerr: People don’t just show up to the hospital and ask for treatment these days. They want to ask a lot of questions and know more about what’s happening with their bodies. This medium starts to address that. It’s a different thing, but it’s the right thing.
Camarata: There was no dry run. We tested Dr. Macris’s helmet camera a few times but there was no dry run.
Dr. Macris: This was an operation we perform so commonly that we know statistically we have a 99.9% confidence level it’s going to be fine. We didn’t want to do a high risk, complex case with any chance of the patient being compromised. It was the basketball equivalent of a slam dunk. But at the same time, you couldn’t take someone off the street and say, “Hey, go do this operation.” Anytime we do a heart surgery, it’s true that if we make a mistake someone could die as a direct consequence.
Under the Knife
Once the operation and social media broadcast began, it quickly became apparent the Memorial Hermann team had hit a home run.
Dr. Macris: I have to be honest, I had no clue what was going on. I was just doing my regular operations. At the time I had no idea what was going on beyond that.
Sartori: I was surprised at how much interest in generated from moment it started. That was the best part, generating so much awareness and interest right away.
Dr. Patel: I was surprised how many questions were coming in, and how much people already knew. Keeping the answers short was a little bit hard. There were restraints, but it wasn’t too bad.
Kerr: The patient’s sister was sitting right there while Dr. Patel answered questions. I asked if she was nervous. She said, “Yeah, but this is great. Normally I’d be sitting in a room by myself wondering what’s happening with my brother. Now I’m watching what’s happening and following along, so in some ways it’s much better.”
Aftermath
The event attracted media attention from around the world. Dr. Patel’s tweets were translated for readers as far away as Azerbaijan, India and China.
Kerr: Dr. Macris is Greek, and he’s been telling me about all these people in Greece watching it and all the comments he’s gotten from the other side of the world.
Dr. Macris: A lot of people were asking me if I was actually doing the tweeting. I always laugh — no, was just doing the operation. But I believe it was a resounding success. The only downside is I know a lot of people were kind of kicking themselves later. How did some solo practitioner in a community hospital garner all this attention? As opposed to really big hospitals, major medical centers, things like that.
Sartori: The biggest goal was to educate and raise awareness. That definitely happened, so from that standpoint it was a huge success.
Camarata: A few hospital systems have tweeted us back congratulations and things like that. A few have reached out to us for more on the mechanics of how it worked.
Dr. Macris: I would predict that similar things start happening more and more. Social media will be taken much more seriously by academia. It’s an incredibly powerful way to communicate with people. So to say that I think we’ll see more and more things like this would be a very easy prediction to make.
Source: Mashable
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