A few weeks ago, I took part in an initiative that Greythorn (Full Disclosure: Greythorn pays to post jobs on our Healthcare IT Central job board) started around the great hashtag #GoesBeyond. Using that hashtag they’re asking people to recognize people in healthcare IT that are doing amazing work. You can read my first #GoesBeyond post that recognized the work of Steve Sisko.
For my next #GoesBeyond post I want to recognize the whole HIMSS Social Media team. Many people don’t realize how much work this team puts in to make HIMSS one of the most social media driven conferences in the world and far and away the most tweeted healthcare conference in the world.
That’s why I’m highlighting the whole HIMSS social media team for #GoesBeyond. I hope many others who read this will take part in the #GoesBeyond effort and highlight other people in the healthcare IT community that deserve recognition. There’s nothing better we can do for the community than to show gratitude for each other.
The HIMSS social media numbers don’t lie. Check out the Twitter activity alone around HIMSS:
While most people are familiar with the @HIMSS account which boasts 74,753 followers (and growing), I’m sure that many don’t realize that the HIMSS LinkedIn group has 166,325 members. These are extraordinary numbers and they don’t happen by happen stance. This kind of growth only comes through consistent focused effort in creating and sharing amazing content and engaging and facilitating the discussion on each platform.
What’s impressive is that it’s not a large team that makes all this stuff happen. Here’s the 4 main team members:
Say what you will about the HIMSS machine, what makes this group of social media ninjas special is that they truly do care about healthcare and want to find the best way to improve healthcare through the use of technology. Each one of them truly is a mission driven individual.
A great example of this is their work creating the official HIMSS16 Hashtag Guide. A lot of social media people could have easily just hopped on some generic hashtags that anyone could have created around the buzzwords at the conference. Those hashtags would end up being as meaningless as the buzzwords themselves. Instead they created hashtags which represent directions we need to head and goals we should achieve.
For example, they used #Engage4Health to represent patient engagement, but that we are engaging patient with a clear purpose. The #HITworks hashtag is another great example where they’re working to extract the clear value that technology can provide healthcare. Of course, the #IHeartHIT hashtag which started last year tells the personal stories of how technology can impact healthcare.
My favorite place I’ve seen the HIMSS social media team “go beyond” is in the imagery they’ve created. Take a look through all the images shared on the #HIMSS16 hashtag and you’ll see that many of the best ones were created by this team. It’s no wonder that this team was recognized with the HITMC Award for Best Social Media Program last year.
HIMSS is right around the corner. Good luck to this team as they try to curate more tweets than anyone can handle. Not to mention all the new video activity we’re going to see on Periscope and Blab. They’re certainly worthy of the #GoesBeyond hashtag.
About #GoesBeyond
In this series, writers take time thank an individual who #GoesBeyond expectations to make an impact in their community or industry. Read other posts in this series on LinkedIn and Twitter, then write one of your own on your favorite blog, LinkedIn pulse, Medium or other platform. Use #GoesBeyond and @mention the person who has made such a big difference, then copy this paragraph so others know how they can participate, too.
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