COVID-19 Slack Channel for Doctors and COVID-19 App Created by A Doctor

One thing that’s clear in this crisis is that information is everywhere, but making sure that the information is quality information is harder than it looks. This is especially true for doctors who are trying to know the right way to manage patients that arrive at their hospitals and practices.

I’ve heard of many doctors getting the most up to date information on COVID-19 from socail media. While there’s no bigger fan of social media than me, that’s a less than ideal experience. Especially since many doctors weren’t on social media before this all broke loose. However, there’s a need with a fast moving situation like we’re experiencing for doctors to find and share in a crowd sourced fashion the latest medical information. Unfortunately, most medical journals aren’t fast enough (that’s a joke).

We wrote previously about a new coalition forming to share data and coordinate healthcare organization’s response to COVID-19. However, that’s more for IT professionals and administrators. I’ve discovered two other efforts to bring doctors together to share the latest COVID-19 information.

COVID-19 Slack Channel
The first is a COVID-19 Slack channel you can find at covid.slack.com that’s creation was inspired by Om Malik. You can read the story behind the Slack channel, but Om is a former journalist and current investor that suggested a slack channel for doctors that would allow them to share the latest COVID-19 information quickly.

We haven’t been able to get access to the channel yet since it’s only available to doctors. Slack is using ID.me’s authentication to identify medical credentials and give you access to the Slack channel. If you’re a doctor, we’d love for you to take a look and let us know what you think of it in the comments.

COVID-19 App for Healthcare Professionals

Another tool that seems to be taking off is a mobile app, Kari Jerge, MD, FACS created in her spare time (how does a doctor have spare time right now?) in order to share the latest COVID-19 information with other medical professionals. Find the details of the app below or visit COVID19Medapp.com to download the app.

No doubt this was a side project Dr. Jerge was doing that blew up more than she expected. When she first announced it, she wasn’t sure the AppShed servers would hold up. However, it’s another example of a community sourced offering of the latest COVID-19 information.

What other tools, apps, websites, etc are you seeing people use to share the latest COVID-19 information? Technology and the power of community can and should bridge the information gap even amidst all the noise and at the speed at which new information is being discovered.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

Categories